If you’re reading this site then you’re probably at least somewhat familiar with SEO and why it’s important for your website. SEO can be a little complicated. There are a lot of factors to consider when search engine optimizing your website, but there are a few universal quick tips you can keep in mind to help get you started.

Title Tags

The title of a page is the first thing any search engine sees when they look at that site. Your title should include keywords relevant to your site whenever possible. You never want to leave the title set to something generic like “home page”. Search engines see millions of pages with generic titles, and as such, having a generic title isn’t going to help search engines to place your page in the right search results pages.

Make Sure Your Page Loads Quickly

Clear your browser’s cache, and refresh your page. Did it load quickly, or did it hang for a few seconds? Repeat this experiment a few times over the course of a day, and see how well your site performs over time. If you’re page is loading quickly most of the time, you don’t have anything to worry about. If your page tends to hang for more than a couple of seconds, then you might want to consider switching hosting providers, or hiring a developer to pour over your code, and look for problems. If a page is unresponsive, search engines will rank it lower than if it loaded quickly.

Original Content

Make sure all of the content on your site is completely original. It’s OK if you’re quoting another article here and there, but if you’re copying entire articles, or running an article that you purchased from someone who sold it to multiple sites, you’re posting duplicate content. Search engines don’t look kindly on duplicate content, and if your site contains a lot of it, you will wind up at the bottom of search results quickly.

A fast-loading page with a strong title, and good, original content will do well on search engines. By taking the time to make sure your pages meet these criteria, you’re ensuring that your site will show up higher in search results. The higher you show up in search, the more traffic you get. The more traffic you get, the more profitable your site will be.

Creating SEO optimized content is important to online success. Including keywords relevant to your site in your content helps search engines to index, and rank your website so people can find you. You also have to remember that you’re writing your content to be read by your visitors as well.

When it comes to writing SEO friendly content, quality is more important than quantity. In other words, try to stick to a few well written, keyword rich pages than a lot of poorly written pages that just hammer keywords. The goal of any website is to make money. You need visitors to either buy your product, or click your ads in order to make money. If your content is confusing, or hard to understand, your visitors will lose trust in your site very quickly, and as a result, they won’t buy your products or click your ads – they’ll just leave your site without looking back. In other words, a high search rank means nothing if it’s paired with an equally high bounce rate.

Your writing can’t just be keyword heavy, it also has to keep your readers’ attention. One way to both emphasize your keywords, and keep your readers engaged is to use bold words. By using bold test, you’re drawing the reader’s eye to the text, and search engines also give more weight to bold text. So, by highlighting text in bold, you are ensuring that your readers will pay closer attention to it, and search engines will give it more weight.

If you are planning to include pictures in your content, make sure to use them effectively for SEO purposes. Include a caption for each picture, and make sure you give each file a strong name that describes what’s in the picture well. One thing a lot of people overlook when adding pictures to their content is the alt tags. In your code, the alt tags give you a place to put a description of the image that will pop up when the image is moused over. That text might not be immediately apparent to the reader, but search engines use it to help rank both the page, and the image for search purposes.

Creating quality content requires a balance of elements that readers are going to find useful, and elements that a search engine is going to find useful. If you can learn to walk that line, you will create content that is both attractive to readers, and SEO friendly.

Keywords are the words and phrases people use when searching for information on any given topic. For example, if you’re looking for information about weight loss, you might search for something along the lines of “lose weight fast”. In that scenario, “lose weight fast” is a set of keywords relevant to weight loss. By understanding keywords, and doing the right things with them, you can make your site more SEO friendly in no time.

When building your website, you want to try to capitalize on the most popular keywords relevant to your niche. Make sure the title tags, and meta tags in your code include keywords relevant to your site. it’s also extremely important to have keyword rich text on your site.l You don’t want to make your content seem poorly written, but you do want to work in as many keywords as possible. Don’t let it get in the way of the quality of your content, but try to replace pronouns with proper nouns related to your niche whenever you can.

Search engines weight the first 250 words found on a page more heavily than the rest of that page, so it’s extremely important to make your first few paragraphs as focused as possible. Stay on topic, and include as many keywords as you can.Again, don’t make the content hard to read for your visitors, but make it as keyword rich as you can without hurting your site’s usability.

Keywords that consist of one word, or a short phrase tend to be very competitive. While it’s a good idea to take advantage of those keywords, don’t ignore longer terms completely. The longer the keyword, the less likely it is to be over saturated. If you can find a longer search term relevant to your niche that isn’t flooded with search results, take advantage of it as best you can. It’s better to show up in the top five search results for a longer search term that gets 500 searches a day than it is to show up six pages deep in the search results for a short term that gets 5,000 searches a day.

Keep keywords in mind as you develop your website, and your marketing strategy, and you’ll see some significant results over time. As your search rank goes up, so will your traffic. At the end of the day, that’s what makes the internet go ’round.

We’ve talked a little about what SEO is and how you can use it in a broad sense to generate traffic for your site. Now we’re going to get into the finer details of optimizing a website for search.

Don’t make your site more complicated than it needs to be. Flash apps, podcasts, and videos might look nice, and feel fancy, but search engines can’t index the information in them. If you’re going to include those things on your site, be sure to use text to reiterate the information in your media files. Search engines can’t hear your podcast, or watch your videos, so it’s very important that the information in them be converted to test, and placed on your site. We’re not suggesting that you transcribe your entire podcast, but rather that you write a couple paragraphs detailing what’s covered in the podcast.

It’s also important to provide a well organized navigation system on your site. Consider adding a nav bar just under the header that includes links to all the major sections of your site. If your site is broken down into a lot of subsections, add a drop down menu for each section that shows all of its subsections. You should also add a sitemap to your website. Not only does it make it easy for your visitors to find what they’re looking for,  but it also makes it easier for search engines to index your site.

Be careful about the quality and quantity of links on your site. If you have more than 50 links on any given page, you may be damaging your search rank. Also, keep an eye out for broken links on your site. From time to time, a page on another site will get deleted, or moved. If you have a link leading to content that isn’t there anymore, it reflects poorly on your site. There are a lot of free link checkers out there that will browse your site, and give you a report on the status of your links. If you’re using Wordpress, there are several highly effective plugins available to help you avoid broken links.

The most important thing of all is to have good, original content on your site. Your content should be keyword rich, and each page should be completely original. If you have two pages with near identical content on your site, search engines will view them as duplicate content, and your search rank will be damaged because of it.

By keeping a well organized site with a lot of quality content, you can boost your search rank significantly. Keep your links up to date, and make sure there’s some text to go with your media, and your site will climb it’s way to the top of any major search engine in no time.

If you’re reading this site, you’re probably at least familiar with the terms SEO and SEM, but do you know the difference between the two? Let’s take a look at the two, and what circumstances you should be using each under.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is the process of organizing the content on your site, and tweaking the site itself so that it will appear higher up in search results. There are two basic steps to making a site SEO friendly. The first is to optimize the site itself by using the right keywords in the site’s code, and the site’s copy. Make sure the title of each page is relevant to the topic discussed on that page, and that the copy contains keywords relevant to the topic at hand. You should also be sure to give your images descriptive names, and take the time to fill out the alt tag for each image. Once your site is optimized, be sure to update it on a regular basis with relevant content. Search engines look at how often a site is updated, and how long it’s been since the last update when determining where that site shows up in search. Try to update your site with interesting, or entertaining content. The more incoming links you have, the better your search rank. The more entertaining the content on your site is, the more incoming links you’ll get.

SEM, or Search Engine Marketing is the “buy your way to the top” strategy. By buying pay per click ads on a search engine, you’re ensuring that a link to your site will show up in the “sponsored links” section of the search results, which usually appears at the top of the page. It’s important to do some keyword research before diving into SEM. Broad terms, like science tend to be very crowded, and as such, you will have to pay a higher CPC (cost per click) to get your ad to appear more often. By picking a more specific term to place your ad on, you can lower the amount of competition, and consequently, the CPC you’ll need to pay.

Now that you know how they work separately, it’s time to put the two strategies together. When you first launch a site, it’s a good idea to invest some money in SEM. A brand new site, even an SEO friendly one, probably isn’t going to show up on the first page of search results for your keyword of choice right away. By spending some money on SEM, you can ensure your site will receive traffic until the benefits of SEO kick in. By using the two together like this, you can get steady traffic to your site from day one.

For years, Wordpress was used strictly by blogs, after all, that’s what it was built for. Recently, a lot of companies have started using it for their main website, and there are a lot of good reasons for doing so.

Wordpress is very SEO friendly right from the start. Without making any changes, or adding any plug ins to Wordpress, your content will be very search engine friendly, and easy to index. By adding an SEO oriented plug in, you can actually boost the SEO effectiveness of your Wordpress site without having to hire an SEO firm, or a web developer.

Speaking of plug ins, if there’s a particular type of functionality you want your site to have, chances are a plugin exists to make it happen. Everything from playing audio files to adding a storefront can be accomplished through plug ins. Functionality that used to be extremely difficult to implement on a standard HTML website  can be up in running  quickly and easily through the use of plug ins.

Once the site is up and running, editing the content, or adding new content is extremely simple in Wordpress. Each post and page can be edited  from  within Wordpress, and if you can handle writing a document in word, you can write or edit a page in Wordpress.

Wordpress allows you to have multiple accounts set up that can make changes to the site. As such, it’s very easy to have several people working collaboratively on your website. This makes it easy for different departments within the company to edit different parts of the website.

The real benefit of Wordpress is the money it will save you. After the initial set up, you won’t have to pay a designer to make any changes to your site for you. If you have someone tech savvy on staff already, you can even add new functionality through plug ins without having to get a developer involved. Wordpress also saves you time by allowing you to make those changes as soon as the need arises, rather than waiting on a developer to add new content to the site for you.

Wordpress saves you time, money, and allows you to add robust features to your website with a few clicks of the mouse, and it just keeps getting better as time goes on. What once was a piece of software created for blogging is now a robust content management system suitable for all of your website needs.

It’s no secret that you need to figure out what keywords apply to your content in order to create an SEO friendly website. The challenge comes in figuring out exactly what to do with your keywords. We’re going to show you a few uses for keywords that will help you create a SEO friendly website.

The first (and one of the most important) place you should be using keywords is in your title. If you’re using a CMS like Wordpress, you should try to use as many keywords as you can in the title of the post you’re creating. If you’re building a website using an editor like Dreamweaver, or just hand coding it, then try and use your keywords as part of the title of the page, in between the title tags. It’s important not to make your title awkward by overusing keywords. You have to remember, your visitors see your title too, it’s not just there for search engines.

Descriptive meta tags, and keyword meta tags aren’t as big a part of how search engines rank sites as they used to be, but that doesn’t mean they should be overlooked. Description meta tags should contain as many keywords as you can manage, while remaining coherent. It’s important not to make your description awkward or overly bulky just to squeeze in a few more keywords because search engines often use those descriptions as a snippet about the site when it shows up in search results. As for the meta keyword tags, don’t exceed 20 keywords when using them. Search engines view excessive keyword use in the meta tags negatively, so you could actually wind up doing more harm than good if you overdo it.

A visitor that comes to your site through an image search is no less valuable than a visitor that comes through a regular search, so make sure to handle your images correctly. Be sure to take the time to name your images carefully. Be as descriptive as you can, and don’t be afraid to give the image a somewhat lengthy name. Be sure to use the alt tags to describe the image in detail as well.

All of the uses for keywords covered above are important when building an SEO friendly website, but they’re all supplemental to keyword-rich content. Search engines are putting a greater focus on the actual content on a site, and h ow it relates to the keywords in your niche. So be sure to use keywords effectively in your code, images, and content, and you’ll see your search rank rise before you know it.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important part of marketing which allows for greater exposure to your website(s) through the continued use of techniques which propagate positive influence. This influence will affect both internet users browsing websites as well as the Search Engines which serve up these websites. The way that this influence occurs is fairly simple to understand, although how it works exactly is not entirely known due to the constant changes being made to the Search Engine algorithms. Profiteers will wish to make the most amount of money in the least amount of time with these methods, but the best option is to build up earnings slowly and gradually for consistent results.

Simple Tricks to Taking Advantage of SEO:

SEO Software – SEO Software is available in many fashions and makes it simple to automate the process of Search Engine optimization. These options will usually guarantee a top ten ranking for keywords that are searched with little competition. Although you may not rank for the top keywords, you will rank for alternatives.

Blogging - Blogging helps to build a knowledge base for customers and interested parties to learn more. Not only does this help the image of the website, but it provides several opportunities to link back to the original website which is being promoted which in turn affects the ranking positively on the Search Engines. The fresh content from blogs also helps your site stay relevant in the search engines – and it also increases your chance on getting more links back to your website. A great tool is Ping-O-Matic for this, which basically “pings” (or notifies) all of the major search engines and blog engines when you make a new post. All you have to do is go to their website and input your details once (then save your information via a bookmark) then every time you visit that bookmark it will ping all of the major search engines to notify them of your changes you have made.

Using SEO Services – Many content providers and services will be able to make the process less time consuming for the original website owner/manager. The content provided will be made by real people and this is what makes it more visually appealing to the target audience. This method helps to connect emotionally to future consumers of your products to increase sales and improve profit margins.

Over time, using these techniques will help you increase your PageRank, increase the number of backlinks, and ultimately the number of sales or visitors you get to your website.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is one of those things that is either really hard for you to grasp or very easy. The good news is there are a ton of people out there that are willing to help you with your SEO plan. The bad news is there are a lot of people out there that can claim to help you with your SEO plan.

When you hire a contractor, whether online or not, it is best to check their references. Ask them to give you past work from clients or from themselves and to give a short bio about themselves so you can get to know them a little bit.

Hiring a contractor can be a great experience, or it can be a constant struggle and fight to get the work done as it was promised and a complete waste of time. In order to make sure you receive the former experience, rather than the latter, there are a few things you can keep a look out for.

Pay Rate
If one contractor who is bidding on your project is extremely low, they probably aren’t going to be of high quality. I know that this may seem like common sense to a lot of people, but it gets over looked. You will see a trend of where the average is on a project for good work (when 10 people are $300 and 1 is $50, I don’t think the $50 is going to do as good of a job for you). Also, don’t take the highest bidder, either get them to come down in price with the rest of them or pick the best out of the following criteria.

Experience
How long has the contractor been active on the website you are using? If they have been their for 3-4 years compared to someone who signed up yesterday, I am going to go with the person that has the better reputation and experience on the website.

Reviews
Most websites like Elance.com or Odesk.com allow users to post reviews and feedback from completed assignments. Read through the reviews thoroughly and create a list of information about each contractor so you can keep their offers straight. Also see how much earnings that have made from working on the site. Someone with $30,000 vs $100 is going to have a lot more experience and better reputation.

Make sure you do not jump at the first SEO consultant that comes your way, do your research and find the right person for your job.

Photo Credit: Host Wisely

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a group of techniques to make any sort of content on your website appear higher on search engines such as Google or Bing, meaning more towards the first page of search results.  There are many different ways to achieve higher search engine rankings.  First off, the text of your webpage as well as your title will both bring your page into the search engine database.  Using a keyword or phrase multiple times on that webpage will easily boost the ranking of said page.  Usually, about an overall 4-6% keyword phrase density is recommended in the text of the page to receive maximum results of this technique.

Linking is another very popular SEO technique that is easy, yet effective.  All three types of links (inbound, outbound, and internal) can help boost your page rankings.  Links from sites that also specialize in the same keywords, as well as links from .gov and .edu websites are especially beneficial as far as links of the inbound type are concerned.  Your internal links’ anchor text can also make a huge difference.  Instead of using the word “here” as many webmasters tend to do, try using your keyword instead, as it can really make a difference, especially down the road.

While many argue that meta tags are one of the most important factors in SEO, they are still secondary to content.  Remember, content is king!  Sure, meta tags can help you out initially, but keeping your pages updated with fresh content and proper keyword density will help you out much more in the long run.  Unique content that is updated frequently, combined with the proper meta tags, will be able to outs higher ranking sites that never have their content updated, no matter how well the meta tags are done for the previously higher ranked website.

Finally, file names as well as URLs are also fairly important.  Using key words in both of these will also easily boost your SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).  This might seem like common sense, but think about how many broken links you encounter when browsing, or how many pages are simply named “1” or “2”, and think about how search engines index websites.  They go through every page and file, and record what it’s called.  If a page is called “2” it won’t be entered for the keyword that it is aimed at, same with broken links.  So, remember to name your pages and files appropriately, and to double check all of your links.