SEO Tips for Beginners
By Scott Lindsay
SEO means search engine optimization – a method that will improve the
visibility of a website in the search engine listings, but you probably
already know that. Then I should probably let you know what SEO is not:
a magic wand that will bring your website a top 20 position over night.
SEO takes time, commitment, skills and effort. SEO’s purpose is to
increase relevant traffic to your website and generate more revenue.
For SEO to work you need to have a website designed according to the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), that means a website without technical
difficulties (flash, improper Java scripts, frames) and with a clear,
user friendly design. Once you have that, start your SEO work.
As you’ve often heard, keywords are important. Don’t optimize your
website for terms no one has ever heard about, but for what people
might want to find on your website. Use the keywords in your Meta tags:
title, description, keywords. Search engines find the title tag crucial
to determine what a page is all about and index it. So don’t give the
same title to all your web pages. Write a short, descriptive, keyword
rich title that would also act as a sales pitch. The Meta title’s text
goes on page, maybe a longer version. The higher on the page the
better. Maybe you should place it in the visible title as well. Use
header tags.
Content is king. How many times have you heard that? Well, that’s true
if we put it this way: “fresh content is king”. If you want higher
rankings add new pages of content to your website on regular basis.
Make them interesting and carefully place them in the right category.
Linking is also very important: both incoming and outgoing links mater.
Don’t exchange links with irrelevant sites. Your linking partners
should be somehow related to your industry. Linking with spammy sites
and link farms will only damage your website’s position in the search
engines results. It’s also a good idea to interlink the pages
within your website. Don’t do it with a “click here” button, but with a
keyword rich text link.
Google maps – the new trend – will help search engines find all the
important web pages you want to index. It’s important that you make a
site map for your visitors as well – that means a collection of plain
text links to the most important categories of your website.
And here’s what you should never do: repeat words too often on a page –
that’s considered keyword stuffing and will get your site penalized.
Also don’t use hidden text on your pages. Google and other search
engines know when you use hidden text, so don’t try to fool them. Stick
to ethical SEO practices and you’ll see, in time, you will get the
results you want. The key is, it takes time so be patient!
Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Make A Website in minutes with HighPowerSites or Build A Website with BuildAGreatSite.
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