seo that you can do yourself
TRANSCRIPT
If you are a small business owner with plans to launch a new website to
get more visibility, you must consider search engine optimization,
otherwise known as SEO, so it can be found by prospects. This is
especially important if you plan on selling goods directly on your site.
The rub is that many times web designers spend more time fretting on
form rather than function. As a result, many websites that we have
surveyed are lacking many of the on-page SEO elements that are needed
to get properly indexed by the search engines. To address this
conundrum you need to either hire a knowledgeable optimization expert,
or you can try a little DIY action. When you consider the number of
website analysis programs on the market, DIY SEO is not as much of a
mission impossible as many people believe. In fact, if you invest a
couple of hours a month on your website’s SEO then you can do it
yourself.
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Selection of the right keywords or phrases for your website is imperative
before you start your analysis. That is to say, you need to select the
words or phrases that someone who is unfamiliar with your business
would enter on the search engines in order to find businesses like yours.
For example, if you have a furniture business, you must have the
keyword furniture somewhere in your domain. We can take a second
example, say your business is plumbing and fitting services provider,
then you must have the keyword ‘plumbing’ or ‘plumbing services’
somewhere in your domain name.
Once you have some selections lined up, you need to begin to weed out
those that are less desirable. The best way to do this is by entering your
keywords and phrases into Google’s Keyword Planner which is found
by accessing your Adwords account. (If you don’t have an Adwords
account you can set one up by going to adwords.google.com.) The tab
for the Keyword Planner is located under the Tools tab at the top right of
the page. Once you enter your suspects into the Keyword Planner’s
lineup it will come back with the traffic count for each and every
keyword or phrase entered. More importantly it will also suggest other
keywords and phrases along with their respective traffic counts. The
biggest mistake that most people make is to either choose too many
keywords or choose keywords with little or no traffic. The Keyword
Planner is the perfect tool to help you identify the best keywords to
target.
Also Read: How to Get Google Adsense Approval Today
After selecting the right keywords or phrases for your site now you need
to plug them in. There are several areas that you need to apply these
keywords, namely your Meta Tags, the Alt Tags and at the beginning
and end of your website. The Meta Tags are located directly below the
Title Tag. An example of how these tags should be formatted is listed
below:
The Alt Tags, which are descriptors used at the end of the code for every
image on your website, are the next step. Since search engine spiders
can’t see images, these descriptors tell the spiders what the image is all
about. While many people ignore the alt tags this is a mistake since it is
another way to let the search engines know how to rank your site. Below
is some sample code that shows you what the alt tags look like. Make
sure all off yours are complete if you ever hope to make it to page one of
any search engine.
Keywords must be included in your content. Whether you are creating
verbiage for your website, blog or video you need to find a way to insert
the keywords and phrases into each and every one of these. Just don’t go
crazy with the keyword density or you risk being penalized by the very
search engines you are trying to woo. (In fact there is a black hat SEO
term called keyword stuffing that every search engine knows and
loathes.)
Use of the desired keywords in your content in a fitting way is the goal.
That is to say, it should not look like keywords are thrown in
unnecessarily. Always remember that content is designed first and
foremost to be read by human beings. This means that keywords should
be used only in the proper time and place. They should also be
grammatically correct. Last but not least the most important keyword or
phrase should be used at the beginning and end of your website in a font
that is bold and italicized. This lets the spiders know that the word or
phrase is important.
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Off-Page SEO
Even the best on-page SEO is not going to usually be sufficient to
generate a page one result on most search engines in our content-rich
world. But it is a good start. To really get into the game and get the
spiders to sit up and take notice you next need to start providing regular
content that is valuable and interesting. (That’s right folks, the spiders
have learned how to read.) Weekly content has become king due to the
increased competition of the marketplace. People are eager to learn
what’s new and exciting with your business. They want to know how
you can help them save time and money or overcome obstacles. They
want to hear what other customers think about you. Since most people
rarely update their website this makes it difficult for people and spiders
to find out the latest about news regarding you and your business. That’s
what blogs and social networks are all about. They are also good for
creating backlinks to your website which is another benchmark that the
spiders use to rank sites.
When you get to the step of self-promoting your website, you need to
use both On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO techniques. Once your
website receives good ranking on all the major search engines, do not
stop your Off-Page SEO activities. You should continuously work for
your website each week so that your competitors will not overtake your
ranking. Yes, you will require lesser effort and time to do the
maintenance work as part of the Off-Page SEO once your website
receives good ranking. If you do not have the time to promote your
website, you can also outsource some or all of your online marketing
tasks. Just take care to thoroughly check out any SEO expert that you are
considering turning your web presence over to or your site could wind
up DOA.
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