When you hear the term “search engine optimization,” do your eyes get cloudy? I know mine used to, until I studied the practice intensively. I don’t know everything and frankly I don’t think it’s possible. SEO is like sticking your finger in a pile of mud and pulling out a diamond. No one online today knows exactly what search engine algorithms are and even if someone did, the knowledge would not last because search engines are changing all the time.
But there are some very simple things you can do on your website to make it more search engine friendly.
Research your keywords first. Think about what people might type into a search engine to find your product. For example, you may have a site on attention deficit disorder. If so, you may want to use the term ADD or ADHD. If you search for them on SEOBook.com (Select Keyword Tool), you will see that ADD appears second in the keyword list and ADHD first. You may think you want to use those words, but think again! The competition will be too high and it will be almost impossible to rank high for those keywords. Try to think of a phrase that is not so high on the list. It will be easier for you to rank high for lower ranking keywords.
After you’ve done your research and some great keywords, rate your chosen competitors. See what other sites use those same keywords on their pages. You can do this through the Alexa toolbar or a great free program called WebCEO.
Here are some things you can check: Do the sites have title tags? Do they have META tags and do they correctly display the chosen keywords? What is the density of keywords on the page? If you find these areas are missing from your competitor’s pages, you have a good chance of ranking high for your chosen keywords. But if you find the elements exist, ask yourself if you can do better. Can you create a better title, without empty words? Can you use keywords to create better density on the page?
If you say “Yes”, continue. If it says “No”, you may want to go back and investigate other terms. The goal is to be the best optimized page for the keywords you have chosen so that it will rank high. The top 30 places in the search engine for any given keyword are gold.
Once you’ve done all of this and are sure that your chosen keywords or keyword phrases are the best, be sure to use them in your page title. (If you’re unfamiliar with META tags, they reside in the “head” section of your web page. Look at the source code in whatever program you’re using to edit HTML and you’ll see what I mean.) Your TITLE tag should be the first line after the tag and your best keyword should be near the front of your title.
Use the keywords you have selected, without stop words like a, the, and, etc. Search engine spiders generally give up on words like that and your page may not rank. Try to remove them. For example, for my editing site, I used “Edit Copy | Writing Trainer”. I want people to know what I do and the search engine too. I edit texts, write and train. By using this title tag with no stopwords, the search engine will know as well.
The next important tag in your META tag section is your keyword tag. This is where you will re-list your keywords. Make sure to use the strongest word (the one with which you have the best chance of getting a high rank) first.
In your page text, be sure to use your keywords as often as possible without making it difficult for the viewer to read the page. Your copy has yet to flow. Underline or bold or italicize only once for each keyword. Also make sure your keywords appear in the first 25 and last 25 words on the page.
These are just a few simple tips to help you with SEO. It is not as difficult as it sounds and can mean the difference between a few visitors to your site and billions. SEO is something that many webmasters overlook. I myself heard Mark Joyner say it was unnecessary. Well, maybe it is for Mark, but for us little ones, it can be a huge boost. Make a few changes and see if SEO isn’t working for you.