SEO in The Desert

By Richard V. Burckhardt

My blog, The Web Optimist is a source of search engine optimization information for those new to SEO who want to get more informed on what works and what doesn't. I was recently asked what would be the top ten tips out of my popular 110 SEO Tips Even Mom Would Love article. It's kind of hard to separate them into single paragraph bites, so I am presenting them in a more categorized format below.

Understand that these are my personal top tips as an in house SEO. Another SEO would probably have a different list. You know how it goes, put two SEOs in a room and there's gonna be an argument! Heck, I even get arguments from my own SEO cronies!

Keep in mind that...

SEO is NOT Rocket Science

BUT, it is complex and an ongoing process that changes almost daily. There is no such thing as a permanent fix to magically send you to the top of the rankings for good. But here are some of the basics to look for when optimizing your site to drive more traffic, prospects and, hopefully, profit.

Absolute MUSTS for SEO:

1. Content is (Still) King - Be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase. Be sure to include keywords in heading tags and in the first paragraph and throughout body copy. This is referred to as spider food! Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

2. Good Back Links - If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link.
• Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.
• Get links from good, authority sites. The "authority" will rub off on you.
• Avoid link farms and obvious paid links.
• Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for a site to link to you, you don’t want the link.

3. Link Format Consistency - Did you know that...

http://your-site.com

http://your-site.com/

http://your-site.com/index.html

http://www.your-site.com

http://www.your-site.com/

http://www.your-site.com/index.html

...are all technically SIX different URLs even though each will land the site visitor on the same Web page? Stick to one format, otherwise you are splitting your backlinks and link juice.

http://www.your-site.com/ = YES

http://www.your-site.com/index.html = NO

4. Use Absolute Links - Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it. What are absolute links?

Here's an example of an absolute link:

<a href="http://www.yoursite.com/blue-widgets.html">Examples of Blue Widgets</a>

Below is a relative link:

<a href="blue-widgets.html">Examples of Blue Widgets</a>

5. Title Tag - Among the first things the spiders will crawl on your page is the Title Tag at the very top of your HTML code. This is what you see in the blue bar at the top of your browser when you land on a page. Unique text in this tag on each page is essential and the single most important thing you can do for rankings. If you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end unless it contains the page's targeted keywords

6. Don’t be Obsessed with PageRank - PageRank, or that little green bar you see in the Google Toolbar, is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR. In fact, what you see in this toolbar is NOT what Google sees internally for daily rankings.

7. Optimize Your Images:
• Use captions with your images.
• Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page.
• Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.
• Enable “Enhanced image search” in  Google Webmaster Central. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.
• Use keywords for image file names.

8. Social Media - Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.
• Link to your social media profile pages. Make sure visitors can find your social site pages. Make your very first weighted link to your profile pages a link from your company site.
• Twitter is incredibly powerful for weighting in the search engine results pages, so use it! Just be sure to grab your name before someone else does (this applies to all social sites).

9. Go Viral - Inject viral components into your web site or blog
• Ratings & Reviews (User Generated Content)
• Sharing (E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• Comments (More User Generated Content)
• Videos (Upload these to YouTube, etc.)
• Podcasts (Distribute these through iTunes, etc.)
• News (Press releases, news feeds, etc.)
• Free E-Books (Who doesn't like free?)

All of these can help your content be found, linked to and rank better. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.

10. Localize - Local search is getting hot! Create a local listing for all locations if you have more than one. Don’t just create a local listing for the main one. Get them all in there! Start with local listings at Google (through Google Places or Google Maps), Yahoo! and Bing. Include photos, videos, links, web pages and coupons if available. It’s quick, easy, free and gives you one more opportunity to rank.

There you go. Again, these are my personal top 10 SEO tips. If you don't agree, well, eat dirt.

Just kidding. Feel free to comment.

This article is an original post from The Web Optimist - SEO in The Desert.

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Tags: search engine optimization, SEO, tips, top 10

This entry was posted on Monday, June 14th, 2010 at 9:06 am and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.