subject: Seo Basics - What To Do (and What To Avoid) [print this page] SEO, or Search Engine Optimization seems to be one of those topics that many people find intimidating, but using some common sense and knowing a bit about the basics can help you to take control and be prepared so that if you do hire someone, you can arm them with what they need to do the job effectively.
First of all, there are two basic approaches. The solid, tried-and-true, long-term (slower) approach or the whiz-bang, flash in the pan, try-to-trick-the-search-engines approach that many so-called SEO experts will try to sell you that will give you some quick results but then drop you down again when the search engines figure out that your SEO guy (or girl) was taking shortcuts. Always remember, the only thing that gives a search engine value is the fact that it returns relevant results. As soon as it stops doing that, it quickly becomes worthless so they are going to try everything in their power to prevent that from happening.
Think laterally but dont go overboard
What works well is to implement your keyword strategy so that your site/content is actually relevant to what people are searching for. One would think this is common sense, but many people are trying to make their sites relevant by using keywords that are (to put it nicely) a bit of a stretch. Let me give you some examples. If your site is about public speaking and you want to use some keywords that are related, like presentations, corporate events or business workshops, thats fine because those keywords really are related but if you start using keywords like golf, digital cameras and weight losswell, thats not a good idea. Sure, you might get some traffic but youre trying to buck the system; again, bad long-term strategy.
Creepy crawlies
Almost all of the indexing these days is done automatically by Search Engine bots, or web crawlers which have a variety of names like spiders, crawlers, robots, etc. These are automated programs that are designed to search the Internet and catalog the content, the ultimate goal being for the search engines to deliver more relevant results when people type in a search term. These bots generally work from the top of the page down, left to right, and give more weight to the content thats higher up on the page. Their purpose is to figure out what a web page is about, so clear, focused content is the goal not scores of unrelated topics and terms.
The title bar
Probably the most important space is the title bar of your web page, so you want to work your main keywords in there as much as possible. Do NOT waste this space with something like welcome, which a lot of people unknowingly do. Thats like owning a McDonald's, taking down the golden arches and putting up a sign that says welcome instead. Not too smart. In the title bar, put your most important keywords first youre trying to work in the keywords and make a decent, descriptive title at the same time. For example, Internet Marketing Success is much better than Create more success in your life by using Internet Marketing.
One thing youll hear constantly when talking to search engine experts are how the rules are constantly changing, etc. but there are some solid, common-sense strategies, may of which you can implement yourself, which are much more likely to help you over the long term than relying on a variety of fancy tricks.
Be Specific
The first thing when youre putting content on the Internet, is: try to make each page about a specific topic (as much as possible anyway). Trying to make a web page all things to all people isnt going to be as effective as making one that has a clear topic and focus. When you clutter up your page with a hundred different topics and many unrelated keywords, the bots have a very hard time figuring out what the page is about and the chances that youll get high rankings with the hundred different topics and keywords strategy are slim to none.
Count em up
Run your content through www.wordcounter.com to get an idea of how many times you are mentioning certain words. Using this tool is eye-opening, especially if youre someone that doesnt get to the point when writing. Basically, this tool will give you a readout of (in descending order of frequency) which words keep getting repeated. It doesnt take a lot of abstract thought to realize that the search engine bots are most probably doing the same thing in an attempt to figure out what the page is about.
Next, (heres a novel concept) create real content and not fluff pages full of keywords with the sole intent of driving traffic. Sure, its a bit more effort, but if you create real content that helps people AND gets high search engine rankings and drives traffic, then isnt that better than a useless page thats going to make someone feel as if they wasted their time when they land on it? Its not just about driving traffic; its also about building a brand and reputation and creating some customer loyalty. Think about it: how long would it take you to stop buying Coca Cola if you sometimes opened up a can and it contained grapefruit juice? No-one is searching the Internet so they can land on irrelevant pages. Use a little common sense and youll see better results over the long term.
Take control
One of the big advantages to using WordPress for your website that you can install an SEO plug in and control things yourself not only the content of your pages, but also your meta tags (title bar, description and keyword tags). To get started with WordPress, check out Getting Started With WordPress.
When you are working with an SEO expert, give them what they need to do their job properly. They know SEO and not necessarily the nuances of your topic, so do some work in advance and put together the topics, terms and keywords that are likely to be used by your prospects and customers. If you dont know how to do keyword research, check out How To Do Keyword Research for the basics. Have a conversation with your SEO person about your customers interests, preferences and the way they think. Hopefully, your SEO specialist is a bit creative and can help you to think laterally and come up with new ideas.
