SEO doesn't have to be complex and by following these simple on-page optimization techniques you can give your SEO campaign the perfect start.
Keyword Research
Before you begin penning content and writing title and meta tags you first need to research the keywords you will use on each of your pages. Using the wrong keywords can negatively impact your entire campaign, causing you to lose untold hours and days of work and eventually forcing you to concede that you made the wrong decision and start all over again.
The most appropriate and most beneficial keywords are popular enough that they will enjoy regular searches but without being prohibitively competitive or overly generic. A number of keyword research tools exist and your competitors' websites are a good place to start your early research. Ensure keywords are targeted specifically to the type of content you will provide as well as the service or product you will be selling. More targeted keywords will result in more targeted visitors and targeted visitors mean greater conversion rates and an improved return on your efforts.
Niche And Semantically Related Keywords
A good strategy is to incorporate a reasonable list of competitive keywords with less competitive ones. The more niche keywords will serve you well during the early days of your website and over time you should be able to start competing for the more challenging of the keywords you use. Also incorporate semantically or topically related keywords into your keyword list because the search engines are placing more and more emphasis on those pages that use related keywords as well as primary keywords.
Accessibility And Standards
Site accessibility is an integral part of good website design but it should also be considered an important factor in any SEO strategy. Using standards based code for your website will help to ensure that anybody that wishes to access and view your website will be able to do so. It will also mean that the spiders used by search engines will be able to access and index your pages effectively ensuring that you get the full credit for your site.
Navigation And Intra-Linking
Your navigation menu and internal links should be prominently placed, easy to see, and easy to follow for the spiders. It is good practice to include a text link from the home page to a compliant sitemap on your site, alleviating any potential problems that might arise from broken links or the use of graphical or flash based navigation menus. You can also consider adding links into the main body of your content, although too many will make the page difficult to read and therefore diminish the overall effectiveness so don't get too carried away.
Title And Meta Tags
While search engines do not specifically use the meta tags to help assess the value of a page like they once did, meta tags are still critical to good SEO performance. The title and description tags that you add at the top of a page are used in various ways including in the compiling and display of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). This is the first thing a potential site visitor will see from your site so this mini listing needs to be as effective as any paid advert or PPC ad. Poorly written titles and descriptions can put many readers off viewing your pages so a little time and effort here can have a very positive effect.
Using your keywords in the title and the description is good practice because these will be highlighted in the search results if they were used in the search query itself. This will make your result more prominent and instantly identify your page as being relevant to the user. Don't needlessly use keywords, however, and don't throw extra keywords into the description at the cost of a well written, short ad.
Other Formatting Tags
On-page content should always be written with the visitor in mind, although obviously it can still be optimized for search engines. As such, proper page structure is important to your reader as well as to the engines. H1 and H2 tags are an effective way of breaking up page content, and give readers the chance to skim through a page and determine its relevance.
A page should only contain a single H1 tag at the top of the content but can include multiple H2 and H3 tags. Alt tags on images should also be included and these as well as the actual file path to the image itself can include important keywords (but do make sure that they actually make sense and are more than just a keyword thrown in for the sake of SEO).
Page Content Optimization
Finally, we get to the heart of the page - the content itself. Use the keywords you researched for a page including semantically related keywords. Write as naturally and appealingly as possible while keeping those keywords in mind and don't get carried away stuffing or cramming them into the body of the text. Not only is this unappealing to readers but is seriously frowned upon by the search engines.
The reader really is the most important aspect of your content. If the majority of your visitors are coming from the search engines remember that they arrived using specific keywords. This means that they are searching for equally specific information relating to those keywords - make sure you deliver on the promise that you made in your title and description tags.
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Showing posts with label Search Engine Optimization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Search Engine Optimization. Show all posts
June 14, 2009
Blogging Your Way to the Top
An established blog that is updated regularly gets spidered by Google often, and increases the chances of new search rankings considerably. I have seen multiple situations where regularly updated blogs wind up ranking #1 in Google for relevant phrases literally within a couple hours of posting. It usually takes a well established website and blog to make this happen, but there is big potential if you do things the right way.
While blogs work best if updated multiple times per week, even those with a new post every week or two have advantages. Blogs don't have to be a major undertaking, spending only an hour or so a week on posting can have you seeing results in no time.
There are many advantages to adding a blog to your website. Here are a few.
Increased Rankings
By boosting your topical content, you increase the value and relevance of your site. The more new stuff you add, the more of an authority you make your site, and this helps to improve your overall search rankings. It can also help you obtain rankings for "long tailed search phrases".
Long tailed search phrases are those that are less commonly searched, and usually exceed 3 or 4 words in length - they are also very targeted to your product or service. Blogs are great for getting rankings on long tailed search phrases. If you see a long tailed search phrase you want to rank for, use the phrase as the post title (if it makes sense to do so) and write a good, content rich post about it and your ranking potential for this phrase will rise.
By writing blog posts with your target phrases in mind, you can often help improve your overall rankings by increasing the relevance of the site to that search phrase. Consider also linking to other relevant pages within your site from the post.
Increased Traffic
Blogs are great for increasing traffic. Aside from the added traffic you may see from search ranking improvements, if your blog is interesting and topical, you will get some repeat visitors to your site as readers check back for new posts. If people really like your blog, they will spread the word, resulting in even more visitors. Just think, have you ever emailed or instant messaged a friend with a link to an article you have read? Don't you want your link to be the one passed around?
Credibility
By blogging regularly about your industry you will help to establish yourself as an expert. Many of your potential customers will see your blog and notice that you know what you're talking about and be more likely to utilize your services. By sharing your knowledge it can help to instill trust onto your visitors which can actually result in increased conversions. There are a lot of faceless, anonymous websites out there - an active blog can help people relate to you and trust you.
Links
A good, well written blog can result in free one way links to your site. Sometimes it is as simple as a fan adding your link to their blog roll, and other times it may be RSS working its magic. Try to squeeze in a link or two into your posts and direct them to other internal pages on your website. If anyone then republishes or syndicates your posts on their sites, you will also end up with a relevant back link. (If you would like some other ideas on link building be sure to check out Ways to Increase Link Density & Building Links with Directory Submissions )
A blog is not a magic bullet used to skyrocket your inbound link counts, but it can certainly help.
What Platform To Use
I am a firm believer in the power of WordPress and the seemingly unlimited plug-ins available to help you. That said, just about any blog platform will work. It is probably best to stick with the main stream providers as they tend to have more options available and better support forums in case you get stuck with customization issues. In the end however, any search friendly blog platform will ultimately do the trick.
Blog Post Ideas
If after reading this you are sitting there thinking, "What should I write about?" here are some ideas to help you get going:
• New product launches
• Press releases
• Industry relevant news
• How to's related to your product or service
• Answers to reader comments
• Posts revolving around relevant long tailed phrases
• In depth product descriptions or tutorials
• Company history or interesting stories
• Reviews of related products, services or online tools
Blogs are relevant for pretty much all industries, and they don't have to take a lot of your time. A little creativity can help you come up with ideas for posts, just try to think outside the proverbial box.
If you've been putting off the blogging idea for some time, consider getting started now. There is much to gain and very little to lose.
Source
While blogs work best if updated multiple times per week, even those with a new post every week or two have advantages. Blogs don't have to be a major undertaking, spending only an hour or so a week on posting can have you seeing results in no time.
There are many advantages to adding a blog to your website. Here are a few.
Increased Rankings
By boosting your topical content, you increase the value and relevance of your site. The more new stuff you add, the more of an authority you make your site, and this helps to improve your overall search rankings. It can also help you obtain rankings for "long tailed search phrases".
Long tailed search phrases are those that are less commonly searched, and usually exceed 3 or 4 words in length - they are also very targeted to your product or service. Blogs are great for getting rankings on long tailed search phrases. If you see a long tailed search phrase you want to rank for, use the phrase as the post title (if it makes sense to do so) and write a good, content rich post about it and your ranking potential for this phrase will rise.
By writing blog posts with your target phrases in mind, you can often help improve your overall rankings by increasing the relevance of the site to that search phrase. Consider also linking to other relevant pages within your site from the post.
Increased Traffic
Blogs are great for increasing traffic. Aside from the added traffic you may see from search ranking improvements, if your blog is interesting and topical, you will get some repeat visitors to your site as readers check back for new posts. If people really like your blog, they will spread the word, resulting in even more visitors. Just think, have you ever emailed or instant messaged a friend with a link to an article you have read? Don't you want your link to be the one passed around?
Credibility
By blogging regularly about your industry you will help to establish yourself as an expert. Many of your potential customers will see your blog and notice that you know what you're talking about and be more likely to utilize your services. By sharing your knowledge it can help to instill trust onto your visitors which can actually result in increased conversions. There are a lot of faceless, anonymous websites out there - an active blog can help people relate to you and trust you.
Links
A good, well written blog can result in free one way links to your site. Sometimes it is as simple as a fan adding your link to their blog roll, and other times it may be RSS working its magic. Try to squeeze in a link or two into your posts and direct them to other internal pages on your website. If anyone then republishes or syndicates your posts on their sites, you will also end up with a relevant back link. (If you would like some other ideas on link building be sure to check out Ways to Increase Link Density & Building Links with Directory Submissions )
A blog is not a magic bullet used to skyrocket your inbound link counts, but it can certainly help.
What Platform To Use
I am a firm believer in the power of WordPress and the seemingly unlimited plug-ins available to help you. That said, just about any blog platform will work. It is probably best to stick with the main stream providers as they tend to have more options available and better support forums in case you get stuck with customization issues. In the end however, any search friendly blog platform will ultimately do the trick.
Blog Post Ideas
If after reading this you are sitting there thinking, "What should I write about?" here are some ideas to help you get going:
• New product launches
• Press releases
• Industry relevant news
• How to's related to your product or service
• Answers to reader comments
• Posts revolving around relevant long tailed phrases
• In depth product descriptions or tutorials
• Company history or interesting stories
• Reviews of related products, services or online tools
Blogs are relevant for pretty much all industries, and they don't have to take a lot of your time. A little creativity can help you come up with ideas for posts, just try to think outside the proverbial box.
If you've been putting off the blogging idea for some time, consider getting started now. There is much to gain and very little to lose.
Source
May 10, 2009
Blogging and SEO - How it Can Help You
Blogging can greatly enhance any websites natural search results through regular posting, and natural keyword placement. There in fact is no stronger way to market ones website for free than by blogging with natural keywords.
Similar to article marketing, posting daily blogs with the keywords of your business included can have remarkable effects on the ranking of your site in any given search engine, and thus net you more traffic. The key to gaining more traffic from the keywords is what is called long tail keywords, and short tail keywords. The word tail refers to the length of the keyword term. A short tail keyword term would be “internet marketing” whereas a long tail keyword term would be “internet marketing for people that own mac computers” and so on. The short and long tailed keywords help your post get picked up in the search engine as highly applicable to the keyword that a person was searching in the first place.
Getting picked up in search engines can lead to huge masses of traffic heading to your site everyday. There are top keyword placers that use blogs to retain huge amounts of daily traffic to their sites just by implementing these long and short tail keywords into their posts. The amazing thing about blogs is they are picked up by the search engines almost as quickly as one posts to it, which makes it a wonderful tool for SEO purposes.
Another way blogging can help your sites search engine ranking is by the quality score. Most search engines, including Google rank sites with a quality score, the more unique, user provided content, the higher the quality score. If a website is just a sales page, and a few pictures, the quality score will most likely be low. But if a site has a blog on it, with fresh, daily posts, the quality score becomes much better, and thus the site gets ranked much higher when people are searching for your niche, or keyword terms.
Similar to article marketing, posting daily blogs with the keywords of your business included can have remarkable effects on the ranking of your site in any given search engine, and thus net you more traffic. The key to gaining more traffic from the keywords is what is called long tail keywords, and short tail keywords. The word tail refers to the length of the keyword term. A short tail keyword term would be “internet marketing” whereas a long tail keyword term would be “internet marketing for people that own mac computers” and so on. The short and long tailed keywords help your post get picked up in the search engine as highly applicable to the keyword that a person was searching in the first place.
Getting picked up in search engines can lead to huge masses of traffic heading to your site everyday. There are top keyword placers that use blogs to retain huge amounts of daily traffic to their sites just by implementing these long and short tail keywords into their posts. The amazing thing about blogs is they are picked up by the search engines almost as quickly as one posts to it, which makes it a wonderful tool for SEO purposes.
Another way blogging can help your sites search engine ranking is by the quality score. Most search engines, including Google rank sites with a quality score, the more unique, user provided content, the higher the quality score. If a website is just a sales page, and a few pictures, the quality score will most likely be low. But if a site has a blog on it, with fresh, daily posts, the quality score becomes much better, and thus the site gets ranked much higher when people are searching for your niche, or keyword terms.
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