"Straight Talk on Search Engine Optimization"

First of all, let me give you my search engine optimization background. About 4 years ago, I was frustrated because the "Submit your website to 3,000 search engines" package I bought for $99.95 didn't work. That business "went away" eventually. I read a little bit about SEO afterwards. 18 months ago, I had a new website that I did some "basic" SEO tricks for, then submitted to a "Submit Your Websites for Free to 20 Search Engines" package. I got no results for that either.

In January of 2004, I decided it was time to get serious about SEO. I was looking for a professional SEO company to do it for me, since I had no success myself. I found out that there are rip-off SEO companies and real SEO companies. The real SEO companies may charge in the tens of thousands of dollars to maintain the optimization and high rankings of a website. The rip-off SEO companies brag that they can do the same thing for $300 or less. My common sense prevented me from paying $300 to these guys. Since $7,000 was a bit out of my advertising budget :-), I decided to go the do-it-yourself route and visited around 15 websites and forums on the net that discuss search engine optimization. I also spoke to an SEO professional who attempted to dissuade me from trying to optimize THIS website, because it supposedly has "too many themes and topics".

After doing the 3 steps I detail below, I achieved many measurable results. (06/15/04 Update:) Google is changing its search listing algorithms, and while many of my search listings are holding their position, many have changed position also. I would offer proof of what I've accomplished in this section, as I have in the past, but I'll have to wait until Google's new rules for SEO settle into place. I don't consider myself an SEO expert, and I'll say now, there are other websites on the Internet that give much more specific SEO information than this one does. I wanted to demonstrate that a regular guy like me can "walk into" a measure of search engine success in a relatively short period of time. I also realize that I have a "unique style" in delivering information, and I know I can help people with the SEO tips on this page, so here it is... Tools You'll Need for Your Own SEO Solution Project: 1. A website in which you have CONTROL over its contents (the html). An affiliate web page that you can't change can't be optimized for you. You'd have to start your own website and put the affiliate contents on it. 2. You need to get the Google Toolbar if you don't already have it installed. Enable the Pagerank display feature. 3. You'll need some type of website tracking (your host may have possibly provided it already) that can identify search engine spider hits (primarily Googlebot hits). 4. You'll need a basic understanding of Google Pagerank and crawls (search engine spiders). If you don't know about them, read below, otherwise you can skip this part. Google Pagerank The Pagerank system, in short, is basically Google's system on a 1-10 scale of measuring a website's importance. Google.com has the highest Pagerank (PR) of 10. A brand new website domain has a PR 0. There are other websites that discuss how it's calculated. Here is a quick gauge: 0 - new website, 1-2 a "drop" of popularity, 3 - popularity is beginning, 4 - an established web presence with periodic attention from Google, 5 - a stronger presence, 6 - a semi-powerful website that gets crawled daily, 7 - a powerful, frequently visited website, 8 - a very, very powerful website, 9 - 10 - Off the charts in power. The Pagerank of a website influences a. How often it gets crawled for future search listings, b. How high those search listings will be listed. The Pagerank of a website will appear in the Google toolbar (with Pagerank enabled) when your browser is on the page of that website. This plan will show you how to increase your Pagerank and the frequency of crawls by Google. Spiders and Crawls For the search engines to "index" your website, it will send its "spider" robot program to "crawl" your homepage and any other pages it "sees" on your domain. Visits by a spider are erratic, at best. Spiders will visit your website more frequently if it thinks "your website is important". With Google, importancy is measured by Pagerank. I discuss raising your Pagerank is Part 3. I. - Choose Your Weapons (keywords) Obviously, some keywords are searched more than others. In nearly the same proportion, more websites will optimize for the more popular keywords over the less popular ones. This means that you have a higher chance of success (less competition) if you target the "moderately" searched keywords, instead of going straight after "the big ones". I'm not trying to underestimate or limit your success. My strategy for anyone is to achieve "some" success first, and then increase it over time. Many webmasters will "swing for the fences" and after not having any success for so long, bow out of the race entirely. I'll give a rule-of-thumb way to gauge your competition for optimized keywords. It's not scientific or perfect, but it worked for me. With the Google toolbar on, search Google for the broadest keyword term that describes your website. For this website, I chose "small business". You'll probably see a bunch of high-powered PR7 and PR6 websites that have your term in title. Observe their Pagerank (PR) rankings. Getting listed on the front page for a popular broad term is a tough battle and a long process that may be too high to reach for a new website. Next, search for less-popular, but more specific keyword terms that describe your website. For this website, I chose "low risk business". Depending on the keyword term, you'll eventually find one that is specific to your site, but the competition doesn't have those scary-high PR rankings. You should be able to find terms that only have PR4 and PR3 sites listed for them. This is the target for YOUR website. If you're finding that you can't find keyword terms with lesser competition, you may seriously consider altering your website's theme to make it more specific for a particular "niche" of the market. II. - Lock and Load. Prepare Your Site The bottom line is, you will need to concentrate and stuff your target keywords throughout your website, whenever possible, until they are actually 7% or so of all the words on the page itself (If you go higher than 7%, its at "your own risk". Google and other search engines have "spam alerts" that detect overzealous practices). Repeating keywords too many times on a page can look "funny" to your customers even though Google may like it, so you have to balance your SEO goals with common sense. This is a brief list of SEO tips you should do to your website in order to focus on a particular set of keywords: The TITLE tag of your html should include your target keywords The META TITLE tag of your html should include your target keywords The META DESCRIPTION tag of your html should include your target keywords The META KEYWORDS tag of your html should include ALL of your keywords, with the most targeted ones listed first, and separated by commas. Last time I checked, Google doesn't read Meta Tags, but its good to do this anyway for the other search engines. If you have a domain which also includes your keywords within the name itself (www.my-keywords-are-here.com), you'll get "brownie" points from Google that will help. Your header tags (H1, H2, etc.) should include your targeted keywords if you use them. The first major sentence on your page should include your target keywords and concentrate on the overall theme of your website. The overall "density" of your page, should be high (7% or so of all the words on the page) for your target keywords. I use an online density checker to help with this. If you "bold" your target keywords on the page (sometimes), you'll get brownie points from Google. Link and image ALT tags are good places to "stuff" with target keywords if you need to build your density. Other pages on your website that link back to your homepage should have the target keywords within the anchor text (displayed text) of the link. The more pages on your site that practice the step above, the better As I said before on this page, I'm not an SEO expert, but the tips above seem to be the general consensus on the Internet for how to perform SEO on a page. III. - Party Invitations. Get Your Site Listed on High PageRank Websites This may be the most important SEO step and that's why I listed it in red. The heart of the Google Pagerank system scores your site based on the quality of links that OTHER sites have pointing to yours, known as incoming links. By quality, I mean other sites with a high Pagerank score. My personal opinion is that the Pagerank system has turned the Internet into a "country club" in some ways. If you run with the "in crowd", you get points for it. Regardless of what I think about the system, I decided to "play ball" in order to get my websites listed well in the directories. One of the easiest ways to get incoming links is to participate in a common Internet practice called reciprocal linking. This is where you agree with another website that "if you link to me, I'll link to you". What matters here is the Pagerank of the other site. If your site starts out at PR 0, it can be hard to find a PR6 site that wants to link to you! This is also because OUTgoing links actually cost the sponsoring website a few points. One type of site that lives to list other websites and aren't so PR-conscious are the web directories. All most require is a reciprocal link. I discovered that because of the rising demand of links with high Pagerank, there is now software specifically made for acheiving, managing, and maintaining high-Pagerank links. The rule-of-thumb is that the highest incoming PR link you have should make your site 2 PR less (a PR8 link should at least create a new PR6 site). One link can set your website on the fast track to great search engine listings. Reciprocal links are good and will get spiders to recognize your site, but one-way links are even better. Google doesn't score reciprocal links between two sites "as high" because it's "an arrangement" between the sites. Google will score your site much higher if you have a one-way link on another site that points to your site, even though your site does not link back to that site. When I learned this, I thought "Great, but where can I get one-way links?" If you're looking for a source of unlimited advertising and unlimited PR2 and PR1 one-way links, $6 will get you a Gold membership at USFreeAds. Here, you can post an unlimited number of advertisements that actually get views, and are cycled to the home page of USFreeAds when they're first posted. At first, I was skeptical about whether or not my ads would actually get looked at or not, but I've had hundreds of views with them. Their links will stick around for 6 months, if you continue to click "resubmit" when they email you about your expiring ads, which is free. In my opinion, one of the most powerful words on the Internet is unlimited. When I hear that word, I then realize that I can abuse that membership for all its worth :-). Please realize that a few PR2 links will not "jack up" your PR rating the way that just one high PR link would. There is value though in having "a bunch" of one-way low PR links pointing to multiple pages or all the pages of your website that cost almost nothing. One more quick tip: The anchor text in your incoming links should contain your target keywords for maximum effect with Google. Conclusion: After you've done Steps I. - III., you should see some spider hits within a few days of your directory listings. Google may then list some or all of your website pages. You can check your listings in Google by going there and searching for "allinurl:www.yourdomain.com". After 6-8 weeks, you should see the full effects of your efforts, and your Pagerank should rise. If you've "reached for the skies" and targeted very popular keywords and aren't seeing any results, alter your website so that it targets keywords whose listings in Google are more attainable. Be patient. This process takes monitoring and fine-tuning. That's all I have on search engine optimization for today. It's a challenge that takes effort, but it's nice to actually see some results after a few weeks. That's more than I can say for some of the other "advertising magic wands" that are sold all over the Internet. Good Luck! For pay-per-click search engine information click here. Search Engine Optimisation Uk - Kjell Web design company specializing in search engine optimisation and pay per click advertising, guarantees top rankings in search engines. WEB DESIGNERS DIRECTORY: Web Site Design Company, Web Page Design, Web Design, Houston Web Site Design. Free Link Exchange directory at LinkExchanged.com - Exchange links with multiple websites.