Golden Rules for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Rule #1 - Quality content
You probably know about that "Content Is King" rule. It is
especially true for SEO. Try to have relevant and quality
content, at least 400 words per page. Search engines love
lengthy articles. You web site should be up-to-date, articles
and news have to be added on a regular basis, at least once a
week. This will show to search engines that your web site is an
ongoing project and not some "let's make a web site for Adsense"
schemes. Make your content relevant to your target audience, use
appropriate keywords but don't make a mistake and do keyword
stuffing. Keyword stuffing is when someone intentionally
includes many keywords and repeats them many times in the
article hoping to achieve better search engine placement. Search
engines are machines but they are not nave, and they are
getting "smarter" every day. Your keywords need to have the most
appropriate keyword density. You won't be able to know the right
keyword density because search engines often change their rules.
Several great resources and software can help you to choose the
right keyword density and to be up-to-date with search engine
trends.
http://www.searchenginewatch.com
http://www.searchengineguide.com
http://www.webceo.com
http://www.webposition.com
Rule #2 - Link popularity
Links are the next most important rule in making a successful
search engine optimization. Many search engines give very much
weight to number of web sites that have links to your web site.
It is especially case with Google, the most important search
engine, that use their proprietary technology called PageRank
that ranks web sites by counting number of links it has on other
web sites. However, quantity is not the most important thing.
You should have quality links. So, Google will give you better
PageRank (PR) if you have links on web sites with higher PR.
They assume that if quality sites link to your web site that
your site is quality, as well. That's why you should make ad
swaps with quality web sites that focus on similar audience like
your web site. Please be aware that linking between sites that
are on the same server (IP address) won't bring you benefit in
increasing your PR. To check your link popularity type
site:www.yourdomainname.com in Google search bar and you will
get list of sites that have links to your web site. Also you can
use a free service at:
http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
Also, you should have a good internal navigation on your web
site. It is recommended that you design your web site that every
page can be accessed within 3 clicks.
Rule #3 - Meta Tags
Meta tags give different information about your web site. The
most used Meta tags are for title, keywords and description.
Meta tags are placed between tag in your HTML
document. It is very important to give good page titles,
description and keywords for every page on your web site. It
doesn't have to be too short, but also it doesn't have to be too
lengthy. Between tag you will write title of
your HTML document. Title shouldn't be longer than 70
characters. Choose it very wisely. After that you can include
different Meta tags. We will give you several most used Meta
tags:
There are several useful free services that will help you in
finding the best keywords for your web site. We can recommend
you these services:
Google AdWords Keyword Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox
Keyword Suggestion Tool
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
Also, there are other Meta tags that you can use in your web
site. This
Meta tags give info to search engines when they should come back
to your web site and re-index it.
The following Meta tag gives info to search engines what to
index. In this case they will index all pages. However, you can
also make some restrictions and to deny that some pages be
indexed by search engines with making a so called robot.txt
file.
Also, you can place a Meta tag that will give info about you or
the author of your web site.
Those 3 rules are the most important rules in search engine
optimization. Also there are other rules that we will only
mention like to use a so called ALT tags to give description to
your images, don't use database-driven links (make them search
engine friendly) and don't use frames in designing your web
site. Also, it is highly recommended to submit your web site to
Open Directory Project web site (http://www.dmoz.org). It takes
time to be indexed there but it is useful because it will help
you in better search engine placement and many sites use Open
Directory Project database on their web sites. After you have
completed your SEO campaign you will have to check your rankings
on search engines for different keywords. Beside above mentioned
SEO software, we can recommend you these free services for
checking keyword/ranking placement:
Free Search Engine Ranking & Keyword Tracker
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/
Search Engine Placement Check
http://www.marketleap.com/verify/default.htm
We wish you to achieve the first results page!
About the author:
Dejan Bizinger is a Contributing Editor for Infacta. Infacta is
email messaging services company providing powerful, yet
easy-to-use award-winning Group Mail, software for sending
highly-personalized email messages and Group Metrics, software
for email tracking. For more information visit: http://www.infacta.com