Search engine optimization is big business these days. Type SEO into Google and you’ll find hundreds of individuals and organizations promising to place your page near the top of the major indexes, for a fee of course.
Unfortunately, it’s rarely that simple, for each search engine has its own secret formula for generating results. Meta tags, links and who knows what else influence these calculations, so there is just no one right answer. However, at the most basic level, all search engines seek to deliver the pages most relevant to the search terms entered by the user, so there is at least one technique that always gets results – keyword placement.
When a user enters terms into a search engine, the engine starts to scan the web looking for those words. If the engine finds the words on a page, it will count how many times the words appear and also determine whether the words appear in conjunction or on their own. If the words are grouped together, it’s more likely that the page is a good result.
So, how can you associate your page with certain keywords? It’s simple really. Put them on your page. Put the keywords in the title element, the headings, the file name, and the text of the page.
For example, if you want people to find your information about green turtles, you should title your page Green Turtles. You should also include headings that will make sense to both the reader and the search engines, such as Green Turtles in the Wild, Green Turtles in Captivity, and Diet of Green Turtles. Do this and odds are your page will rank high on a search for green turtles.
Bonus Tip #1: Graphics aren’t searchable, so any text embedded in an image is effectively invisible to a search engine. I still come across sites where much of the text is placed within graphics. This may be aesthetically pleasing and perhaps designer doesn’t know any better, but whatever the case, the engines are shut out. Make as the much of the text on your page actual HTML text and your page will load faster, scale better, and work better with the search engines.
Bonus Tip #2: Don’t focus on single keywords but rather keyword phrases. There are five million pages on the web that contain the word cat, so a search for just that term produces meaningless results. If your page is actually about a Cat Club in California, then that’s the keyword phrase you want to have on your page.
Finally, my thoughts on meta tags and reciprocal link arrangments: Most search engines ignore meta tags, on the basis that the text of the page is a better indicator of relevance. Back in the early days of the internet, search engines used meta tags to aid in categorization, but shady SEO ‘specialists’ stuffed their meta tags with unrelated terms just to get better page ranks, ruining them for the rest of us. Reciprocal links are always good, but they need to be quality links from sites about your topic. Neither technique is worthy of much time or effort, but they are the buzz words that clients will know. Hopefully, you can steer your clients in a more productive direction; help them create good text that contains your keywords.
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@Matt) I think you forgot to mention the negative: Nofollow.
@Article (Karen) Very true points raised in your post. Setting up basic SEO for a company site is achiveable without any budget whatsoever, yet most SMEs fail to implement even the basic concepts you mention.
SEO is the key for generating traffic. With so many books and literature written about the subject it is becoming difficult to know what works any more. What is the best way to find the latest information on this subject and how Google operates? Keep up to date on the Best Dehumidifiers for the latest information.
Thanks for the tips, I will try to rank for keyword phrases now. I failed ranking for my main keywords.
With the most recent panda update, Google is now focusing more on quality content. So, besides SEO, you also need to provide unique material to rank highly.
The most common problem I see on websites are terrible use of the Title tag. It’s so easy to fix but many companies don’t bother.
Another one is Flash menus, which are not very SEO friendly.
SEO isn’t rocket science, but it is like any other subject like math or chemistry, in the sense that there is a huge learning curve and many hours of study to understand it.
It may not also be hugely accepted as something worth learning at school. But it is also very recent and almost didn’t exist 15 years ago.
The next step for SEO is backlinks which requires a whole new story…
this is a good article on the basics of seo. Since the panda review the rules have changed somewhat and contentv and on page optimization is now all important. I have written a blog post on my blog which explains in detail the new changes.
David
You are right. SEO is not rocket science but I think it got harder over the years.
In the beginning it was quite easy to land in googles sweet g. but these days it is actually pretty difficult.
In my opinion the worst anyone cando is to buy links. Google usally figures it out and downgrades you.
And of course since the panda update it got even harder because the link structure which is optimal can`t be figured out so easily.
cheers
It’s beautiful information for blogger, but i thinks all be difficult after panda update.
Sure it is no rocket science. Every ape could learn the important stuff and rank his page on #1 in the sweet G.
But you have to figure it out anyways!
Content is king. It is as easy as that! Just follow this advice and you`ll be making millions! For sure.
Sometimes it is not a good idea to sell links on your blog, largely because search engines such as Google frown upon it. If they find out that you’ve been selling links on your blog, you might find that your page ranking moves down as a result. This can then make it harder for web users to find your blog when they are searching online, which could mean that you get less traffic, which means you’ll get fewer clicks on your already-existing ads and therefore less revenue. http://www.shelcorp.com/2011/09/should-you-sell-links-on-your-blog/
I’d like your two bonus tips. I also did put text on my images before, and I came to realize that its useless since Google doesn’t sees the text. But I think it would be useful if the person that is viewing your site or blog clicks the image. That is called referring links.
Hi, I was just looking through some blogs and I saw your website from google. I read some of your articles and think they were really good. Thank you, I’ll try to stop by your webpage again soon.