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HOW DO I BEGIN WITH SEO
SEO and Keywords- You Need Them Both
SEO is a process which helps you to tell the search
engines and your visitors-what your web page is all about. Without SEO and it's
important counterpart-keywords, neither the search engines or visitors will find
you.
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
Here are some quick tips to begin your SEO process.
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You must determine
what keywords and keyword phases would best fit your web
pages..
-
You want to find
words that people will most likely put into the search box
when they are looking for specific information.
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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.)
-
1 or 2 of your keywords should be in your meta tags and meta description
-
Make sure that your meta title and meta
description match the content of your web page. Do not put the
same meta title and meta description on each and every page.
Don't think it happens? It does. I've seen individuals put the
Index title and the Index description on every page.
- Use exact words, not general words to describe your product or service. Why?
General words may help you get visitors but not necessarily
buyers.
Example: Cheap Tools, free tool, ugly green tools.
- Overused Keywords- Are the keywords that are dominated by
the large established websites. If you are a new website, you may be
competing for position with the established websites
depending upon your niche. This does not mean that you should not use the overused words,
just don't expect to be number one or within the top ten.
- Label images-within your HTML code, label your image with the "alt" command.
Images are a growing search option.
- Use appropriate HTTP codes when you remove a page permanently or temporarily
- If you have "Click Here" link, change the "click here" link to the product or service name. Why? The
search engines will withing the anchor. The
search engines only see click here and will probably assume the information is not important.
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.
Keyword Density - This is a mixed
bag when it comes to keyword density. Some say, it's not that
important. But I say, measuring keyword density has it's place. Why?
If Google believes your keywords are out-of-sight, you can be
penalized for keyword stuffing.
Thus, I feel if it does nothing else, it protects you from being
penalized by Google or the other search engines. So
what percentage of keywords/keyword phases should you
have? Some use a simple formula of 2-3 specific keywords or
keywords phases per 500 word count. And yet others, utilize a formula that
is as follows:
For major keywords 3-7%
For minor keywords 1-2%
Other Things To Consider
Here are some does' and don'ts' of
setting up a page.
-
You should have
fewer than 100 links on a page or the search engines may flag
it as a link farm.
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Use robots.txt
file to manage your search engines for the good bots. For the
bad bots -use htaccess file.
Note: For information about setting up an .htaccess file or robots.txt
file go to
Website Protection
-
Do not use hidden links or text. (Bad-hat tactics that will get you banned
by search engines)
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, and in your Title Meta Tags
and Description Meta Tags. Here are some helpful hints for your meta description and title tags:
Meta Description and Meta Title Tag
-
Short descriptions- works better for navigational queries.
- Longer descriptions - work for SEO and informational queries.
- Keywords should be within the Title and Description Meta Tags.
- Title and Description Meta Tags should be descriptive for EACH web page
How about the meta keywords tag? The large search engines such as Google and Yahoo no longer
utilize the meta keywords tag, but the small search engines still may utilize them.
So, if you want to reach a wide audience, I would keep the
keywords tag active.
However, the meta keywords tag is a mixed bag for many webmasters. Some will use the meta keywords tag, as a reminder of the
keywords they have used on the page. 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
and to entice the smaller search engines to visit my website.
More Meta Tag Help
Here are some additional Meta Tag
help for specific situations that you may encounter:
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".
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.
Next: Keyword Search and
Research Basics
 Keyword Elite
If you have surpassed the free stage of keyword search and research and are looking for
a tool that will advance your website, PPC program, and Adsense program to another level,
then take a look at Keyword
Elite the comprehensive tool for your SEO, PPC and Adsense keyword search.
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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