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Do-It-Yourself SEO | A Beginner's Guide
There are always do-it-yourselfers in any business, so it should be no surprise that many successful web promoters are doing their own SEO. Many web guru's started by fumbling around the internet until they found the right formula for success. The web itself has evolved as a result of individual experimentation and the sharing their knowledge.
SEO, like any other field can be done professionally, or researched and done by a creative webmaster. With all the information available at your finger tips SEO can be done successfully by most internet marketers.
SEO is a moving target, what worked well in the past may be less effective now. Social bookmarking is a new form of promotion that is becoming more important. If you know the basics of good SEO, then you can promote your site without becoming an expert in SEO. So, if you are looking to start “doing it yourself” keep these points in mind as you develop your plan.
1.Unique Search Engine-Friendly Content
One of the most important aspects is your unique web content that is laid out in a search engine friendly way. Search engines don’t read Flash, or the text embedded in images. Make sure your images have alt image tags and that you use your most important keywords in plain text on the site. Use these important keywords in your titles, headings and links to highlight them. Use your keywords as anchor text in links rather than using images. Never try to stuff keywords on your site by making them too small to read, or making it the same color as the background. Instead use your SEO keywords frequently in the page copy, but keep it to 3-5% on the page.
After you have created your copy, find out if it is getting crawled by the search engines. On Google enter “site:://www.yourwebaddress” to verify if your page has been indexed. Brand new sites may take some time to get indexed by the major search engines. There are many factors that play into being indexed including age of the site, duplicate content (copy and pasting content, or cookie cutter affiliate websites), Java script rather than HTML links, bad site layout (too many sub-directories),long dynamic URL’s with special characters (question marks or any other database characters, #, &, *, !, %) known as “spider traps,” or orphaned pages.
2. Do Your Keywords Homework Thoroughly
Keyword research is the most important step in the process. If you get this wrong you could be wasting all of your time and effort promoting your site. In your research start with very broad terms that describe your product or service. Narrow the terms and find alternate terms by using one of the keyword research services. I like to use Google AdWords, Keyword Discovery, and Wordtracker.
The goal would be to find highly searched keyword phrases and to optimize your site like the top sites in that keyword do. If a keyword is not popular, then it will not draw very much traffic. Remember to optimize the most focused keywords; because, it is much harder to gain rank with a general term and the traffic generated will be less targeted.
3. Get In-bound Links to Your Site
There are many ways to get links to your site, some traditional and others not so traditional. This is very important for SEO and PageRank, even though it may be intimidating at first. When Google calculates PageRank, they cout each link as a “vote” for your site. The more links you have, the more votes you have, and the higher your PageRank. Not all votes are created equal, a link from a higher ranking site will count more than a lower ranking site, sort of like a popularity contest.
When you take the time to create unique content, then you will be miles ahead of the pack. Most sites wont link to you for no reason, however, if you are lucky and create some unique and original content, you might get many links.
Trading links is an option, but link exchange power is dwindling, and in the more competitive markets wont help much. Paid links have fallen out of favor with Google recently. Volumes could be written on linking strategies, but for the beginner, stick to these techniques to start.
Issue a press release with a link to your site.
Leave comments on blogs, public forums and articles with related content.
Put links on your other sites leading to your new site, or have a friend link to your site.
Write articles about your niche and be sure to include a link in the resource box.
Utilize any of the bookmarking or social media sites that are popular to link to your site.
4. Ride The Social Media Wave
Online communities developed for networking and socializing is at an all time high. Social bookmarking sites, such as,StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, Technorati and others allow members to store their favorite sites and share them with others online. “Buzz” can be created about a site by these sites too.
If you are trying to generate sales from your efforts, then you should avoid promotional hype on these sites. The power of the social networking sites comes from public interest and participation. In order for theses sites to work well, you must have something unique or interesting to share.
Don’t be shy on the social sites about the site you are promoting. Network with other members, post relevant content, get creative with bookmark titles ant let people in the real world know about your links. Quality content that you simply share with others will lead to your success on these sites.
Use the following when planning your SEO. If you are established or are just starting out in your SEO efforts the advice will help, but remember that persistence and patience are your biggest assets when it comes to website promotion.