Search engine optimization for beginners is what this article is all about. SEO is not a hard subject to learn, but it can be a bit intimidating to figure out where you should get started.
If you are a beginner to search engine optimization, you might be asking yourself what is it?
Do you believe that your site is drawing in enough traffic, people are getting what they came for, and there’s really no room for improvement?
If your answer is yes, then you’re probably going to want to stop reading. For the rest of you, you know that there’s always something that could be tweaked for increased web site traffic, better customer satisfaction, and a higher search engine ranking.
How exactly do you go about doing that? Follow these search engine optimization tips on Ten Steps to a Well-Optimized Site and I think you’ll see that these goals are not as lofty as you might think.
Step 1: What Is Search Engine Optimization?
In a very basic nutshell, search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is making your site and the site’s individual pages visible and relevant to both search engines and search engine users.
Step 2: Target Marketing-Does Your Internet Marketing Strategy Match Your Intended Audience?
Understanding your audience is a huge part of a successful search engine optimization strategy. You need to pinpoint who it is you will be marketing your site to, and write your content accordingly. This might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s worth a serious look.
Step 3: Keywords and Phrases 101: Make Your Site Search-Engine Friendly
What are keywords, and why should you learn about them? Keywords are simply targeted words that determine which category your site will be listed under in search engines and directories,as well as words that searchers input to search engines in order to find relevant sites.
If you don’t do your homework and select targeted key phrases, you are missing a significant portion of potential traffic.
Step 4: Including Keywords and Phrases In Your Content and Source Code
You’ve got your hard-earned list of keywords, now you’re going to have to actually put them somewhere. The more places you can reasonably put your keywords, the easier you will be found.
That being said, don’t go nuts and paste them in every nook and cranny. This is called “keyword stuffing” and search engines don’t look kindly on this practice.
Step 5: How To Write Good Content
Compelling content on your website is the essential key to good search engine results. Obviously, there are many more factors that search engine spiders look at when indexing a website, but content is the vital foundation on which good rankings are built.
Step 6: Using Title Tags in Search Engine Optimization
Although the title tag is kind of the redheaded stepchild of search engine optimization, its lack of notoriety does not make it any less important. Most search engines index the contents of the title tag, and actually make it one of the most important factors in the ranking process.
So if you don’t have an optimized title tag, you might be missing the boat as far as rankings are concerned.
Step 7: Keywords and Description Meta Tags
These two tags are not very important in the grand scheme of things, but every little bit counts. Make your Meta tags optimized and help search engines to index your site better.
Step 8: Ten Tips for Search-Engine Friendly Site Design
Make sure your site is search engine friendly by avoiding the following:
Music: We’ve all come across them at one time or another: websites that automatically play music once you’ve landed on them. Most of the time the music is extremely loud, and most of the time there is no obvious way to turn it off. This is something that was especially popular in the early ’90s, especially with people who created their first websites via services such as MySpace or GeoCities. We’ve evolved a long way since those early days. Auto-playing music on websites is virtually universally hated, and yet, there are still plenty of websites out there that continue this annoying practice.
Multiple Back Clicks: Websites that somehow hijack the Back button in your Web browser, making you double/triple/quadruple click in order to get back to the website you just came from? This is incredibly annoying and frustrating, especially when you’re caught in some kind of loop that makes you actually close the browser tab you’re in just to get away from the website’s control of your browsing experience.
Ads: Ads that take over the entire browser window, or pop up unexpectedly if we mouse over something, or play loud music when we least expect it, are annoying. Most users don’t mind a few unobtrusively placed advertisements, but when they get aggressive and hijack the user experience, it’s not okay.
Loud Fonts and Backgrounds: Flashing fonts, clashing colors, busy backgrounds that give users a headache….these are all annoying, along with text this is in ALL CAPS or in extremely small letters, fonts that are entirely too complicated or precious to read, and spelling/grammar errors that take away from the content.
Step 9: Site Submission-The Basics of Submitting Your Site
Search engines have gotten so good at indexing websites that it’s not really necessary to go through the saga of site submission-unless you have a brand new site, in which it’s highly suggested that you submit to a search directory.
Step 10: Wait For Results
You’ve done the work; now how long are you going to have to wait to see improvement in your ranking results? The answer is different for every site, however, if you keep plugging away using the suggestions in these Ten Steps and are patient, eventually you will see the results you’re looking for.
Now What? Search Engine Optimization for the Long Haul
A well-optimized site doesn’t get that way overnight; behind every successful website is a ton of hard work, patience, and more hard work. Use these Search Engine Optimization for beginners tips to make your site the absolute best site that it can be, and eventually all your hard work will pay off.