SEO Articles

SEO Basics - 8 Key Strategies For Online Business Success


The world of search engine optimization (SEO) can be a big scary place for newbies. Most SEO professional companies charge astronomical prices that may or may not guarantee success.

The search engines are forever changing the way they rank websites and what is important to achieve a higher ranking. Even with these everchanging factors, there are 8 important points that you must use with your website that are not likely to change any time soon.

1. Domain Name
It is better to register a domain with a keyword in it, unless you are trying to brand yourself (think Coca Cola or Ebay). For instance, if your name is John Smith and you sell golf items you would be better off by registering a name like www.golfproducts.com instead of www.johnsmith.com.

Unfortunately with millions of website domain names being purchased all the time, finding a related domain name not already taken can be a daunting task. Still it is worth it in the end because it will carry more significance with the search engines.

2. Title Tag
This is an often overlooked place to input keywords. Have you ever been to a website and the bar at the top of the page just said 'untitled' or 'homepage'? That reflects how little the site designer knew about SEO. Always put a descriptive title on EVERY page of your website. Put something like 'Find golf clubs, golf clothes and the latest pro golf tips', instead of 'John's golf shop'.

Make sure not to go overboard and just list 10 or more keywords or long sentences in a row or the search engines will think you are trying to spam them. Think quality over quantity. The title tag should contain one keyword rich descriptive sentence.

3. Meta Tags
The importance of meta tags in today's SEO world is still being debated. It is still advisable to include a meta tag keywords and meta tag description in your code. A lot of times the search engines will pull your description tag to show in your websites search result. If nothing is there it may not show anything at all or it may pull the first sentence off of your page which might be completely irrelevent to your intended audience.

Do not, I repeat do not list 100 or more keywords in the keyword tag. This technique used to work years ago, but the search engines recognize this technique and will consider it spam. Place no more than 10 keywords in the meta keywords tag.

4. Link Strategies
Another important tip is to include keywords when linking to other websites or pages within your own site. For example it is better to have a sentence like this 'Find out the latest professional golf tips.' then to say 'click here for the latest professional golf tips.' This also applies to any outbound links to other related websites. Include keywords on the part you want the visitors to click on.

Same goes for incoming links to your site. If someone wants to link to your site give them the code to paste in their website instead of leaving them to do it on their own. Have something like 'Check out John's Golf shop for the best golf clubs, golf info and golf tips." This is much better than 'Click here for John's Golf Shop'. Search engines also like longer more descriptive links than just one or two words.

5. Relevant Content
Make sure that you provide only relevant information to what your actually offering or selling. If you have a bunch of unrelated info on a wide range of topics than the search engines will have a harder time pinpointing exactly what it is your site is about. So if your selling golf stuff stick to golf content, don't throw in articles or links about scuba diving.

6. PageRank
This is still a relatively new term and applies to an algorithm that google's search engine uses. Other search engines use similar strategies to google's PageRank also.

Basically PageRank is used to define how popular your website is. The more relevant inbound links you have coming into your website the higher your PageRank will be. Google also has a toolbar that you can download for free that will show you a site's PageRank. The best way to go about getting inbound links is to find related websites with a PageRank of 5 or higher. Then asking them to include a link to your site (giving them the proper code to paste in).

Another way you can receive a higher PageRank is to have a ton of content on many different pages and then linking all the pages together in a way that will raise your PageRank. With that said this type of strategy will not boost your PageRank tremendously, so if your site doesn't contain thousands of pages don't stress over it. It is important though to link strategically with keywords between the pages of your site.

You can download google's toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com/

7.

This is an HTML header tag used to define size of text within the tag. Search engines place more importance on text that is placed within the H1 tag. It's like telling the search engines that 'hey this text is important to my site'. The problem is that it can look unsightly. There are ways around this if you know about CSS styles, but for this basic intro article just know that in the end most people won't be bothered by how the heading looks, and it will make the search engines like you more.

8. Creating Credibility
An often overlooked part of free publicity for your website is writing free articles like this one that relates to your intended audience. There are many websites on the internet where you can submit your articles for other people to place on their websites. I even employ this same strategy for my website. It's really a win win situation. They win because they get quality relevant content for their site and you win because your name and website info is included at the bottom of the article, driving traffic to your site.

You increase your inbound links (PageRank) and provide free publicity for your website. It gets your name out there branding you an expert in your field of expertise and provides free web traffic to your site.

Leah West

http://www.westmarketing-design.com Providing complete search engine optimized website design and internet marketing services for your small business success. Sign up for my Fr*ee ezine at http://www.westmarketing-design.com/ezinesubscribe.htm


MORE RESOURCES:

SEO Watchdog Takes the Guesswork Out of Finding a Good SEO Provider
MarketWatch - Nov 19, 2008
Companies specializing in SEO services have boomed in the last decade; however, not all of them have got what it takes to send a site flying up the ladder ...


코리아타임즈

Seo First Korean to Score 10000 KBL Career Points
코리아타임즈, South Korea - 4 hours ago
By Yoon Chul Powerful Korean center Seo Jang-hoon of the KCC Egis became the first player to score 10000 points in Korean Basketball League (KBL) history at ...


Search Engine Optimization Firm ArteWorks SEO Ranked #1 SEO Site ...
MarketWatch - Nov 18, 2008
The SEO company rankings published by TopSEOs is the trusted guide used by those seeking the best in the internet marketing and search engine optimization ...


Initiate Your Web site Promotion with cost efficient, affordable ...
Promotion World (press release), CA - 5 hours ago
We the founders of this company were friends from childhood; we have totally 20 years of combined experience in marketing services, sales, and SEO services. ...


Local Matters Announces Robust Search Traffic Management Application
MarketWatch - 17 hours ago
With Traffic Director, publishers can see millions of qualified consumer visits to thousands of SEO-friendly advertiser profile pages while optimizing ...


Kirk Communications Announces Expanded Search Engine Optimization ...
The Open Press (press release) - Nov 18, 2008
As part of its new SEO service, Kirk Communications works with clients to improve the volume and quality of traffic to their web sites via keyword coding ...
MorePro Announces Contract Renewal with Long-Time SEO Client "The ... 24-7PressRelease.com (press release)
all 4 news articles


DirectNews

SEO 'should be at the heart of all marketing campaigns'
DirectNews, UK - 1 hour ago
Businesses should place search engine optimisation (SEO) at the centre of all of their advertising campaigns, according to one Microsoft executive. ...


Microsoft's search guru on SEO, digital marketing trends
BtoB Magazine, NY - 21 hours ago
By Christopher Hosford Duane Forrester is senior program manager of search engine optimization with Microsoft Corp., sits on the board of the Search Engine ...


TechCrunch

Insidious New SEO Ad Product Will Be Hard For Google To Detect
TechCrunch, CA - 19 hours ago
... others include in content - they’re full blown links without any notation (like a nofollow) that they are advertisements meant primarily for SEO juice. ...


SEO Watchdog Takes the Guesswork Out of Finding a Good SEO Provider
International Business Times, NY - Nov 19, 2008
That's why SEO Watchdog is standing guard at the gate. "If done properly, (SEO) is one of the most profitable and effective waysfor owners to procure sales ...

SEO - Google News

Home | Sitemap | Forums | Contact Us | Advertise
© 2006 SEO Articles. A Real Web Talk Presentation.
Network Sites : Index Rated Directory | SEO Care Directory | Humour Inc. | Free Mobile Ringtones | A1hosts | SEO Blog
the four required words