So what is SEO anyway?
SEO – Search Engine Optimization – is a set of techniques designed to get websites at the highest page ranking of major search engines. This is important because search engines can bring a lot more traffic to a website, at minimum cost, thus bringing in more potential business or awareness.
There are over 200 million internet users in North America alone, and According to PEWresearch.org, 91% of all internet users use search engines, making it the most popular internet activity after email. So, your website needs to be found by search engines, how else can you get visitors?
Remember Keywords and Backlinks
The two most important things to remember about SEO are keywords and backlinks, they are the most effective way to get a high rank, if they are
used correctly.
Keyword Positioning
There are quite a few different places that keywords can go on your page. Some choice places for keywords are:
- title tag
- headings
- within the content
- meta description
- meta keywords
- images (alt tags)
- file names
To learn more about keywords and how to generate them, see the links in the sidebar to the right.
Using Squidoo.com to get Backlinks
Squidoo.com is a great place to get links back to your site. By typing the following into a Google search: “add+to+this+list”+site:squidoo.com you’ll be given a huge list of pages (lenses) where you can add your site, with custom anchor text if you want.
Another great function of squidoo is appending +”keyword phrase” onto the end of your Google query, then you can target your links for relevance. For example, if you were trying to rank a bakery site you could type: “add+to+this+list”+”nutrition”+site:squidoo.com.
Using Profiles to get Backlinks
Many sites that allow you to create profiles and interact with others provide higher PageRank, using the “do follow” links to the website listed in your profile.
When creating profiles on these sites (which you could do for every category your site falls in) you’re able to list your website, which becomes a high quality backlink to your site. For more information on how social media can help your site, visit Social SEO.
Find Similar Topic Sites to get Backlinks
There are many websites that function as a resource for people interested in a particular topic. For example, one site may keep a list of top dog training sites to visit. A backlink from pages like these can provide high quality, highly relevant backlinks.
The relevance of backlinks is being talked about much more by Google lately, and it is assumed that relevance will play a larger role in site ranking in the near future. The trick is to find these sites quickly and efficiently. We’ve found the following Google search queries to work very well:
- “Keyword phrase” + “add url”
- “Keyword phrase” + “add site”
- “Keyword phrase” + “add website”
Then Google will provide you with a list of sites to add your own, thus giving you backlinks. For more info on SEO and Google, visit Your Pal Google.
