Search Engine Optimization: It’s Not Rocket Science
Author of this post: Karen Morrill-McClure | About Blog Authors »
Search engine optimization is big business these days. Type SEO into Google and you’ll find hundreds of individuals and organizations promising to place your page near the top of the major indexes, for a fee of course.
Unfortunately, it’s rarely that simple, for each search engine has its own secret formula for generating results. Meta tags, links and who knows what else influence these calculations, so there is just no one right answer. However, at the most basic level, all search engines seek to deliver the pages most relevant to the search terms entered by the user, so there is at least one technique that always gets results – keyword placement.
When a user enters terms into a search engine, the engine starts to scan the web looking for those words. If the engine finds the words on a page, it will count how many times the words appear and also determine whether the words appear in conjunction or on their own. If the words are grouped together, it’s more likely that the page is a good result.
So, how can you associate your page with certain keywords? It’s simple really. Put them on your page. Put the keywords in the title element, the headings, the file name, and the text of the page.
For example, if you want people to find your information about green turtles, you should title your page Green Turtles. You should also include headings that will make sense to both the reader and the search engines, such as Green Turtles in the Wild, Green Turtles in Captivity, and Diet of Green Turtles. Do this and odds are your page will rank high on a search for green turtles.
Bonus Tip #1: Graphics aren’t searchable, so any text embedded in an image is effectively invisible to a search engine. I still come across sites where much of the text is placed within graphics. This may be aesthetically pleasing and perhaps designer doesn’t know any better, but whatever the case, the engines are shut out. Make as the much of the text on your page actual HTML text and your page will load faster, scale better, and work better with the search engines.
Bonus Tip #2: Don’t focus on single keywords but rather keyword phrases. There are five million pages on the web that contain the word cat, so a search for just that term produces meaningless results. If your page is actually about a Cat Club in California, then that’s the keyword phrase you want to have on your page.
Finally, my thoughts on meta tags and reciprocal link arrangments: Most search engines ignore meta tags, on the basis that the text of the page is a better indicator of relevance. Back in the early days of the internet, search engines used meta tags to aid in categorization, but shady SEO ‘specialists’ stuffed their meta tags with unrelated terms just to get better page ranks, ruining them for the rest of us. Reciprocal links are always good, but they need to be quality links from sites about your topic. Neither technique is worthy of much time or effort, but they are the buzz words that clients will know. Hopefully, you can steer your clients in a more productive direction; help them create good text that contains your keywords.
October 1st, 2007 at 12:33 pm
[...] Original post by Karen Morrill-McClure [...]
October 4th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Nice post….!!! But i would like to mention here that there are so many other factors as well which need to be kept in mind while doing SEO or if you are at initial stage of building your website. As you indicated that the graphics are not SEO friendly, but one thing could be done to have those flash/graphics getting indexed in search engines by having alt tags with relevant keywords. Link building is also a good option to increase site visibility but there are many guidelines which need to be followed while looking for potential link partners. Directory submission is also an essential part of SEO process. So if one does all these things in proper way then there are bright chances of getting the top placements in search engines results.
October 4th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Yes, you’re right about other factors, I wanted to hit the factors that make the largest impact for the time spent. The fact is that many of my clients don’t want to make the effort to get their text in order, when that is the first and foremost factor.
Also, many of my clients are not in a very crowded field. They aren’t competing with other similar sites for users attention, they need to get their results linked to the right keywords so that the people who are looking for them, will find them. Once again, that is heavily influenced by keywords.
October 14th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Keyword placement on the page is one of the variables to achieve higher placement on the search engines. Indeed, each search engines have their own algorithmic formula to determine whether a page is qualified to be on top or not. As common formula, of course, place your keyword target on a page but sometimes it is not necessarily to do so. There are thousand ways to go to China …. it’s the same with SEO :).
October 17th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
nice post :) thanks
October 18th, 2007 at 4:40 am
Nice article about SEO, i would like to add some basic things that also matter for seo. If u talking about design of template and SEO than do not use more flash or java scripts as crawler can not read it. and there are millions of small factor which affect the ranking. SEO/SEM is best field today and very tough if u go in depth. as u have to take care of site structure and need to learn new strategies every day.
October 18th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
nice reference. thanks. it’s really good for newbie and others too
October 24th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
seemslike rocket science to me…
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October 29th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
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November 2nd, 2007 at 4:04 pm
nice pos!. I will try some points on my site.
René
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:20 am
Interesting post, but one myth needs to be killed about SEO - search engines DON’T do a live search when you type into a search engine box, the work has already been done before, and ‘filed,’ The challenge is to understand how the speiders do this filing and rank you, i.e. the keyword phrases you use and the quality of websites that link to you and how they describe you.
November 4th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
This is some good valid general information. What many web site owners don’t understand is how to gauge the value of an incoming link. The quality of links vary and that quality impacts your Google rankings over time. My favorite post on this topic is Jim Boykin’s blog post about “How to understand co-citation.” I think anyone here who hasn’t read his article will learn something.
November 6th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Strategic Internet marketing is a better way to define SEO and getting the attention of your potential market. Before you build a website or Internet business you must studying your potential customers, examine your competition, and explore your opportunities for success. Optimum sales require optimum effort on your part. Starting an online business without first looking at strategic Internet marketing is a sure-fire way to expect failure, both in ROI and SEO
November 6th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
LOL SEO isn’t rocket science … (cool picture) but keeping your site high in google is :) seems no matter your seo workload, it’s a daily battle
November 7th, 2007 at 1:53 am
Great post. As a web developer, I often warn clients about companies that can guarantee them a top ten rating in Google. First, it ain’t gonna happen! Second, the only thing you can be guaranteed is that they will take your money. The criteria that Google uses is kept top secret, and there are no magic fixes.
With that said, there is something I would like to add a point to your article. Besides ensuring you use keywords, there is another sure fire way to get higher rankings. Write content that is valuable to your audience! The internet is still about information, and if you have expert knowledge on a subject, people will look for it. In addition, Google places a high level of importance on how many websites are linking to yours. The best way to get links is to publish content that will be of interest to your audience - like this one!
November 7th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
These are great tips on SEO. Google and other search engines always place a great importance on keyword placement on your site and also how many sites link to yours. Great Article!
November 7th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
As a person new to this game, there is such alot relevance placed upon link submission. Are manual submission companies a worthwhile investment. What are the chances they will link to link farms - will this damage ur sites reputation.
Thanks
November 16th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
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November 18th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Regarding Tip #1, if you have to use graphics, at least be sure to use the ALT tags and stick in your keyword there as well (in a matter that makes sense). In addition to the SEO value, it’ll provide help for those who have graphics turned off.
November 21st, 2007 at 2:38 am
Good post. Phrases are good not only because of lack of competition but it brings “targeted traffic?.
A person who types in cat could only want some information about their food or care etc. But if he or she typed “buy Siamese cat” , the mindset is usually to buy.
The next step for SEO is backlinks which requires a whole new story.
November 26th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
“So, how can you associate your page with certain keywords? It’s simple really. Put them on http://www.thetopiaproject.com your page. Put the keywords in the title element, the headings, the file name, and the text of the page.”
very good advice there.
November 27th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
While it’s not rocket science, it is a little more in depth than this post states it is. Sure the basics are simple, but like everything else it comes down to action, action, action
November 28th, 2007 at 1:47 am
Yeah, you are right that it’s not rocket science because its much more complicated than that. The algos are impossible to figure out completely.
November 28th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Search Engine Optimization is not rocket science! While no one will ever figure out the search engine algo’s completely all you need to do is setup your website following good standards and business practices. Write interesting unique content about your topic knowing what keyords people use to find you, and make sure you promote the heck out of our site online in any all means available.
You will a) get direct traffic; b) get people talking and blogging about you; c) people will link to you.
Soon afterwards you’ll see a rise in your rankings!
The reason why firms exist to help companies with this is not because its rocket science but because its far to time consuming - and way to specialized a topic for the average business owner to wrap their heads arond.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Excellent, thanks for the great information.
One thing I also like to do is to optimize the page title. To do this I use freebie software that analyzes your page title and then rates how effective it’s likely to be:
http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/
I hope you or your readers find it useful?
December 5th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Great tips posted there Karen! Amazingly enough, I did a PDF report today on some SERPs for the keyword “make money online” and this is totally relevant! Cheers! ;)
December 5th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
It’s great to illustrate the basics of SEO, but it’s also important to note that there are over 100 metrics that search engines such as Google use to determine rankings. All of these metrics need to be paid attention to for extremely competitive industries and keyword phrases.
December 20th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
That is a great article. There was a lot of great tips in there.
December 30th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
seo optimization is not rocket science but does take time to learn if you have the patience to learn it. there is so may factors to learn about.
January 1st, 2008 at 5:17 am
Those are indeed very nice tips
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
i think it can be rocket science. one thing that needs to be taken into account as well, is that every market is different. you might design one site, and market it with HUGE success, because the market is so small; but then you might be marketing a site where the product is a very popular topic on the net. this could become very tricky!
January 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Another big article, thanks for this post! your tips are great
January 5th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
You are right to say that mega tags are not that important for search engine optimization these days. In fact they are part of on-page optimization factors like bolding text, keyword density which are things you should do, but they are not nearly as important as the off page factors.
One the other hand, off page search engine optimization factors will get your website to the top of the search engines. Off page search engine optimization essentially refers to one very important factor and that is which other websites are linking to your website and how they’re doing it. These include:
Anchor text used in the link
The title of the page your link is on
The page rank of the page your link is on
The “theme” of the website your link is on
The age of the website linking to you
Link management is an important aspect of off page optimization and you’d be better off having fewer quality links than a whole bunch of unreliable and unrelated theme ones.
Work From Home Ideas
January 8th, 2008 at 11:33 am
For novices, it’s remember to important that whilst the description is not as important for SEO, it’s still very important for click through. You might have great rankings, but without a compelling description you won’t get any traffic.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Focus on the content placed on the page. Make a list of key phrases you think people will use to search out your site then write keyword rich content using your list. Personally I hate summarizing keywords and phrases so I use SiteClimb. I wrote it out of frustration to handle all my meta tag and title keyword placement issues. It just freed me to focus on writing great content! No more tedious work. Good luck on your own pages!
January 13th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Nice article. i hope it will help me too.
January 13th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
“Bonus Tip #1: Graphics aren’t searchable”
But they are, by adding an alt tag you let the search engines know what your picture is all about !
January 18th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I agree, yet you do need the requisite knowledge and experience to do it well
January 21st, 2008 at 12:12 pm
You can imbed ‘alt text’ with graphics
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:21 am
The only meta tag that really matters at all is the description as this is the one Google uses for your listing in the serps. The title tag is even more important (make sure it has your most important targeted keyword phrase first) than that. There is a whole boatload of other on-page factors that need to be taken into consideration but I’ll save that info for my clients….
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
you are absolutely right. seo is not rocket science. as long as you keep up with the changes and constantely do research you should be ok
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Avoid any black-hat techniques that could have you linked to sites that send spam or scams or the search engines will deal with this severely. So the message is that you must know exactly who you are linked to. You should at least check out your link partners’ site and obtain a certain degree of comfort with their business, although at times, this may prove quite a challenge. One suggestion would be to obtain as much information including any bad publicity through what else - your reliable search engines
Best Home Based Internet Business
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Great post Karen Morrill-McClure ! bookmarked :) have been looking out for something
like this for a while…
February 1st, 2008 at 5:18 am
hi karen! tank you for sharing your ideas regarding SEO. it really helps me understand more about SEO.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
An interesting way to get listed legally and white hat is to use the combination of video and article marketing. A simple video can be produced using only PowerPoint and windows movie maker. With keyword and web address placement in the title and tags you can virtually create pages of listings for a new brand in hours. An e-book SEOVideoGold explains this technique in detail. They even provide SEOVideoGold Proof of results.
February 7th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Great post there. Thanks for sharing!
February 8th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I always thought that graphics were searchable if you use the alt tag effectively, I guess not thanks for the tip.
February 9th, 2008 at 12:54 am
I have gone over different blogs and postings and found this one very interesting and yet informative.
Looking forward to be a part of this community.
Regards
Gilroy F.
http://www.rditechnologies.net
February 9th, 2008 at 9:22 am
You’re right, Karen: search engine optimization isn’t rocket science. But it’s not as simple as you make it sound either. There are many levels of SEO beyond just the basic considerations you highlight here. At it’s most advanced levels, SEO deals with semantic indexing, fractals and many complex off-page factors.
Regards,
Eric Bryant, CEO
Gnosis Arts Multimedia Communications
http://gnosisarts.com/search-engine-optimization-marketing.html
February 9th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
This is a nice post but pretty general.. keyword phrases are great tp have but there is also positioning.
Plus, just in, Google will be able understand the text within images pretty soon or understand the image itself without text. backlinks are still important but they should be relevant and preferably from authoritative sites. We do help you in your website objectives with Directory Submission Service also known as Link building. site design, articles, (content) and more.
February 10th, 2008 at 6:56 am
[...] Karen over at http://www.notesondesign.net shares her tips on SEO. Her post Search Engine Optimization: It’s not Rocket Science is a useful reads for SEO newbies and a good reminder to those who have been optimizing their blogs. [...]
February 11th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
SEO is now becoming an important ingredient for a online business success especially nowadays. You are definitely right with your post of having a proper Title tag of your page as it will help search engine to easily find your site…
Junior
Technology Blogger
February 11th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
nice article. having right text in your site is essential especially when you want those search engine spiders to realize that your site exist.
February 14th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Karen, Thanks for a great article - I have been learning, practicing and tweaking my blog - it reminds me of the lather, rinse, repeat loop - none of us is ever really done. I appreciate all the tips!
February 15th, 2008 at 7:27 am
nice post Karen! This post will become a very good source of information regarding SEO. hope to see more post just like this so that i can enhance my knowledge regarding SEO.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
There are other factors such as outbound links that today count for a lot more than earlier.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I definitely agree Search Engine Optimization is not just a one task and done but it is a series of tasks to do…And needs time and attention because internet is changing very fast. One minute you are in the top minutes later or even seconds you have a new rank then. So, it is not an easy task to do… :)
February 24th, 2008 at 3:14 am
Very nice here is a good SEO page that I use very often for keyword search http://www.yellowire.com/resources.htm
Ema
February 28th, 2008 at 4:20 am
thanks
http://www.soutalkhaleej.com
March 5th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Excellent tips. So, often people make SEO complex. It’s not- by focusing on the most important aspects of it like title tags, some key phrase usage and backlinks, you can very quickly improve your site rankings.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Great article. I’m just learning SEO and everything you say is what I am finding out. I’ve been up and down in Google so many times I feel like a basketball. Finally it is stabilizing. I’m going more for position based on consistent content. Your tips are excellent advice.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:28 am
a very nice post… now I know how spider crawl web pages and choose which page must be in the number one slot.. firstly, I wonder about PR, I think the page which have the higher PR must always be in the top even some low PR site having the nice content than the high PR.
Now, as a beginner in SEO, first step is to create a good content then link building.
March 8th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
very nice tip, clean and helpful. SEO is for a long term base promotion
March 8th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
nice article on search engine optimizaition.
thanks
you can read more about seo make easy money online
nilesh mishra
March 10th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
SEO takes a while to learn and practice. There are a lot of people dishing out SEO advise. Choose wisely. Some know exactly what they are doing and others are just proclaimed experts. Take the time to distinguish between the two before trying to implement the ideas.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:31 am
Thanks for all the great tips about SEO… They are all very helpful and I learn something new everyday.
March 19th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Thank you for the seo tips. Again as you said seo depends on a lot of factors. Another important is backlinks. They are better than reciprocal links. And another factor that’s becoming more important is LSI or Latent Semantic Indexing. And if you want to make some money you have to monetize your website for example with Pay Per Play.
Greets
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
There are a lot of people that make SEO out to be this wildly difficult thing to master. If you know the basics you will be in good shape. Anyone who follows the advice you have given will do just fine. Content and quality backlinks are still king.
March 29th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Great article. I have done all that you say and have had fantastic organic results. I am flourishing while others in my industry who have not pursued similar means are not.
March 31st, 2008 at 2:10 am
My fear is the constant changes in the SEO rules - who finds out what is no longer “acceptable” and lets the rest of us find out what’s going on?
April 1st, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I have started using a service called LinkVana for back links. Basically it is a network of blogs that have either a good page rank or are several years old. I tested it this month on a site that I did no other link building for. It moved from page 7 to the first page of Google (actually in the top five) within the thirty days. I usually don’t like link building services, but this one is definitely worth checking out.
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:39 am
Great article! You’re right, it’s not rocket science…it simply requires alot of sweat equity to stay on top.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Everyone know how difficult it can really be to achieve a high placement for any website at a major search engine.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:33 am
I’ve read some articles recently stating that if a site looks like it has been purposely Seo’d that Google will “punish” your page rank or “weight”. Keywords, and lots of them repeated throughout your article/page, etc etc. will result in your page/site being lost in the millions of other pages as will other often used “Seo” tricks/tips. if you are going to use keywords, use them sparingly throughout the article to make your point. As others mentioned already, the “guidelines” are always changing.
Best advice is to stick to writing your content that is meaningful and new and you should do well. A well written article/page content wise, will stand out on its own. And people will likely link to it and quote it which will boost your rankings. Id spend more time on anchor text/backlinks. Or even Deep links within your own site with a properly submitted xml map.
April 11th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Lets not forget how important it is to channel pagerank appropriately. Using no follow tags, organizations can properly distribute PR to their high value pages. Many companies executing SEO Services do this as a way to increase ranks.
April 12th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
This article is simply gorgerous, thanks
April 14th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
At the end of the day, its the total link popularity that matters. Its quality versus quantity. While SEO is important, but without effective link building, on-page seo would be nothing but just a personal tweaking of the site.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Great post. Really enjoyed it.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Great post - thank you for sharing. This is especially useful information for a small business owner like myself who is always looking to get more exposure on the web and a better website presence. Thank you again for sharing.
Kind regards,
Chad
April 28th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I find that written content about your target market is the best. Answer the question in the web visitor’s mind…what in this for me? Answer it correctly and they will stay on your site.
April 29th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
great post!!
I agree on what you have said from your post it is the fact that search engine optimization is usually have the secret formula of optimizing its site from reaching its rank from the top.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
My number one pet peeve. A good title for your page is in my opinion the single most important factor when it comes to in-page optimization. The title of your page should not just be “name of your company”. You should have a keyword phrase in the title.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I still do come across this. A site this has bulk of its text- embedded into graphics. Having a logo with your name or product description embedded into the graphic instead of using actual text. Spiders and bots cannot “see” images and the words embedded into pictures have no meaning.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
More and more I am seeing menus and navigational bars that use java script. These are nice but not crawl-able. Make sure you have things links in html format somewhere on you pages- most will sit these in footer or bottom of the page. This is also a good chance to use keywords.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Hard to believe- but this still happening. Potential buyers and clients will abandon their site if it takes too long to load. Most people are still using dial-up and can’t wait for multiple and bulky images to download.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Good article but you are right - it just comes down to good phrases and good content.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I agree. Its amazing how many web developers totally ignore SEO techniques like all those mentioned above. Not only do they ignore SEO techniques but they ignore basic web development standards and common practice (like optimizing images).
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Great point John. The amount of users still on dial up is amazing to me but none the less you need to take that into consideration as well. Thanks for sharing.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 am
SEO rules..some follow and win..others ignore and stay obscure!
May 5th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I wonder what goonna happen with seo in 5 to 10 years, when webworld will become so huge and spammed. I can’t predict
May 6th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Nobody can stop me by posting these comments.
http://www.businesswebhostings.net
May 8th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Yep, it really is that simple.
Also, leave comments on blogs with “dofollow” links…. doh!
May 9th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Ha-ha, I agree. Although I have found it hard to cooperate and adhere Google’s rules and get your site/blog on the front page and keeping it there.
May 9th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Great post with lots of good tips…thanks!
May 10th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
nice article thanks.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Great post with lots of good tips… Strategic Internet marketing is a better way to define SEO and getting the attention of your potential market. There are some more interesting points on this website also.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:20 am
well SEO is not all about books or software, it is also about fun time with your website.
if you love your website and spend more time with it, just like any relationships.. it will get better and better..
May 16th, 2008 at 3:27 am
very nice article keep it up!
http://www.seoelite.us
May 19th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I really enjoyed the post thankyou!
May 19th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Search engines don’t care how good your site looks, or how nicely all the information is presented. Search engines look for certain specific combinations of words.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
This is a great post. One thing I’m a little confused about is that I thought if you had text associated with a picture, the serps would pick up on that. I may be getting confused, I believe they’re also called titles. Its when you hoover the mouse over the picture and a brief description pops up. I was under the impression that this was good for SEO.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:17 pm
It is very useful information and very Nice article about SEO, since a lot of newbie really need information related to SEO. Moreover SEO will become very powerful and basic rule for many site to get high popularity that affect their businesses. Thanks you for the information as well.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Great but look what intresting article i have found about SEO tactics
http://ooyes.net/seo-tactics
May 25th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Just to share, one of the secret in getting high quality backlink to enhance your SEO is linking from .Edu / ,Gov sites.
Just my 2 cents on SEO.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Its not too complicated just do alot of reading.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:50 am
I would also mention uploading your sitemap to Google, Yahoo and MSN. Each SE now has a ‘Webmaster Tools’ section that you can tinker around with to allow their robots to crawl your website and be kept informed of new and outdated pages.
Worth a look. :)
May 27th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
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May 27th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Of course it’s not rocket science and now it seem slower that we might think..
May 28th, 2008 at 9:30 am
As a person new to this game, there is such alot relevance placed upon link submission. Are manual submission companies a worthwhile investment. What are the chances they will link to link farms - will this damage ur sites reputation.
June 1st, 2008 at 5:08 am
Google has recently published a Website Quality Guide. Here are some things Google likes:
1.Fresh Content- No surprise there.
2. Links from relative sites- no surprise
3. Product Reviews- Use title Product Review as part of your ttle page
4. Coupons, discount promotions on your website.
5. Blogs
June 1st, 2008 at 10:07 am
SEO is the most important method of getting your website in search engines. Still, you must get the site in the top 10 results for your keywords. The success depends upon how you do the seo. Your second tip comes closer to it.
http://www.gurumai.com
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:07 am
Also, remember to use H1 tags on every page, but only one per page. This lets a search engine, such as Google, know what each page is about.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Agreed…I just started a new site 7 months ago and by using backlinking and article submission my site has skyrocketed on Google and left many in my office amazed because they have been trying for years to get their sites ranked high with no results.
June 5th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Blimey search engines and promoting on them has got you guys really revved up - great to see. I run a promotional items company in the UK and trust me that with hard work and dedication Google can be tamed but it is very time consuming and you have to be patient.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Yes, Search engine optimization (SEO) is not a rocket science as it may take weeks, months or even years for a web site to obtain good organic ranking for selected keywords. However quick marketing campaigns like Google Adwords or yahoo Internet marketing makes it possible to be on top in short time, but we have to pay hefty amount as well. It is indeed hard to determine the value of high organic rankings, prior to putting in the effort and money. The results obtained at the end of the campaign may be different than what estimated at the beginning.
However, SEO comes with many positive outcomes as well. We always say that ‘slow and steady wins the race’ and it many a times have been proved true while optimizing the websites to gain good organic rankings. However nothing could be said with 100% guarantee, because Google or any other search engine is the supreme force and we don’t have any control over it..!!
June 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Interesting article. I think I over did the words on page, title, meta and in the alt tags as I was just dropped from page 3 for my keywords to page 83. I guess I will just have to make some adjustment follow some of your ideas. Good Job.
June 7th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
This is a great article. I like the comment about images not being able to be picked up by search engines, with SEO being as publicized as it is, I’m still seeing a log of sites relying on images.
Now, if someone can clarify for me since I’ve heard it argued both ways…Does the alt tag in the image html get picked up by search engines? I’ve heard it said that if, for example, I have an image as a button link for my about page and give the alt attribute the value “about” it will pick up that and allow it to be indexed with the page?
Is there any truth to this?
June 8th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
It may not be rocket science, but at times it can be quite puzzling. I do pay attention to keywords, and try to use them in all the places mentioned in your post and in some of the comments. But I still come up lacking at times. I do use text tags on my graphics, so I try to take advantage of those when applicatle.
Thank you for breaking down the message about not only using keywords, but keyword phrases as well.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I see too often using flash, java, etc…uncrawlable content. do people realize that it is not crawlable.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
SEO … rocket science … no … time consuming … a big yes! This is a great basic beginner article. Although he isn’t telling us something that thousands of other articles aren’t. By the way DON’T spend money on e-books claiming to reveal “the secret of SEO”. This is the secrect: There are no secrets!
June 12th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Good advice. Why is it why try to make things more difficult than they really are?
June 13th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Keywords are extremely important to get a high rank in a search engine result page. As mentioned by Karen, it is not rocket science but you would be better off hiring a consultant since there are a few complications that may arise, also the results take a months to show.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I would also mention uploading your sitemap to Google, Yahoo and MSN. Each SE now has a ‘Webmaster Tools’ section that you can tinker around with to allow their robots to crawl your website and be kept informed of new and outdated pages.
Worth a look!
Owen
http://www.thedealtree.co.uk
June 15th, 2008 at 5:08 am
They are some good tips, thanks for sharing. I agree that it is not rocket science, it is more a combination of hard work and common sense.
June 19th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Search engine optimization is big business these days…. It absolutely is! It’s also tougher than ever to compete in this market. Google has tipped the scales in favor of the big guys… with big budget!
June 19th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Search engine spiders crawl websites looking for content in the form of text. Having keyword rich content - a good rule of thumb is between 200 and 250 words of original content and text on each page of a website - will give the spiders something good to index.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Well said!!!
i do agree of what you had posted. SEO really helps business onli to be well known but the key is in the proper choosing of keywords and other important factors that could step up the website.
thanks for posting..
June 24th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Hey Karen,
Good post… but nowadays two way reciprocal links aren’t all that effective anymore.
Yes, it is important to make sure the site you link to/from is a related and high quality site… but… mass reciprocal links from unrelated sites don’t seem to carry as much weight anymore.
Keep up the good work over here!
Cheers,
- Trevor
June 24th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Hey Karen,
Search engine optimization is kind of turning more and more into an art of creating solid content and generating buzz.
In the end… SEO is heavily reliant on links… which of course is best if they come from sites wanting to link to your site because it’s solid content… but… as you can see from the comments on this site… link spam is obviously still working especially from .edu domains.
July 1st, 2008 at 1:05 am
It is my understanding that excessive reciprocal links is not favored by google. They penalized some well-known companies earlier this year.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:31 am
The rising competition in the market and customer awareness have made business environment complex and customer-centric. As a result, the success of businesses rests on promotional gifts. In the UK, offering free promotional gifts items is a common practice to create awareness among customers about brand and products.
July 6th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
SEO is a moving target . In years to come will it still exist I don’t know .
Will your average SME be able to rank for great terms . In the future I believe like most forms of advertising it will be dominated by those who have the funds to position themselves
Thats my 2 cents worth
July 15th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Above all else ranking well comes down to content including proper keywords along with good inbound links and anchor text structure. Do those well and most will be just fine.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Great tips…I have my own blog about boating and sailing and thanks to this discovered how easy it was to install this handy tool. Thanks for the help!!
August 20th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Don’t forget internal linking. And also the use of “rel=nofollow”
sylvia
http://www.blueraysearch.com
September 7th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I think people should understand basic seo and then forget about it…write what you want to write. Say what you have to say and they will come.
September 13th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Dead on. One way editorial links count more than anything else. But submitting to some quality directories like these also improves search engine ranking position.
http://www.link-building.firm.in/web-directory
September 15th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Great work.
yaa, you are right , By submitting links in directories , we can improve
Search Engine Ranking Postion.when we submit links in free directories, We must keep one thing in our mind that is to choose relevant category.On the other hand if we are trying to get our links instantly,It will not more helpfull for results of Search Engine Ranking Postion.
As we all know “Slow and steady wins the race”
Thanks
October 2nd, 2008 at 1:24 am
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October 5th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Good info
October 10th, 2008 at 12:36 am
I agree with your title that SEO is not Rocket Science….Nice Title…
In SEO you will do everything for your site as per the Google webmaster guidelines….still sometimes your site will not come in the ranking…because ranking is depends of Google. that Google how to see your website….
October 10th, 2008 at 12:38 am
I agree with your title that SEO is not Rocket Science….Nice Title…
In SEO you will do everything for your site as per the Google webmaster guidelines….still sometimes your site will not come in the ranking…because ranking is depends of Google. that Google how to see your website….
October 14th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
This is some good valuable general information. What many web site owners don’t understand is how to gauge the value of an incoming link. The quality of links vary and that quality impacts your Google rankings over time.