SEO Basics - 8 Key Strategies For Online Business Success

The world of search engine optimization (SEO) can be a big scary place for newbies. Most SEO professional companies charge astronomical prices that may or may not guarantee success.

The search engines are forever changing the way they rank websites and what is important to achieve a higher ranking. Even with these everchanging factors, there are 8 important points that you must use with your website that are not likely to change any time soon.

1. Domain Name
It is better to register a domain with a keyword in it, unless you are trying to brand yourself (think Coca Cola or Ebay). For instance, if your name is John Smith and you sell golf items you would be better off by registering a name like www.golfproducts.com instead of www.johnsmith.com.

Unfortunately with millions of website domain names being purchased all the time, finding a related domain name not already taken can be a daunting task. Still it is worth it in the end because it will carry more significance with the search engines.

2. Title Tag
This is an often overlooked place to input keywords. Have you ever been to a website and the bar at the top of the page just said 'untitled' or 'homepage'? That reflects how little the site designer knew about SEO. Always put a descriptive title on EVERY page of your website. Put something like 'Find golf clubs, golf clothes and the latest pro golf tips', instead of 'John's golf shop'.

Make sure not to go overboard and just list 10 or more keywords or long sentences in a row or the search engines will think you are trying to spam them. Think quality over quantity. The title tag should contain one keyword rich descriptive sentence.

3. Meta Tags
The importance of meta tags in today's SEO world is still being debated. It is still advisable to include a meta tag keywords and meta tag description in your code. A lot of times the search engines will pull your description tag to show in your websites search result. If nothing is there it may not show anything at all or it may pull the first sentence off of your page which might be completely irrelevent to your intended audience.

Do not, I repeat do not list 100 or more keywords in the keyword tag. This technique used to work years ago, but the search engines recognize this technique and will consider it spam. Place no more than 10 keywords in the meta keywords tag.

4. Link Strategies
Another important tip is to include keywords when linking to other websites or pages within your own site. For example it is better to have a sentence like this 'Find out the latest professional golf tips.' then to say 'click here for the latest professional golf tips.' This also applies to any outbound links to other related websites. Include keywords on the part you want the visitors to click on.

Same goes for incoming links to your site. If someone wants to link to your site give them the code to paste in their website instead of leaving them to do it on their own. Have something like 'Check out John's Golf shop for the best golf clubs, golf info and golf tips." This is much better than 'Click here for John's Golf Shop'. Search engines also like longer more descriptive links than just one or two words.

5. Relevant Content
Make sure that you provide only relevant information to what your actually offering or selling. If you have a bunch of unrelated info on a wide range of topics than the search engines will have a harder time pinpointing exactly what it is your site is about. So if your selling golf stuff stick to golf content, don't throw in articles or links about scuba diving.

6. PageRank
This is still a relatively new term and applies to an algorithm that google's search engine uses. Other search engines use similar strategies to google's PageRank also.

Basically PageRank is used to define how popular your website is. The more relevant inbound links you have coming into your website the higher your PageRank will be. Google also has a toolbar that you can download for free that will show you a site's PageRank. The best way to go about getting inbound links is to find related websites with a PageRank of 5 or higher. Then asking them to include a link to your site (giving them the proper code to paste in).

Another way you can receive a higher PageRank is to have a ton of content on many different pages and then linking all the pages together in a way that will raise your PageRank. With that said this type of strategy will not boost your PageRank tremendously, so if your site doesn't contain thousands of pages don't stress over it. It is important though to link strategically with keywords between the pages of your site.

You can download google's toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com/

7.

This is an HTML header tag used to define size of text within the tag. Search engines place more importance on text that is placed within the H1 tag. It's like telling the search engines that 'hey this text is important to my site'. The problem is that it can look unsightly. There are ways around this if you know about CSS styles, but for this basic intro article just know that in the end most people won't be bothered by how the heading looks, and it will make the search engines like you more.

8. Creating Credibility
An often overlooked part of free publicity for your website is writing free articles like this one that relates to your intended audience. There are many websites on the internet where you can submit your articles for other people to place on their websites. I even employ this same strategy for my website. It's really a win win situation. They win because they get quality relevant content for their site and you win because your name and website info is included at the bottom of the article, driving traffic to your site.

You increase your inbound links (PageRank) and provide free publicity for your website. It gets your name out there branding you an expert in your field of expertise and provides free web traffic to your site.

Leah West

http://www.westmarketing-design.com Providing complete search engine optimized website design and internet marketing services for your small business success. Sign up for my Fr*ee ezine at http://www.westmarketing-design.com/ez inesubscribe.htm

In The News:

---

How to Get Listed in Yahoo Within 48 Hours, Without Paying $299

First of all you need to get a blog. If... Read More

Does The Number Of Links On A Page Affect Ranking?

Lots of research has focused on inbound links to a... Read More

Guide to Getting Linked

Getting links from other websites pointing to your site can... Read More

Promoting Home Business: Tips to Increase Web Site Sales

You've selected an appropriate Online Business Opportunity. That is not... Read More

THREE Secrets to High Search Engine Rankings the Easy Way!

Let me guess, you've read article after article on how... Read More

Feed me - Satisfy the Search Engines and Your Sites Visitors With Keyword-Rich Content

Search engines love content. Graphics may make your site look... Read More

Everything You Wanted To Know About Google -- But Were Afraid To Search For!

(A Reflective look at the little search engine that soared!)All... Read More

What is the Google Dance?

As with any good web developer, the ability to time... Read More

The Golden 5: Steps to Google Success

The Dream: You wake up one morning and notice your... Read More

Optimizing Online Catalog Copy for the Search Engines

It only makes sense. You have an e-commerce catalog site.... Read More

The Role of the Robots.txt File to Improve Site Ranking!

Not many web master take the time to use a... Read More

How To Conceal Your Website?s ?Fingerprint? From The Search Engines

The internet marketing industry is now flooded with various page... Read More

Google PageRank Explained

1. What is PageRank? Here is what Google says:" PageRank... Read More

How to Use the Google Patent to Get More Traffic

According to the recent release of the Google Patent Application,... Read More

You Cannot Hide From the Public Record Search Engines

As a search engine optimization specialist, I often run across... Read More

Your Website Title Could Be Costing You Money

Nothing could be simpler than the title you give to... Read More

Building Link Popularity with Topical Articles

One of the important factors in ranking high in search... Read More

Google Rankings -- Achieve Top 10 Rankings with Free Tools

In order to get a top 10 google ranking it... Read More

Get More Cosmetic Surgery Patients From The Web

It's no surprise that dominant cosmetic surgery practices also have... Read More

Page Rank - A Quick Overview for Beginners

Page Rank (PR) is a specific value for a website... Read More

Yahoo Dopey, MSN Goofy, Google is Mickey Mouse Lost in a Sandbox

Seventy-two days ago Googlebot first showed up and crawled over... Read More

Link Popularity: Distribute Content, Not Just Links

You've spent many hours trying to increase your online traffic... Read More

Top 10 Little Used SEO Strategies

There are millions of web sites trying to get listed... Read More

Google Sitemaps Explained - How To Use Google Sitemaps

Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult,... Read More

Absolute & Relative Links How Do They Rank?

The question for this article is whether or not you... Read More

Mindset from Yahoo!- Changing the SEO Game

Yahoo! has a developed a new concept in search engine... Read More

Search Engine Marketing 101: What Search Engines See When They Visit Your Web Site

If you have a Web site, have you ever wondered... Read More

Search Engines The Masters Of The Internet Universe ? Part 2

"This is a continuation of the pervious part, split into... Read More

Effective Keyword Optimization and Analysis Techniques

Keyword optimization involves vital keyword selection and placement strategy depends... Read More

Top Search Engine Ranks, Part 2- Mastering the Secret- Explained

In the first part of this series on ranking at... Read More

Are You Getting Nuked By Google Lately?

Since the last Google update, there have been many instances... Read More

Copywriters: Make Friends with Search Engine Optimization

I don't know about you, but I felt a lot... Read More

The Business Case for SEO

It's interesting how potential clients have preconceived notions about which... Read More