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HOW DO I BEGIN WITH SEO AND KEYWORDS
SEO and keywords go hand-in-hand. You must optimize your site for the
search engines. With the use of keywords or keyword phases
you can give the search engines an idea of what your web page is
about.
Learning SEO takes a
lot of time and a lot of work. However it is an
important factor in getting your website noticed. It is a
process that is well worth the time to learn-- if you want to make
money long-term.
If your website is up and
running on the Internet, but no one is
coming, then it is time to begin the SEO process.
Beginning SEO
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You must determine
what keywords and keyword phases would best fit your site.
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You want to find
words that people will most likely put into the search box
when they are looking for specific information. There is a
good free tool in my SEO
Tools Section that will help you, it's called "Good
Keywords".
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After you have
your keywords, you must weave the words into your copy. No
keyword stuffing. (Keyword Stuffing is an unethical practice of
stuffing keywords, throughout your content and in your Keyword
Meta Tags. Such as the repetition of a certain word, too many
times.)
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1 or 2 of your
keywords should be in your meta tags and meta description
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Keyword Density
percentage -- 3-7 percent for major keywords, 2 to 3 percent
for minor keywords
Keywords and keyword
phases are both important in your SEO
marketing mix. Some have even used misspellings. But you really
have to be careful about the misspellings in your copy- it can
make people think that you're unprofessional. For
me, I'll forego the misspellings and use variations of the
keywords and keyword phases to draw additional traffic to my site.
META TAGS AND SEO
Search Engine Optimization is a continual learning curve for
myself. But what I have learned is that the keywords should
be optimized within the body of your text, in your Title Meta Tags
and Description Meta Tags.
How about the meta keywords? Well, a
lot of the search engines no longer utilize the meta keywords tag. But many webmasters still use
the meta keywords tag to keep the keywords
as a reference. Yet others, would rather not use the tag because
they feel it is giving the competition an unfair advantage. The decision is yours. For
me personally, I'll keep using my Keyword Meta Tags as a
reference.
Once your web page is
optimized it's almost ready for the Internet, but there is one
more step. You should check the keyword density of the words
on your page. It will give you a better handle of what the
search engines are pulling, as well as, alert you if you should be
below or
above your word density. Again, I have a free keyword
density tool in my SEO
Tools Section. If you are over your
keyword density, adjust, or you will be penalized. (You should
optimize every page for the search engines).
More Meta Tag Help
Here is some more Meta Tag
help for specific situations that you may encounter:
Meta tag descriptions:
Short descriptions- works better for navigational queries.
Longer descriptions - work for SEO and informational queries.
Cache Page:
The Cache Page that Google creates is used by Google in the event
your website is unavailable. If you don't want Google to create a
cache page than with the head put:
META Name="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOARCHIVE"
The "NOODP" tells the robots not to use the blocks the
Open Directory Project description of the page from being
used.
META Name="ROBOTS"
content="NOODP"
Note:
content="NONE" means to "NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW" it
does not means that there are no restrictions on the page.
Seasonal Page:
If you have seasonal page, you can have Google
stop crawling that page by using the "unavailable_after" tag.
Submitting Your Web
Page to the Search Engines
After all the checks, it is now time
to put your web page onto the Internet and bring the search
engines to your site. How?
You can manually
submit to the search engines or you can have a SEO service
do it as well. The choice is yours.
If you decide to
submit your Home Page through the submission service, be sure to
have the following at your fingertips: 1) URL; 2) Page Title (Meta
Tag Title) 3) Keywords, 4) Description; 5) Contact Information; 6)
Categories.
MAJOR SEARCH ENGINES
Some of the sites are free to add your url, while others are
not. If you want to
try the manual process and no go through the SEO submission services here is a
short list to get you started.
- Google
- Altavista
- All The Web
- DMOZ
- Yahoo
- Hot Bot
- Excite
- Webcrawler
SEO Submission Services
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AddMe --
SEO Service that will submit to 14 directories for free:
focusLook, Burf, Subjex, Alexa, Scrub The Web, Google,
LookSeek, Jayde, InfoTiger, NerdWorld, Aeiwi, Walhello,
LifeTips, ExactSeek, and EntireWeb
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AddPro
- SEO Submission Service that will submit your website to
18 directories.
These are two examples. To look for other services do a Google
search under "SEO Submission Services".
SECONDARY SEARCH ENGINES
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Gigablast
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Scrubtheweb
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Joeant
Before submitting, be sure that you have no broken links (links
that go nowhere). If you do have any broken links, the
spiders will not go any farther. You can get an online link
checker that is usually free. (I use XML-Sitemaps Online Sitemap Generator.
When you create your sitemap through them, they tell you if you
have any broken links. There's a one time charge of $5 for the
broken-link service. For me, it sure beats trying to find broken
links on my own, when I have so many pages.
Click the Link Below For More
Information on Search Engines and....
Keyword Search and
Research Basics
Keywords
are important to Search Engine Optimization. Optimizing your site may be a lot of work and require a lot of
trial and error -- but keep plugging away -- you'll see success.
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