There are always do-it-yourselfers in any business, so it
should be no surprise that many successful web promoters
are doing their own SEO. Many web guru's started by
fumbling around the internet until they found the right
formula for success. The web itself has evolved as a result
of individual experimentation and the sharing their
knowledge.
The target for SEO continues to evolve, techniques that
once worked, now are less effective. New types of promotion
like social bookmarking are growing in importance. It is
not necessary to be an expert in SEO to promote your own
website, but you do need the basics of good SEO practices.
So, if you are looking to start "doing it yourself" keep
these points in mind as you develop your plan.
1.Unique Search Engine-Friendly Content
One of the most important aspects is your unique web
content that is laid out in a search engine friendly way.
Flash and text embedded within images are not read by
search engines. Make sure your images have alt image tags
and that you use your most important keywords in plain text
on the site. Highlight these important keywords in titles,
heading and hyperlinks. Use your keywords as anchor text in
links rather than using images. Never try to stuff keywords
on your site by making them too small to read, or making it
the same color as the background. Instead use your SEO
keywords frequently in the page copy, but keep it to 3-5%
on the page.
Once you have your copy, check to see if it is being
crawled by the search engines. On Google enter
"site:://www.yourwebaddress" to verify if your page has
been indexed. If your site is brand new it will take some
time for it to show up in the index. There are many factors
that play into being indexed including age of the site,
duplicate content (copy and pasting content, or cookie
cutter affiliate websites), Java script rather than HTML
links, bad site layout (too many sub-directories),long
dynamic URL's with special characters (question marks or
any other database characters, #, &, *, !, %) known as
"spider traps," or orphaned pages.
2. Do Your Keywords Homework Thoroughly
Keyword research is the most important step in the process.
If you get this wrong you could be wasting all of your time
and effort promoting your site. Start your research with
the broadest terms to describe your product or service.
Utilize the keyword research services that are available to
narrow the terms and find variations of those terms. I like
to use Google AdWords, Keyword Discovery, and Wordtracker.
Your goal is to find phrases that are highly searched and
optimize your site like the top sites in those keywords. If
the keyword is not used much, then you will not draw much
traffic by using them. Remember to use the most focused
keywords to optimize; because, general terms will be much
harder to gain in rank, and the traffic you get will be
less relevant.
3. Get In-bound Links to Your Site
There are many ways to get links to your site, some
traditional and others not so traditional. This may be
intimidating at first, but it is very important for your
SEO and PageRank. Google counts a link as a "vote" for your
website when calculating PageRank. The more links you have,
the more votes you have, and the higher your PageRank. Much
like any popularity contest, not all votes are equal, links
from higher ranking pages count for more than lower ranked
sites.
If you have taken the time to create unique original
content, you are already miles ahead of much of the
competition. If you are fortunate and create something very
unique, you may get many links, however, most webmasters
won't just link to your site for no reason.
You can try trading links, but the effectiveness of link
exchanges is decreasing, and if you are in a highly
competitive market they won't help much. Recently, paid
links have been looked down upon by Google, so save your
money. Volumes could be written on linking strategies, but
for the beginner, stick to these techniques to start.
Issue a press release and include a link to your site.
Comment on blogs, public forums and articles with content
related to your site.
Put links on your other sites leading to your new site, or
have a friend link to your site.
Submit articles relating to your niche and include a link
in the resource section to your site.
Use the many social bookmarking and social media outlets to
link to your site.
4. Ride The Social Media Wave
Online communities developed for networking and socializing
is at an all time high. Social bookmarking sites like
StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, Technorati and others allow
members to store their favorite sites and share them with
others online. These sites can also be used to create
"buzz" about your own site.
If you are trying to generate sales from your efforts, then
you should avoid promotional hype on these sites. The
social sites are so powerful because they are based on the
public's interest. If you don't have anything unique or
interesting to share, these sites will not work for you.
Don't be shy on the social sites about the site you are
promoting. Network around with other users, share relevant
content, be creative with your bookmark title and tell
people you know in the real world about the content you
have on the social sites. Quality content that you simply
share with others will lead to your success on these sites.
Use these points as a general guide to plan your SEO. If
you are established or are just starting out in your SEO
efforts the advice will help, but remember that persistence
and patience are your biggest assets when it comes to
website promotion.
----------------------------------------------------
Rob Emmerson is a leading expert in SEO and has written
extensivly on the subject in articles and eBooks. He offers
a free step-by-step SEO Course at
http://www.theseosecretrevealed.com . In addition he writes
a daily SEO Blog at http://www.robemmerson.com where he
shares tips and tricks to improve your SEO.
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