Search Engine Optimization

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Learning Basic SEO…

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion.

Search Engine Optimization - Wikipedia

Unique Content

Why is Unique Content a Good Thing?

  • » Unique page titles allow you effectively identify the content you are providing on a Web page.
  • » Unique page descriptions provide you with a effective way to market your Web page to potential visitors.
  • » Combined, your Web page title and Web page description make up the content used by search engines for their Search Engine Results Pages (SERP).

Why is Duplicate Content a Bad Thing?

  • » Duplicate content can be confusing. If every page is titled the same, how can you know which page is the right resource?
  • » Search engines will sometimes apply penalties to web pages that contain duplicate content.

Tag Yourself

  • » Choose a title
  • » Choose a category
  • » Choose a keyword or keyword phrase

HTML Tips to Follow

  • » Use meta information properly (title, description, keywords)
  • » Use 1 h1 tag per page (your keywords should be present in that heading)
  • » Use of subheadings (h2-h6) is fine but don't go overboard (use strong and em tags to emphasize content)
  • » Always use alt tags to describe images (accessibility)
  • » Use anchor tags to link to additional related content on your site (use your keywords in the anchor text)

Landing Pages

Provide users with what they were searching for when they arrive at your Web site

  • » Blog - a new post or discussion thread
  • » News - latest news stories and events
  • » Portfolio/Products/Services - detail your previous experience, products, or services

Include a call to action so your users can do what they set out to day when they first searched for you

  • » Allow users to immediately purchase your Products or Services (include a Shopping Cart)
  • » Allow users to communicate with you through a dynamic comment system on your Blog
  • » Provide users with a way to let you interact with them (include a contact form for email addresses and other information so you can contact them directly)

Site Maps

Users

  • » Site maps are useful for helping users find pages that are described or linked to in multimedia (videos, podcasts, etc...)

Robots

  • » Site maps help search engine robots Index and crawl your content even if it isn't readily noticeable from your main pages

Link Building

What are Good Links?

  • » Links from Web sites in related genres and industries are Good Links. For example, if your Web site sells fishing lures then a Link from a Web site about the Best Fishing Holes would be a Good Link.
  • » Links from trusted Internet directories such as the Yahoo! Business Directory and the DMOZ.org Open Directory Project are also examples of Good Links.
  • » Links from trusted Web sites like News Web sites (CNN, Fox, etc...), informational or social Web sites (wikipedia.org, Digg, Slashdot, etc...) are Good Links.

What are Bad Links?

  • » Links from mini sites without any meaningful content that contain nothing but Ads or links to other Web sites can be Bad Links.
  • » Links contained in canned Spam (e.g. spammed blog or forum comments) can be Bad Links.
  • » Links from directories without meaningful content and that contain a lot of Ads can be Bad Links.

Paid Search - Internet Marketing

  • » When you need traffic Right Now
  • » Sponsored Listings (Google Adsense, PPC ads)