Methods To Succeed

Search Engine Optimization!
No Don’t leave! It’s not all that difficult, honest! I know, I know it’s a popular topic of conversation, (and arguments)
among webmasters and entrepreneurs but it does seem to hide in the murky, mystical “oh that’s only for the specialists category”!

Of course there are specialists out there who are genuinely brilliant and SEO, but the good ones cost a fortune and the bad ones just take what little money you have! But lets face it, the difference between having a successful website and nursing a wounded disaster is often the difference between whether or not you’ve incorporated Good SEO techniques in your website!

Learning proper SEO techniques can seem like trying to peel rocks, especially if
you’re not familiar with the whole concept. I hope to help you out there with
some simple and achievable SEO techniques that you can adopt for yourself with
just a little bit of effort and homework. If you’re not prepared to do any work
at all you’re just kidding yourself!

1: Make sure you design your website with your search engine optimization in
mind. Search engines focus mainly on text, not all singing, all dancing graphics
or super-duper layouts! The trendiest web design on the planet will mean nothing
if no one can find your site!

2: Every single page of your website will benefit from having a title tag with
“text” describing either your site or what is on the page. Be sure the text
includes hyper relevant keywords rather than just the name of your website for
example. Don’t kid yourself! Unless your name is Stephen Fry, President Obama or
Paris Hilton, no one is going to be looking for you in the search engines by
using your name. More than likely they’ll search for a product or service or a
solution to a problem and it’s ONLY the keywords that you use that will lead
them to your site, or if you mess it up, will lead them to someone else’s site!

3: When designing your website avoid too many drop-down menus, confusing images
or excessive images and please, please try to avoid using frames, Ajax, or Flash
if you can. Yes they can be funky, trendy & gorgeous but none of these functions
are keyword or search engine friendly and they can actually hurt your SEO
results. If you really want to use any of these methods make sure that you
include plenty of text links for the search engine spiders to find and identify.
Without links, the search engines will NOT pick up your site information. Also
check to make sure that every page on your website includes a link to your home
page and sitemap. You do have a sitemap, right?

4: “Content is king”. You’re bored hearing that right? Well, suck it up because
like it or not without fresh, unique and quality content that’s regularly
updated, your site will die a slow and horrible death! Make sure to include
relevant keyword phrases within the body of the content and whatever you do,
write naturally.

Yes it might take a little while to develop your style but at the very least in
the short term, keep it clear and easy to read and avoid falling into the trap
of thinking you have to cram a Ba-Zillion keywords into your article or blog
entry! That will just make it unwieldy and probably a boring or illogical read!
Google don’t spend millions on refining their search engine algorithms just to
pass the time of day! Among many other things they are able to determine whether
or not your text is logical and they will ignore content with a high keyword
density that is obviously ridiculous!

5: Links to your website are essential to its success. In fact if content is King
then link building is his bride to be and you need to snuggle them together in a cosy bed of SEO
softness to procreate and build your “Internet Kingdom!” They are many ways to go about this such
as choosing a keyword or keyword phrase and talking to other website, blog owners, webmasters
etc, asking them to place relevant links on their pages. Or ask other bloggers or site owners if
they’d like a reciprocal arrangement were you both do a feature article on each others site.

Other ideas could include getting links from relevant, content related websites,
links from blogs, links from social bookmark websites, links from Internet
directories, relevant forums and of course from article submission websites such
as EzineArticles!

6: Whatever you do, don’t hurt your ranking by having non-related websites place
any old link on your site. While it may seem effective to collect 100s of
backlinks, you’re better off limiting your links to targeted, relevant websites.
Ten hyper relevant links stand a better chance than 100 irrelevant links. Links
within your website should be built with keyword phrases as well and while we’re
talking about internal links, please avoid generic anchor or link text such as,
“click here”. Try to use a relevant keyword or phrase instead

7: Keyword or keyword phrases aren’t just limited to text links. What about those
image alt tags and your domain name, (especially if it’s a niche service or
product you’re dealing with!)

8: Before your shiny new site can be found it needs to be indexed by the search
engine spiders. You can use the regular submission forms that the various search
engine companies, (such as Google), offer but it can take days or even weeks to
process and that’s time that your site isn’t earning money or gathering the
crowd that you want! How about having a highly ranked website place a link to
your site instead? That’s one way to have your site indexed quickly, but again,
be relevant! There’s now point in having a golfing site link to you if your site
is all about fishing tackle!

Whatever way you decide to go about building your blog or site I hope that these
tips I’ve shared will prosper and enhance your efforts and in doing so build and
increase your business! If you have any comments or ideas of your own I’d love
to hear them. Until next time …

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