SEO Explained Pocket Guide

What Is SEO?

Exploring SEO, or search engine optimization is something that every business owner needs to do if he or she wishes to create a website that is highly effective for their particular needs. SEO is the method of optimizing a website so that it responds better to the search engines. You will make both internal and external changes to the website, or implement these methods from the start, that will increase the amount of traffic that flows to the website from search engines.

There are many aspects of SEO that should be implemented and there are many schools of thought in terms of what the right way to optimize a website should be. Some experts believe a very narrow approach should be taken while others believe that a more general approach is the better route to go.  SEO is the process of installing systems within your website that will show the search engines that the website is valuable to the person who is typing in the search.

The search engines rate websites by how effective the website is at providing quality information. Without the use of these methods, websites with very little real information could be viewed by the searcher, reducing his or her chances of finding the information the searcher needs to make the decision he or she needs. In other words, by using search engine optimization, you develop a website that is effective at meeting the searcher’s needs which makes the search engines direct more traffic to your website.

Most of the traffic, or visitors, to a website will come from the search engines Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AskJeeves, though there are many others. Each of these search engines has specific features it looks for in websites to determine how valuable they are to the person searching for content, information or resources. Your job, as the website owner or developer, is to design a website that proves to these search engines that the site is valuable. By doing this, you increase the number of people coming to the site and increase your business’s success online. Keep in mind that SEO practices are not abusive of search engine guidelines but they are tailored to help encourage a balance of quality content with effective keywords and design. By learning SEO, you allow your website the ability to excel on the web. Without it, you may have a hard time getting the visitors you want to the site.

How Search Engines Work

One of the most important things to understand about search engine optimization or SEO is how search engines work. It is because of how they work that you will need to implement some SEO rules into your website to get the desired results you are looking for. Search engines use a list of critical operations that allow them to determine how information is found in their system. Once you understand how search engines work, it is easier to know how to ensure your website fits within their methods.

One of the things that search engines do is to crawl the web. These are automated programs that are often referred to as spiders or bots. They crawl throughout the web and take a look at each of the documents and pages of websites that make up the web. It is important to note that these bots work, but they often work slower than the pace of the web. Some estimates show that of the 20 billion pages on the web, spiders have crawled through only half of them, if that.  Processing queries is another function of the search engine and that is something that most people are familiar with. When you log into your system and punch in a search for information online, the search engine looks through its massive index of websites and documents and matches your query with the websites that seem to best fit it. Often, the phrase or terms within the website are found on the page in the manner that the searcher is looking for.

Yet another way that these search engines work is through indexing documents and pages. As mentioned, when the spiders crawl through your page, they gather important information about it and then they store these pages in an index. When someone searches for information relevant to the website, such as with the use of key phrases, this ultimately leads the search engine to work through billions of documents in seconds to produce a list (search engine results page) of options for the searcher. Ranking is also an important process for search engines.

In short, all of those indexed pages are ranked by how valuable they are to the searcher. The algorithm used is complex and impossible to know specifically, but through SEO practices and rules, we do know some of these factors, which are critical for you to understand if you hope to build a successful website.

The Importance of Quality Content for SEO

One of the most common misconceptions is that in order to rank well for SEO you have to have pages and pages of content that are packed with keywords and phrases that relate to your topic. While it is very true that you do need to have a high quality design to your website that does incorporate important keywords, it is not true that you need to pack the website with too many keywords.

In fact, quality content is much more important to most website owners anyway. In fact, quality content makes a difference to search engines too.

Language Learned  One thing to realize is that website owners now need to focus on quality content more so than just seo terms. The fact of the matter is, quality content is not just something your readers want and expect to have, but it is also something that the search engines are learning from. Search engines like Google and Yahoo, for example, now have complex software programs that not only provide readers with the right website by using keywords but they also understand language. In fact, these programs are designed to actually keep learning language.

If your website is jam packed with useless information but has a great deal of keywords related to your topic, you will not fool these search engines. In most cases, you will see that your seo results are not anywhere near what they could be.

However, many website owners fail to see this and they jam pack the website even more so with keywords believing that they may not have the right information at all. The key, on the other hand, is to write quality content that relates to your readers. In fact, after you have done all of the work to get the reader to your page, the last thing you want to do is to not encourage them to stay there and to perform the action that you want them to! Provide them with valuable information and chances are good they will stick around for the long haul.

That is something you most definitely want to happen.  Instead of packing keywords with just basic information, provide quality content. Be sure that you avoid over stuffing your website with keywords. Focus less on density and more on quality content. In the end, that is what matters the most when it comes to improving your website's functionality.

Optimizing Content For SEO And Readability

How do you write content that is ideal for seo? There are many factors that play a role in the quality of content you write. You do want to use keywords, but looking beyond this, you also want to consider the actual structure of what you are writing. Take a step back and consider the way you were taught to write, where the first paragraphs provide a broad bit of knowledge and a lead in and the rest of the content provides more specific information. What this does is draw your reader deeper into the text and it keeps those all important keywords in the first paragraph of the document, too. There are several things to keep in mind about this style of writing. To help you, consider these tips:

 Ensure that your first paragraph describes the content that is to follow. You want this paragraph not to be news like in that it provides the most important information first, but it should give an indication of what is to come.

 Be sure to include keywords in this first paragraph but there is no benefit nor any reason to overdo it. It simply will not help you to get what you are looking for.

 In the next paragraph, begin to expand the content further. You want to keep drawing in the reader so that he or she moves farther into the text. You will likely begin to repeat some of your keywords here, but do not put too many in.

 Keep providing more specific information down into the article. You want to provide something new with each line or paragraph to keep the reader reading. If you are too redundant, chances are good that they will cut off their reading and move on.

 Do use the last paragraph of your document to sum up and to give direction. You want them to keep reading but you also want them to perform the action that you need. Therefore, include any information here you need to in order to get an action.

When you follow this type of organization for content, you are not only organizing the information for the reader, but you are also naturally including the important keywords where they need to be. That can help you to accomplish all of your goals from seo to overall readability and effectiveness of meeting the reader's needs and getting the results you need.

Keywords In Text

There is a great deal of benefit to building a website that fits your client’s or reader’s needs. You will create a site that naturally includes the most important keywords to it. However, for search engine optimization, it also makes sense for you to invest in a website that does use keywords. Keywords are the words that others type into search engines to help them to increase page rank in the search engine results pages. For that reason, you need to know how to use those keywords. Use them naturally. That is the first and the most important rule. Do not try to put too many keywords into your articles and blog posts because that creates something that is not valuable to the reader and the search engines will penalize you for doing that. However, most gurus will tell you that there are a few tips to using keywords.

These tips will help you to use keywords where they are most important to the next.

 Keywords should be in headlines. This will greatly improve the results you get.

 Use keywords within the first 90 characters of any article, piece of content or blog posts. Use just one in this way.

 Use a keyword in a subheading at some point through the content.

 Use a keyword in the last paragraph of a website.

 Use keywords where they fit naturally throughout the rest of the text.

As you can see, this is not necessarily a lot of keywords and it can be one of the worst things holding you back. Keep in mind that keywords can be one of the best resources for the web, but only if you use them properly. In other words, you do not want to focus on keywords that do not provide any value to your reader. Be sure that every line works to add something of value to your reader. You also want to keep all information valuable and avoid any duplicate content.

When you put all of these pieces together, you increase page rank in the search engines. You also end up with a stronger website because it should have a concentration of quality content that you readers can read and enjoy. Keep in mind that any type of keyword is going to be a good option, but only if it is used properly and not too much within the necessary context of any article or piece of content.

Is Your Website Hurting Your SEO

If you have taken the time to create a website that is well organized and fills the needs of your search engine optimization goals but you are not getting the results you want, before you become overwhelmed or frustrated, consider some of the problems that you could be experiencing. It is quite common for websites to have small things that are a problem that can be easily fixed that will create an incredible result. There are other things that can take a bit more time to build on. Keep in mind the following tips for building your business by first focusing on the mistakes on your site holding back your optimization. Answer the following questions to find out if your website could be hurting your optimization goals.

 Is your website just plain junk? In other words, does it only contain worthless information for the reader?

 Does your website contain information that is out of date or that is otherwise not useful to the reader right now?

 Does the website offer poor organization? If it is confusing to get from one page to the next or does not have an overall theme that is organized, that could be hurting your site, too.

 Does your website provide your readers with a call to action? In other words, does it tell them what they need to do right now to get the results they are after?

 Does your website cost too much right now? In many ways, it can be expensive to run a website but you do not have to have an expensive monthly bill to actually have an effective and well performing website.

 Is your website providing information that is too generic or to broad in nature?

 Does your website provide the reader with a solution to their problem? Most people head online to get an answer to their problem.

If you answered yes to these questions or even to just one, you already know what you need to do to rank better in search engines. The key is to remember that you are writing for your readers not for the search engines. When you get that bit of information in line, you can then begin to count on your search engine optimization skills. The focus point needs to be your reader and ranking will come naturally from that point on for your website.

Choosing The Right Keywords for SEO

Once you have taken the time to develop a full list of keywords to use for your website, you may be facing thousands of keywords. Many times, this type of research can take your website in numerous directions. For the first time website developer or the business owner hoping to create an effective website for their business and to compete against the ever expanding web, there is no doubt that having the right keywords matter.

However, the task of paring down your keyword options to find just those that are vital and effective for your website can be a big task itself. Take each of the keywords you have come up with and create a chart or a matrix. This process is one of the best ways for you to pare down your options in keywords and to create an effective and well balanced website that works for your particular needs.

Analyze the terms you have listed in the chart. There are several things to look for in doing this.

 Determine where the most valuable keywords are. This means determining which keywords most relate to the theme of your website. If you sell car parts, for example, using that term is going to be important.

 Determine where the traffic is. By looking at which keywords are important to your business and then ranking them by their importance in rank by how many types people type them into a search engine, you can really start to see the value of some words over others.

 Determine where the keywords are that are going to convert for you. Converting may mean getting sign ups or getting people to purchase from you. In the car parts example, the word car parts for sale may be an important keyword to use throughout your website, depending on how well it ranks against others similar.

The goal in creating this type of chart is to give you more information and comparison tools to help you to choose the keywords that are going to achieve your goals for the website. There are many different terms out there and sometimes it is not uncommon to have 10,000 or more keywords that could relate to the website. However, that does not mean that you should use all of those words. Rather, you want to compare your options by traffic, relevancy as well as conversions to make decisions.

Are Top Ranking Keywords Best For SEO?

When conducting research about SEO and keyword uses, there are many things to consider. You likely want to choose keywords that contain a good variety of the most popular keywords related to your website. That only makes sense since this is what ultimately will determine if your website is going to fit the needs for your clients and visitors.

However, hitting those top keywords may simply not be enough to get you on the top ranking for the search engine results pages. How could this be? Too Much Competition The more common that the keyword you choose is, the more websites are likely targeting that keyword. Let’s explain. Website owner A decides to build a website about car parts for his business. He conducts research and fines that the word used car parts is one of the most commonly typed keywords into the search engine.

He bases the website off that word. The problem is, there are dozens if not thousands of more website owners doing the same thing. The competition for used car parts is going to be significantly higher which means that he will work extra hard, and likely spend a great deal more, on building a website that is listed in the top search engine ranking pages.

What Is The Solution? In this particular situation, it may be best for the website owner to look at other keywords, including those keywords that are less likely to be the ones that website developers are using. Perhaps instead of the top 10 keywords, he focuses on 100 to 110 on the list of keywords he has. While the upper keywords are still used, including the lower keywords may mean better results.  You may not get the results for the used car parts term, because of the competition for it, but you are more likely to rank well for the lesser used keywords and have better results this way.

Most website owners will want to target keywords that span the range. Rather than focusing on just a handful of keywords, they may focus on more and that way have a bit of something for everyone.  When conducting your keyword research, it is important to consider not only what your clients and website visitors are looking for, but also what your competition is doing. Take into consideration what all of the keyword options you have are before you choose those top ranking keywords.

Duplicate Content and SEO

One of the mistakes you can make when it comes to search engine optimization is the use of duplicate content. The search engines call content that is found on other places on the web duplicate. If you use the same basic information on numerous pages of your website, that too, is duplicate content. As you work to build your website, it becomes critical for you to ensure that every page of the information you place on the site is unique. Otherwise, Google and each of the other search engines will punish you for not doing so.

Your Own Content

One of the first ways to prevent a problem with duplicate content is to ensure that the information you place on the site is your own content. Whether you hire a professional to write the content for you or you write it yourself, it is incredibly important to ensure that each page is actually newly written, fresh content that is not the same as any other page on the Internet. If it is the same, or it is very similar, then you run the risk of facing penalties for using the content. How does the search engine know this? There are programs available that allows for the system to detect copied material. This is also a violation of copyright laws, which you want to avoid.

Each Page Is Unique  Another duplication problem that some websites have is not copying information from one website to the next but rather they have information on their pages that is very similar from one page to the next. Each of your website's pages should be unique. That allows you to convey a clear message and it allows you to have great organization. If you have dozens or even hundreds of pages of content and it all is about the same basic thing, most of those pages will have duplicate content on them. Be sure that every page on your site is unique. What happens if you have duplicate content? Not only can this lead to problems with copyright infringement, but it also can lead to difficulties with search engine optimization. Your website will not be ranked well if the content on it is too similar to the content that is found on another page or on the website of another owner. The content that is posted first on the Internet is considered to be the original by search engine standards.

Online Tools for Keyword Research

One of the many ways that you can build your online website is through the use of keywords. Learning which keywords to include in your website is an important step in determining what type of results you will have from the search engine. Although there are many ways for you to determine which keywords are available, one of the most commonly used ways of researching keywords is through the use of online tools. These tools, which are free to use, allow you to plug in words that you believe are important to your website and the tool then tells you what related terms fit.

There are two main keyword research tools that have gained considerably appreciation and recognition as being well made and reliable. That includes Wordtracker and Overture. These tools, though somewhat different, do have the same goal, to provide you with information about which keywords you should use on your website. It is important to note that neither of these sites can guarantee that the information they provide to you will increase your ranking in the search engines, but if used properly, these tools will work for your goals. How They Work

Keyword tools like this work very effectively. All you need to do is to punch in the keyword that you think is important to your website. For example, if you are building a website about car parts, you would type the word car parts into the search field in these keyword research tools.

Once you did that, the tool will provide you with a list of keywords that people have typed into search engines related to that word.  What you will notice about these words is that they often range widely. Car parts search may include words such as:

 Used car parts

 Classic car parts

 Car performance parts

 Audi car parts

 Car quest auto parts

 Aftermarket car parts

 Car parts online

 Club car parts

 Car parts and accessories

Those are the top ten keywords for the search term car parts. The keyword tools will also provide you with a number which is the frequency that the words are used for. You can then pick and choose which of these keywords to include in the website you create to help you to build a traffic based website. Of course, choosing higher ranking is important, but a good variety is even better.

Does Site Accessibility Matter for SEO?

As you build your website with the game of building a website that has quality SEO, one thing you may make a mistake with is building a site that is accessible. You want visitors to be easily able to come to the website, see what they need to and then act the way you want them to, whether that is to make a purchase, sign up for something or take some other action. However, you also want search engines to have an easy time browsing and crawling through your website.  There are several things you can do to ensure that your website allows for the search engines to easily crawl through the pages. Keep these things in mind:

 The pages function properly. If the pages do not load or take too long to load, this could cause a problem with the search engines, not to mention your clients.

 Ensure that all HTML elements are in place. This means that you look at the HTML formatting and ensure that it is working properly.

 Uptime of your website is critical in nearly all situations. What is important to remember is that even one instance where the website is down could cause the search engines to miss your site. Having high uptime is critical to allowing those search engines to crawl your website and to determine its importance.

 Broken links are one of the worst problems you can have when developing your website. Imagine all the work you are doing to get visitors to your site and then when they are ready to sign up, the link does not work. Search engines will look at each of those links so even if the link may not be an important one for your website visitors, it is an important one for SEO ranking and therefore, you do want to ensure each one is working properly.

Is it hard to put all of this together? With a quality web programmer or a little attention to details, it is easy to avoid these common mistakes in regards to the accessibility of your website. You want your website to function for your visitors as well as for the search engines. If you do not take the time to do this, you may find that not all of the other work you do for SEO is going to benefit you in the long term.

Blog Commenting Equals SEO

When it comes to building search engine optimization for your website, there are factors that are important in the actual web building. For example, when you write articles or you build your business, you do need to focus on keywords as well as meta tags and other details. However, you cannot simply throw up the website, even with all of these details and believe that that is all that you need to do. The fact is, doing things like blog commenting can really help to build your website overall.

Traffic Means Importance One of the reasons that you need to comment on blogs or to do other types of marketing is because it can build traffic to your website. For example, if you need to build a website on sleep disorders, you do want to visit blogs that people are writing that have to do with sleep problems and interact on those sites.

By interacting, you gain several key advantages.

 Whenever you comment on a blog, you get to leave a link behind to the blog or website that you have. That means that anyone that is able to go to that blog you are leaving a comment on can also click on the link in your comment and be taken to your website.

 This increases traffic to your blog.

 This also increases the links that are on other websites pointing to your own. That is something that search engines like.

Search engines also value traffic. In other words, a blog or website that is getting traffic to it is going to rank better than any website that is not getting traffic. This is because these websites are simply more important to the masses on the web than those that are not getting traffic. As you build traffic to your website, this will increase your page ranking results which further increase your traffic.

Commenting on blogs is something you should do but it is not something that you should abuse. There is no benefit to spamming other people’s blogs and it is a sure fire thing that they will not allow you to continue to do that. It takes a great deal to build up a reputation on the web but blog commenting is one of the best ways that you can do that. It is a roundabout way to build traffic to your website but it is highly effective.

Common SEO Mistakes

As a beginner in search engine optimization, it is easy to make some of the most common mistakes people make. In short, search engines are designed to respond only to the websites and its pages, not to your lack of experience in creating them. This often leads to individuals who have the willingness to do really well and have all the right intentions but seem to be lacking in the actual ability to put together an effective website.

That leads to mistakes. The following are some of the most common mistakes individuals make when designing their websites.

 Design your site for your readers not for your search engines. Be sure that every page is designed to be easy to read and highly effective so that your readers will benefit from it first off.

 Do not spend so much time on keyword research that you waste time getting your site up. The bottom line is that it takes time for any site to rank well in the search engines and it is unlikely that spending months and months on keyword research is going to help it.

 Do not over use keywords. Choose the top keywords for each of the pages based on the actual content and the research you have done. Do not use dozens of keywords on each page. It will hurt your rankings, not help them.

 Do not create a site that is boring or does not have a personal touch. The most effective websites are those that fill a need, answer a question or solve a problem from a personal approach. Get involved in sharing your knowledge with others.

 Avoid spamming other websites or blogs to get links to your site. Too many links found on the wrong types of sites will not help you to build your business but will in fact hurt your business in the long term.

Do take the time to learn all you can about search engine optimization and how to use it effectively. It will help you to build an effective website that performs as you would like it to. Keep in mind that your goal is not to just rank well in the search engines but it is to increase traffic on a regular basis. You can only do that with a website that is designed to meet your reader’s particular needs rather than the needs of the search engines.

Keyword Research Through Brainstorming

As you work to build a website using SEO, you will need to do some keyword research. Keyword research is the process you will work through to determine which keywords you should use within the pages of your website to attract visitors. It is important to know what keywords are. Keywords are the words that people enter into search engines to find information or websites that are like yours. Search engines rank websites by how well they meet the requirements of those who are looking for information related to those particular words.

SEO utilizes keywords. You will use keywords on your website pages to attract search engines and therefore increase the number of visitors you have coming to your website. However, what you do not realize just yet is that there are many words that people type into search engines each day all looking for the same information. You need to learn what those words are so that you can better create your website to include them. Keyword research is the method of allowing you to do just that.

One of the best ways to start keyword research is to brainstorm. Getting out a sheet of paper and writing is the best way to start the keyword research process. Here are some tips to help you:

 Think about your potential visitors. Who are they?

 What words do your visitors use to talk about your services, products or information?

 Which wordings are alternatives to the most common words used on your site? For example, a word like car has alternatives such as automobile, vehicle, truck, van, etc.

 What types of alternate spellings are common for those words?

 What synonyms are used?

If you are unsure about what types of keywords you can use, take the time to talk to other people. When they are looking for car parts, for example, what would they type into a search engine box? Some words might include:

 Car parts

 Parts to fix my car

 Car shop

 Automobile equipment

 Specific terms related to the actual car part, such as, “engine for Ford Escort 2002.”

Each of these terms is unique and they are likely to be typed into search engines dozens if not thousands of times each hour. It is up to you to include those that you believe are more relevant to your website to ensure that visitors will find your information and website.

Are Links Important to SEO?

The goal of search engine optimization is to show the search engines that your website is important to people who are looking for information on your topic. To do this, you need to use the right keywords on the site and you need to put a good deal of time into building a site that is packed with necessary and useful information.

But, that is not all you need to do to create the powerful site that you need to rank well in search engines. You also need to build links that are pointing into your website.  A link that points into your website is one that is on another website. A link connects another website to your site. It is just as important as any other type of website link that you may have on your site. What can this do for you?

 It helps to show the search engines that another website owner thinks that your website is important enough to link to it. That helps you to gain some improvement in ranking in the search engines, too.

 It helps to direct the visitors of one website to your site, too. For example, you can often feed off of the traffic that the other website is getting since people will click through from that website to your own.

 Links also help you to build search engine rankings by being useful. In other words, if you just have a number of links pointing to your website but those websites are not high in quality or worthwhile to your topic or website, you may find that there is simply no benefit to you.

The key is to network with other website owners to help you to build some credibility like this. One of the easiest ways to do so is to find other website owners that are similar to your own but are not your direct competition.

Rather, you want to focus on finding websites that may share the same type of customers and visitors as you do but may actually point in another topic direction. You do not want your competition stealing your business.  When you consider all of the methods of search engine optimization that you are considering for your website, link building is one of the most important. It does not have to be overly complex but it should be done well with the intention of adding value to the reader's experience on your site.

Long Tail Keywords for SEO

There are many aspects of SEO that are important but even if you do every one of those things right, you may find that there is simply too much competition against others who have similar websites to your own. What are you to do in such a situation? One of the things you should focus on from the start is the use of long tail keywords.

Long tail keywords are similar to any other type of keyword in that they are the words that a person is typing into a web search engine to look for your website or websites like your own. However, they are longer and more specific. There are several key reasons why targeting these long tail keywords is important to building successful SEO. One of those reasons is the simple fact that your website will perform better in conversions when you use these words instead of the generic terms.

For example, if you are trying to get your auto parts business online, building a website that targets words like auto parts is helpful, but it may be better to target actual locations. For example, you may want to choose keywords such as auto parts New York or auto parts Dallas. The difference here is that you are adding specification to the keywords which means that those in New York or Dallas who are looking for auto parts can find a local company to help them.

These types of keywords are long tail. They are made up of three or more words that relate to the keyword and provide the user with a more specialized search. Locations are not the only option for you to consider here. You may have a very specialized type of auto part that you sell. You may be building a website that discusses a specific type of vehicle.  Just like the research you do for traditional keywords, you also need to do the same type of research with long tail keywords.

These keywords may not be used as much, but when you use them, you are likely to get a more specialized visitor to your website which may mean that you will turn a profit faster from that visitor than you would from a generic keyword. Long tail keywords should be included in your website to ensure that you are hitting your target market when it comes to visitors to your website.

10 Top Tips for SEO Success

Consider the following ten tips. They will help you to create a website that performs the way that you want it to. They will help you to have success with search engine optimization so that your website ranks well in the search engines. These ten tips can help you to find the success you are after.

 Take the time to write a website that is for your readers first and foremost. Not only does this help with SEO but it will also keep your readers coming back time and time again.

 Do keyword research. You do need to know what people are looking for on the web if you want to be able to interact with them. Use tools to help you to accomplish this.

 Use important keywords in the headline of any blog post, article or piece of web content. You also want to include these keywords in your page headings including in your category organization.

 Do create a sitemap. Sitemaps help with search engine ranking and they help you readers to find the information that they need. They are easy to create, too.

 Do check your website for broken links. Not only will broken links hurt your website itself because your readers are unable to get around, but your search engines are unable to index your site if they cannot get through your links.

 Invest the time in finding others to build a link building relationship with. You want to have quality websites pointing links back to your website so that you can benefit from the increased traffic and from the improved ranking benefits.

 Do use keywords in your text but use them naturally, like the way you would talk. You do want to use keywords close to the beginning and end of the text, but you do want to avoid overstuffing keywords.

 It is better to write well than to consider keyword density.

 Choose a handful of keywords to include in your site and stick with them. Do focus on long tail keywords as these get more targeted results.

 Do market your website through commenting on blogs and visiting forums. You want others to actually get to know you so they want to get to know your site.

These ten tops can help you to build a site that features more keyword success. Focus on search engine optimization that builds a great site.

Sitemaps for SEO

A sitemap is an interesting concept for a website. Many people do not realize that it can add to your seo strength too, not only providing your readers with the ability to easily find information and resources on your website. How can a sitemap help you with seo? The first step is to know what one is. Then, you can learn just how it can work for your particular goals of search engine optimization. Keep in mind that some websites do not need these, but in many cases, they can be helpful all around so you do want to consider using them.

What Is A Sitemap?

The first question often asked is about the sitemap itself. What is this? Most websites have them and it is often a good idea to take a look at how one is set up to learn better how it all works. However, the basic goal of this page of a website is to have one page where every other page is linked to. For example, your home page links to the sitemap. Each of the other pages links to this sitemap page, too. The page itself contains links and descriptions for each of the pages on your site. That way, if a visitor comes to your website and needs to find specific content, he or she can do so by visiting this page and reading the description of each of the other pages of the site.

Why Is It Helpful?

The obvious answer to this is that it provides your website reader with access to the information that he or she is looking for. That is highly effective and necessary in nearly all situations. In addition, this page also helps the search engines to reach each of the website pages and it allows them to index each one. Further, it often serves as a tool for adding some keywords to the site since this page would naturally include many of your all-important keywords on the page.  When you take the time to add this type of page to your site, you can get the organization that you need. It does not have to be hard to create such a page. If your website is very large, you can create a page that simply links to each of the category pages on your site instead. Keep in mind that organization is important when creating this type of page.

Linking to Other Sites

Although it is important for you to focus on creating great content for your website visitors, it is also important for you to focus on building traffic to your website. One way to do this is to place links on your website to other sites in the hopes that the other website owner will do the same for you.

However, building traffic to your website is an important step in being successfully online. Many website owners do not realize the true benefit of investing in linking to valuable sites outside of your site is a great tool for increasing traffic and building search engine optimization.

Linking to other websites is an important part of showing the search engines the importance of your website. If you do not put in enough time to this step in the process, chances are good you are missing out on an opportunity that could help your website to flourish. Here are some tips to help you through this process.

 Link to sites that are not your direct competition but add value to your website. For example, if you are talking about a statistic, link to the authority website providing that statistic.

 Do link to larger sites and those that are more respected on the web. If you link to numerous small blogs, without any larger sites, you could find that your website is not getting the traffic and the response you are looking for.

 Network with other website owners to make sure those links are providing you with the best opportunity they can. In other words, have the other website owner link back to your site, too. That only takes minimal effort, and you will  be able to get the most out of your investment.

When you are linking to other sites, you will need to make sure you are working with sites that have relevance. You will need to make sure that what it is you are looking at will be able to go and provide you with customers as well as generate enough business for you to be able to justify the money you are spending as well as the time you will be putting into this. It is a matter of doing the research that is necessary to be able to go and get the customers you want at the least amount of time and effort needed.

SEO And Keywords

One of the foundations of SEO is the keyword. Search engines rely on these keywords when they are trying to rank pages and index them. Keywords are any words that people use to find your website or websites like yours in the search engines. For example, if you were looking for car parts, the words “car parts” are what you would enter into the search engine to find the information you were looking for. Search engines use keywords to help you to find pages that will help you.

What is important to note, though, is that keywords are a tool that you should use within your website, too. Search engines use the information a searcher puts into a search engine box as the start of the search for the searcher’s answers. Once you put that keyword in, the search engines use a complex algorithm and ordering process to find pages on the web that relate to you. It then returns a list of pages called the search engine results page, that the search engine feels best meets your needs. However, search engines are more complex today than ever before.

Now, they can take basic works like car parts and look for terms that are not an exact match but are similar. Automobile parts, for example may also be included in the search results for car parts.  How do keywords matter to you?

There are several things to remember as you build your website, including how to use keywords within it to attract those search engines. You want the search engines to include your website in the top ranks of the search engine results page.

 Using the keywords that searchers are looking for in your web pages becomes critical to building your website.

 Using related terms to your website is also important.

 Also, keywords do not just relate to the actual webpage content but also to the hyperlinks and meta tags for each of the pages. You should include keywords here, too.

Keywords are the foundation element of good SEO, but there is more to learn about them than just these basics. In short, you want to create a website that responds well to the user who visits, which means providing clear information that is valuable. The combination of the right keywords and the right use of content will help your website to improve over and over again when it comes to value.

You Cannot Buy SEO

There are many things you can do to build up your website and to create an effective game plan for it. There are also many mistakes you can make including overusing keywords and simply spending too much time focused on the mechanics of the site. However, there is another problem that some online newbies make that could be worse than just building a website that is not ranking well.

That is buying everything they can and investing all of the time they can in the wrong processes.  The fact is, there are some great programs out there that can help you and there are some great products that can give you the resources you need but if you continue to buy and buy and buy, and learn and learn and learn, you are missing out on one important factor: doing it! In order for your business to work and for your website to be built, you need to invest what you know right now in getting it started.  Here are some common mistakes that people often make:

 They spend countless hours constructing a blog post that contains numerous keywords. Focus on quality instead! Write from your heart or what is on your mind, not based on keywords.

 They spend dozens of hours on keyword research. Sure, an organizational chart is helpful, but there is no benefit in putting hours worth of work into such a project when you have an outstanding idea of what your top keywords are already.

 You buy books, software, courses, training seminars and so on but you fail to use and implement the information that is taught to you in them. Rather, you just keep investing in them.

 On the flip side, perhaps you think that you know it all. You taught yourself how to build a website and how to use keywords. If your methods are taking too long to implement or are not working for you, it may be time to consider getting some help from someone who is successful.

All of these things can help you to do well with search engine optimization, but what is important here is to get the process started. Get the information onto paper and get the website up. The amount of time you waste with research and learning more is time that could be spent improving a site instead. Consider the importance of getting started on your website.

Tags and SEO

SEO or search engine optimization is the method of organizing your website so that it performs well for the search engines which in turn will allow you to get more traffic streaming into your website. There are many aspects of SEO but one that you may forget about that is important are your tags. Tags, including title tags and metal data are very important to SEO.

In fact, search engines turn here to get more information about your website. Get it right and chances are good that you will have more success. URLs, meta data and title tags are all components of your website that describe it. They provide visitors to the website after providing the visitors with enough information to get them there. They also provide information to the search engines including which keywords are most important to your website.

When creating tags, it is important to keep them relevant to the website and its content, compelling enough to draw people in and accurate in terms of keywords and information. All of these factors will help to ensure that your website is providing the right environment for visitors. As you work to build your website, ensure that the site’s tags answer some key important questions:

 What are the most important keywords to the website? You should include your keywords here.

 Why should a visitor visit the site? Providing compelling and factual information about what they will find when they arrive at your site to draw the visitors in.

 Ensure that all information is factual. Put your main keywords into these, not just any keywords. You want the search engines to know the importance of those keywords to your website.

 Be sure all of the formatting and the HTML itself is done properly. This ensures that the information is read right and is presented properly.

Tags are often one of the factors that website owners do not focus on. While there are many services that will create these tags for you, taking a personal hand at putting them together is far more important and it will provide you with more control over what your website has to offer. Keep in mind that tags are just one component of SEO but they are one that you do not want to avoid. In fact, you are sure to find a wide range of resources available to you to help you in crafting these types of compelling and effective tags.

Testing Our You Keyword Choices

Conducting keyword research is critical to the development of websites. This allows you to create an effective website with SEO that attracts search engines.

When those search engines are crawling through your page, you want them to pick up on the keywords you have included. That way, when someone types those keywords into a search engine, your website becomes evident on the search engine results page. When this occurs, the result is simple. You get traffic to your website that achieves your goals. However, it is common for website owners to create websites using the most well researched keywords out there and then not have results. Why does this happen? There are many ways that there could be problems.

You may have used the keywords too much or not enough. You may not be providing valuable content. There may be other factors that are affecting the SEO of your website that you do not know about. What are you to do about this problem? The good news is that you can prevent it. There are some excellent tools available to website owners that can provide them with a test, so to speak, of the system. It goes without saying that some websites will perform better than others because they have been in place sooner. However, even a brand new website can do well when proper website tools and SEO are used. That is why it is important to test out the performance of your website. You can do this using tools that test and analyze the website and determine how well keyword selection and implementation have occurred.

Some of the top performing website tools for this include Indextools and ClickTracks. All you need to do is to punch in the url for your website and these tools take off. They test the web traffic that you are getting and the activity you are seeing. They will even help you to analyze things like conversions. The ultimate goal is to learn which keywords are working for you and which are not.

When you use this tool, take the information that is provided to you and then refine your keywords. You can use these tools to help guide further decisions you make or to help you to

create better copy and SEO for the website from where you are now. The key is to use these tools to learn what the performance options are for you.

URL’S and SEO

Search engine optimization is great for helping search engines to find and rank your website well. However, there is more to it than just that. In fact, it is all about your website’s visitors, too. One way that these two elements come together is with the URL of your website. The URL is the website’s address. It is the address that is located in the browser bar when you visit the site. Believe it or not, the URL that you use is an important factor in SEO for your website, too.  The URL should be descriptive but not too long. The combination of these two factors will help ensure that your website gets the best possible results when it comes visitors and search engines. It may seem hard to do this, but there are a few things that can help you.

 When choosing your URL for your website, include the keywords that are most descriptive for your website. You want the URL to include keywords for SEO reasons and to help encourage visitors to visit it. If you are writing a website about loans, ensuring the world “loan” or “lender” is helpful, for example.

 When selecting the URL for each of the pages of your website, keep the same mentality. You want to choose words that will help ensure that the website is going to provide you with an informative element. For example, include information about what the page will include, perhaps reviews or tips, etc. The key is to make the text mean something.

 Keep it as short as possible while still getting your point across. Otherwise, the information that the reader wants will not be visible to them on the site.

 Keep the other elements of the URL, including what are called the dynamic parameters, as small and as little as possible part of the URL itself. This simplifies the process as much as possible.

The URL for your website is an important element of it. It is always a good idea to invest in a URL that is memorable for the reader, too. Take some time to consider your currently URL. Does it fit these SEO guidelines? It is not just SEO that will benefit from the inclusion of these tips either. You readers will benefit from these guidelines as well. That will help turn your visitors into profitable partners when they do find your website and visit.

Keyword Density for SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, has to do with keywords. Some people spend a great deal of time on keyword research (which you should) and then fail on the next step of implementing the keywords into their website. The first and foremost goal you should have is to create a website that offers critical information and valuable content to the reader. Beyond anything else, you want the visitor to your site to be able to react to the information you provide. This is one of the main reasons some owners put too many keywords into their website.

One of the ways that you can ensure you are getting the best possible results from your SEO usage is to use the right keyword density. Some website developers and gurus believe that you should not focus on keyword density, which is the number of keywords used in the content of the website compared to the other words used. It is true that you should have a well designed layout and content that is very helpful to the reader above anything else. However, many website owners feel the importance of having a number to work towards. You can use a keyword density as a guideline for your website’s content, but you want to keep that density low. There is no benefit to adding too many keywords to your website. If you do so, you will only confuse readers with poorly worded website content and you will drive the search engines away. The days of keyword stuffing web pages are long gone and today search engines can actually detect quality content.

Therefore, you are not doing yourself any favors by including too many keywords on a page, no matter how relevant they are for your website itself. Keyword density should always be as low as is possible with a maximum goal of two percent. If it is higher than that, chances are good that you will have awkwardly worded text that does not fulfill the needs of the reader, who is the person that you are building the website for, after all. Quality content should be your first goal.

From that point, you can use density as a way of telling you if you are meeting the minimums without overtaking the highest usage of keywords at the same time. Focus on choosing the right keywords and creating quality and readable content for your readers.