The Complete SEO Guide - Concise Tips, Tricks, And Advice

The following is a complete guide to SEO, a concise list of SEO advice, tips, and tricks - Everything ever mentioned about search engine optimization (SEO), listed in no particular order:

Title tags should include good and specific keywords
Include a relevant title tag in each separate page of your website
Just like the title tag, the meta description tag should include good and specific keywords
Include keywords in your meta tag even though it has little bearing anymore
Submit new sites to search engines
Use your keywords on the on-page text
If your site has dynamic URLs, rewrite them to static html URLs
Google has a "sandbox" effect for new domain names - it doesn't give sites with new URLs good placement in search results until it "trusts" the site, which usually takes 8 months
MSN gives higher ranking to fresh content and new sites
Get inbound links to your site. 1-way links are best, but 2 way link exchanges also have merit
Try to get links to your site from related sites
Links from sites with a high "TrustRank" are more significant
Get links from "authority" sites
Get links from blogs
Get links from EzineArticles
Get "deep" links
Try to create "link bait"
Don't seek links to your site from FFAs
Don't link to "spammy" sites from your own site
Use anchor text with keywords in links to your site
Apply to be listed on high ranking directories such as DMOZ, Yahoo, and BOTW
Don't use blackhat SEO techniques
Don't try to "trick" search engines with hidden text, hidden links, or doorway pages or your site will get banned from search results
Don't use hidden text on your site
Name each image on your site via the Alt tag
The physical location of your server affects search results placement. If you seek traffic from The U.S. have your server physically located in The U.S.

Create a sitemap and submit it to search engines
Try to stay away of duplicate content
Read the WebProWorld Forum
Read search engine optimization blogs
Register your domain name for more than one year
Avoid using frames
Use "absolute links" rather than "relative links" in your site's internal linking scheme
Avoid intentional spelling mistakes
Use H1 tags for headlines
Use CSS to reduce page size
Experiment with different keyword densities
Experiment with different keyword prominence (where on the page you place your keywords)
Have pages that don't take a long time to load




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What Is SEO A Basic Guide for Small Business

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a foreign word to many small business owners. Some know what it is but think it's irrelevant, many others have no idea what it is and don't care to know. It is important however and I defy any business to provide me with an argument why it's not (please comment).

If you want new customers then SEO matters. We live in a world where we all love 'Googling' stuff. We self-diagnose medical problems, we look for phone numbers and we search for businesses. If you want to win new business then it makes sense optimising your search engine presence.

SEO has a number of components, some that are easy to understand, some not so easy. Some that you can do yourself and some that you may need some help. But essentially the whole practice is to work with the guidelines set out by the major search engines to help them rank your website better. Remember, they are in the business of providing people with the most accurate results as fast as possible.

Here is a basic rundown of the practices that make up SEO and what an SEO agency or marketing company should be doing for your business. It's certainly not a complete list and unfortunately not a 'How To' but it is a snapshot of the industry to make sure you're better informed.

SITEMAPS & SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION

A Sitemap is a page that helps the search engines navigate themselves through your website. The better the engines navigate your site the more trusted you come across. A site map should be submitted to the key search engines.

META TITLES & DESCRIPTIONS

The Meta Titles & Descriptions tell the engines exactly what a page is about, which of course helps to fit your site with the relevant keyword searches. When you search a keyword, the search results you see include a Meta Title and a Meta Description. This is obviously important for the engines, bit is also super important because it is often the first contact you have with a potential client or customer.

LINK BUILDING

Building third-party links to your website works in two ways, not only does it increase direct inbound traffic to your website but the search engines see this as an indication of credibility and rank you higher. Third-party links include listings in business directories, etc.

WEBSITE PERFORMANCE

The performance of your website is going to play a big part in how well a browser can navigate your site and if it performs badly then the search engines will penalise you. So your site should navigate well and fast.

REDIRECTIONS

Have you ever clicked on a website link and you get a page saying 'Page not Found' or something like that? Well if you have links like that, then you're going to be penalised again. So Google Webmaster Tools should be monitored for Crawl Errors and 301 Redirects to other pages should be implemented to correct any such errors.

REDUCING DUPLICATE CONTENT

Duplicate content became a huge issue only recently. The key search engines will now penalise you for having duplicate content on different pages, so make sure your content is unique from page to page.

SEO is a topic that is rarely explained well because it is in some people's best interest to keep it secretive and hey it's pretty hard to explain. But that's not a reason to ignore it, SEO is a super-important exercise for even the smallest business, albeit a little confusing. That's why, depending on your technical knowledge and time available, it's going to help you to get someone who knows what they're doing.

Hopefully, if you do contact an SEO agency or marketing company you are now better informed to keep everyone honest.



Quentin runs boutique marketing company OnQ Marketing Melbourne. A genuine enthusiast of the industry he has a particular interest (addiction) for search, mobile and social media. Read his posts at Marketing Ideas OnQ or alternatively connect with him on social media including Twitter.




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SEO Expert Guide - Black Hat SEO - Activities to Avoid (part 810)

In parts 1 - 7, you learnt how to develop your proposition, identify your key words and optimize and promote (for free) your site and pages on the world's search engines. You were also introduced to our mythical Doug (who sells antique doors, door handles, knockers, door bells or pulls and fitting services) in Windsor in the UK.

There are some search engine optimization and promotion techniques I did not cover, as they are unethical. In this part of the guide, I outline this techniques, so you can recognize and avoid them!

(a) Search Engine Ethics

Borrowing from the wild west, white hat SEO generally refers to ethical techniques, whilst black hat SEO is unethical techniques. Search engines are designed to help people find genuinely relevant results for the key words they enter, in a ranked order. Relevancy is a mixture of the "authority" of the site generally and the specific relevance of the page content to the search made. Anything which undermines this (ie. by creating false impressions of authority or relevance) is unethical because it undermines the key purpose of search engines.

Black hat practitioners tend to see search engine optimization as a war, and search engines and SEOs as the enemy, to be beaten by means fair or foul. White Hatters tend to view search engines as friends, who can help them get business.

(b) Hidden Page Text

Blackhatters create hidden text in page code (not intended for humans). At a simple level, this could be white text on a white background. The text is generally hidden because it does not fit with the rest of the page content but does help with search engine results. This by definition means that - as a human searcher - you are likely to be disappointed by the result when you land on this page.

In their Guide for Webmasters, Google implore you to "make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users, or present different content to search engines than you display to users. " The guide goes on to specifically recommend you "avoid hidden text or hidden links". If you want to avoid being blacklisted by Google, then I would recommned you pay attention to this advice.

(c) Buying Inbound Links

In their Guide for Webmasters, Google ask you to "avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, 'Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?'"

You can find on the web links from PR8 sites on sale for $200. From our earlier exploration of PageRank, you'll understand why such a high price can be supported. As you can imagine, Google and others frown on this activity, as it undermines the whole principle of democracy that underpins PageRank. Buying votes? Unethical!

The consensus in forums is that Google look out for unnatural linking patterns, including substantial cross linking, sharp growth in backlink numbers and same anchor text in most links. I would advise you avoid this sort of activity altogether!

(d) Use of Link Farms and IBLNs

In their Guide for Webmasters, Google say "don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or 'bad neighborhoods' on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."

In practice, Google identify 'bad neighbourhoods' by devaluing back-links from the same IP subnet. Where a site is simply a link farm site (that lists loads of links to other sites, in exchange for links back or money) Google will eventually identify it as a 'bad neighbourhood' and remove the links from it's index.

Independent Back Linking Networks (IBLNs) are a network of sites that all directly or indirectly link back to your site in such as a way as to promote it through the search engine rankings. The way IBLNs get around Google's IP monitoring is by using a completely different web-hosting plan for every site you want to link back directly to you.

This is very time-consuming and will cost you a lot of money. It is also not fool-proof and (if detected) can lead to Google simply wiping out all the direct referrers from their index (the sites they find flagrantly built simply to link to your main site) or, worse, dropping your entire IBLN - including the main site your were trying to optimise for. Don't be daft - keep it clean!

(e) Use of Cloaking Pages or Sneaky Redirects

In their Guide for Webmasters, Google recommend you "avoid 'doorway' pages created just for search engines, or other 'cookie cutter' approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content."

When Doug reads this, he begins to understand why doorknockers.com fails to rank higher in the search engines. That domain simply redirects to a different site (with a regular business name) which also fails to rank well in Google. This poor business-owner has clearly become an unwitting and almost certainly innocent victim og Google's policy to catch out Blackhatters.

He also understands why having his content on antique-door-knockers.com will be preferrable to redirecting people to a domain based on his company name (Doug Chalmers Limited).

Next we turn to tools you can use to monitor your ongoing optimization effectiveness...

Navigate the guide

Previous:

SEO Expert Guide - Paid Site Promotion (Marketing) (part 7/10)

Next:

SEO Expert Guide - Ongoing Monitoring of Results (part 9/10)



David Viney (david@viney.com) is the author of the SEO Expert Guide; how to get to the top of the search engine rankings and stay there.

Find out more about David's SEO services or purchase the full copy of the book from the SEO Expert site.




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SEO Guide For Beginners Part-1

With this article I am starting the SEO guide, which is dedicated specially to beginners, who have recently started a blog or website either for their business or to make money online. I will cover all the SEO aspects the so called SEO Expert use to rank higher in search engines.

What is SEO?

Let me start with short introduction of What SEO is all about. As the name suggest, SEO means search engine optimization. It involves optimizing your website to rank well for particular search keyword or phrase in Google like major search engines.

Why SEO Is important?

If I need to answer this question in single word, it will be the "Competition". The main source of website traffic is from search engines. If you are not being listed in search engine, people can not find you or your website because they do not know your website address. Hence it is required to optimize your website and target it for particular keywords. It will help your visitors to find you easily in search engine result pages.

What are the main parts of SEO?

There are only two main parts of SEO, one is On-Page SEO and another is Off-Page SEO.  On-page SEO is what you can directly do on your web page and the Off-Page SEO is what you do on other websites to build backlinks and improve value of your website on Internet.

On-Page SEO Involves:

Keyword optimization.

Title, Meta description and content.

Content optimization for targeted keywords.Off-Page SEO Involves:

Link Building Strategies.

Social Media Marketing Strategies.Each topic in On-page and Off-page SEO may include many different strategies. For example only Link Building can be done in many ways like...

Article Marketing.

Blog Commenting.

Forum Posting.

Reciprocal Linking, Purchasing backlinks.There are main type of SEO strategies are White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO Strategies. White hat SEO is the way to optimize your website in genuine and ethical and natural way, while in Black hat SEO few or all techniques are used to play with search engine algorithms and try to fool them.

Black hat can some time give you amazing result, but they are totally wrong thing to do and will soon make your website blacklisted from all major search engines. Hence I will cover only white hat SEO techniques in this article series or SEO guide for beginners. In next article I will start with On Page SEO Strategies.



Hope you liked this very first article of "SEO Guide For Beginners" series. You can stay tuned to this series or learn current SEO strategies with me at SEO Explain [http://www.seoexplain.com] and online business at Make Money Online [http://www.guidetoearnmoney.com].




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