Thursday, July 12, 2012

Basic SEO Tips

By Linda Surefoot


More and more businesses are realizing the importance of an on-line campaign. The age of the phone book is over and customers are using Google and various social media channels to find products and services. Looking at Search Engine Optimization (SEO) reveals a seemingly endless array of topics ranging from on-page changes to links and Pay Per Click (PPC) options. On top of that misinformation is rampant making it even more difficult to decide on a course of action. Which are really necessary? Here are some great ideas for making the most of your SEO activities.

First, it's necessary to commit to the optimization process. Search rankings will not improve over-night and sometimes can take many weeks to months to see any real movement in search results. If you're trying for a local term that doesn't have much traffic then, obviously, it will take far less time to obtain the desired result.

Do research for keywords and key-phrases. Building a site around poorly constructed or poorly researched phrases is a recipe for failure. The first component to a successful SEO campaign is proper research. There are free tools available like Google Keyword Tool or WordTracker that provide some analysis of keywords. The key is look at the volume of each word or phrase comparative to others. The more volume usually means the more difficult the phrase would be to obtain due to competition.

You may need to change actual copy on your webpage so it contains your keywords. This is considered organic or on-page SEO. A page's title is the most important on-page factor as it gives readers and the search engines a focused idea on what each page is about. Make them unique and have them include the keywords you researched. A page's meta description is also important and, with the title, gives a more detailed description of what each page is about. You should also include these keywords and phrases on the actual page(s) themselves.

In addition, properly constructed anchor text if useful to improve your on-line visibility. Try using your keywords as part of any anchored text. Using things like "Home" or "Read More" are meaningless from an SEO perspective. Also, including proper anchor text between your internal pages and to your home page works to help Google better analyze your site.

Finally, content is going to be a very important factor. If you create a poorly organized site or one that doesn't contain anything useful, you can expect poor results. Even if you can attract a large volume of traffic to your site, those users will go elsewhere if they're not satisfied with yours. Quality content extends to off-site tactics also. Submitting to article marketing sites with poorly created content may provide some benefit but if you're content is well written, it will be far more effective.




About the Author:



1 comment:

  1. As reported by Stanford Medical, It is indeed the SINGLE reason this country's women live 10 years more and weigh 19 KG lighter than we do.

    (And actually, it is not related to genetics or some secret diet and absolutely EVERYTHING about "how" they eat.)

    P.S, What I said is "HOW", not "what"...

    TAP on this link to see if this easy quiz can help you unlock your real weight loss potential

    ReplyDelete