SEO Tips for the do-it-yourself marketer (#2)

We all hear the term SEO ...but what does it mean and how can you use it to improve your business ?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

As part of your Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for and how they search for it. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Google says it ranks sites using more than 200 different signals! A person who put together their own site can go into the coding of their site to manipulate the necessary words, links and tags for essential seo.

Three "easy" Steps to SEO your own website.

1. Develop Great Content
2. Links
3. Relevant Tags and Keywords

Search engines look at a combination of over 200 factors to determine what pages
should rank for which queries. These factors include:

1. Information on the web pages. Your Page content and Title heading should tell a person what you do and what you are about...within the first few words or sentences. Secondly, you absolutely must spend a considerable amount of time gathering new and relevant data for your website. Content is King! Content refers to the information pages and articles on your website. Creating content that is entertaining, interesting, educational, informative, funny, or compelling in some other way is the best way for you to encourage people to visit your site
frequently, link to you, and ultimately improve your rankings. The more unique and interesting your content is, the more value it has to your site's visitors. This is what is going to draw your client and keep him/her on your site. Your client is searching for information and entertainment. The purchase comes second. If you
concentrate on just uploading excellent and regular content... your battle is half way over (but this is an ongoing job).

2. Links:
Links are the primary method a search engine uses to discover your website, and a key factor in its rankings. How reputable are your links and the pages linking to you ? What words are being used to link to you ? Links and Anchor text is one of the
mechanisms search engines use to tell what a page is about. Be sure you link to other relevant sources outside of your web page as well as link to other pages within your site. The link strategy will take you the longest time to implement properly. The idea is to have other relevant sites linking back to your web page. If you sold Janitorial services on the web, you may have a few supply companies that link to you and perhaps a few sites that give tips on specialized cleaning techniques (that you don't provide). You want to be seen as a huge relevant icon within your industry. Online directories and blogs are also an excellent source of links to your website. Regularly submit articles to a few directories and blogs and watch your links grow!

3. Meta Tags and keywords

Meta Tags (not so relevant as they used to be due to wide spread abuse) are
little word cluster site descriptions used within the program code of your
website. They are information inserted into the "head" or header area of your web pages. Other than the title tag, information in the head area of your web pages is not seen by those viewing your pages in browsers (but are seen and read by search engines and their robots). Create unique descriptions and use relevant tags and keywords for your business. Internet searchers spend much of their time surfing the net and using keywords in search engines to look for what they want, be it information, products or services. As a result, keyword marketing, plays a pivotal role in marketing and promoting any online business. Another tip to keyword marketing for your Internet business is to use phrases instead of single words.
Phrases tend to be slightly less generic than singular keywords and are also able
to more accurately describe the site or products you are promoting.