Joe Hayes {dot} Org

SEO, an acronym for one of the most misunderstood concepts for a webmaster. Optimizing your websites for search engines isn’t voodoo, in fact 90% of it is basic stuff almost anyone can do without any prior experience. While some of the more advanced methods like link building and link baiting deserve an article all to themselves, the stuff covered here get to the core of what we’re after – to  get your pages in the search indexes and have them rank for the key terms you deserve.

First thing’s first, on page optimization (then we’ll finish with link building). While many SEO’s delve into a bunch of meta information (keywords, index and follow, etc.) and keyword density, we’re not going to worry with that. Not  that I’m saying it’s unecessary or unimportant, only that there is little (if any) benefit to worrying about that. Let’s just make sure the pages on your website are crawlable and able to be fully indexed. There are a few factors here that are quite important:

Page Title – in my experience this is the most important part of your web page. The page title (found in your head tags and is visible in your browser bar) and should briefly describe exactly what your page is about. Less is more here, keep it short and sweet. My advice is to avoid using your site’s domain name in the title unless it contains your main keyword, or you’re concerned with branding. Regardless of what you decide, at least place you page’s actual title in front of anything else.

For example, this page’s title would display as “Basic Search Engine Optimization Anyone Can Do” or if I wanted to I could append “- Joe hayes {dot} Org” to the end of that or maybe even the category the post was placed in.

Another important thing is to ensure all pages titles are different. Duplicate page titles will likely land you’re pages deep into the supplemental index – and alot of sites do this. Every page on their site will be “DomainName.com” or whatever. Really bad, fix this quick.

Heading Tags – When at all possible, include your page title somewhere on the page in a heading tag, preferably H1 though H2 will do if you’re using that for you’re site name (common for blogs). Don’t repeat your site’s domain name here though, your visitors already know where they are. If you have sub-sections for longer posts, feel free to use H3 or H4 tags there as well. It’s good practice for copywriting.

Your Content – Yea that’s important too. When writing it’s important to use the keywords your wanting to rank for in your content, preferably starting early (in your first paragraph). Nothing spammy here, just make it a point to ensure the key phrases can be found on your page.

Interlink Where Possible – When referencing things that can be found other places on your website, link to them when possible. In content links are perhaps the most important links you can have. Not only that, it helps your readers with references to things you’re talking about. Also, don’t be afraid to link to other sources of information – even your competition.

Site Map - Good idea to have one of these as well, especially helpful in a portal or blog type platform where articles or posts can get lost deep in an archive. Notice I’m referring to a physical site-map here, not an xml machine readable format. Also good for visitors who may be looking for something in particular, in absense of a search tool. And on xml sitemaps while we’re on the subject, I’ve found they’re great for getting pages indexed fast but doesn’t seem to make a difference when it comes to rankings.

Friendly URLs – Not quite as important as it used to be but still a good idea if you can. While both www.example.com/topic.php?=123 and www.example.com/the-topic.html should both be indexed equally (used to be having multiple parameters in the url would prevent the page from being indexed, now it doesn’t seem to be a problem as long as it’s not excessive), having keywords in the url does seem to have some weight when comes to serps. It’s not a dramatic difference, which is why it’s near the bottom of the list.

Build Relevant Backlinks – While this is posted last, it’s certainly not last when it comes to ranking well and is is one of the more misunderstood concepts. All links, quite simply, are not the same. Now, let me be clear – you don’t have to buy links to be successful – in this day and age the social media sites out there are a great avenue for getting exposure and building natural backlinks to compelling content. With that said, however, getting powerful websites in your niche linking back to you is a great way to bolster search rankings and drive targetted traffic to your website. For many, this means purchasing advertising or trading reciprocal links.

Some basic backlink strategies include submitting to web directories (free and paid), Submitting articles to article sites, exchanging links with other sites in your niche (this is important, don’t link spam with unrelated websites), purchase links on related websites (please don’t be one of those page rank huggers that blindly go after after any website just because of PR and also know that Google doesn’t like link buying), leaving valuable comments on blogs related to your niche – especially if they dofollow (blogs that don’t use a rel=”nofollow” on outgoing links), participate in forums related to your niche (most allow a link back in your signature), along with many other ways to get people linking to your website – be creative!

In Summary, remember that any search engines goal is to return the most relevant results for the user’s query. Your site must be more relevant for that particular search than any of your competition. Once your site is crawlable or otherwise search engine friendly, it pretty much comes down to backlinks. All things being equal, the site with the most (relevant, powerful, and in quantity)  backlinks will win. Things like the age of the backlinks, sudden surges in recent backlinks, relevancy (have I mentioned relevancy?), and strength of the backlinks among the things that play a part in how your website ranks today. Once you get top 10 exposure, writing the best content should get you to the top eventually.

Hopefully these tips can help get you on a level playing field with your compeition. Remember to have patience and don’t expect results overnight. It can often take months to bring a site from zero to hero in the serps – depending on site age, competition, and many other factors. Build a website of value for your visitors, make sure it’s crawlable, and gain exposure from other websites – then rankings will come.