SEO, Where Do I Begin?

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Seo Master

Nice post, thanks for the tips. But what do you think about PPC?

I think PPC has its place ... on another thread .... as it is nothing to do with SEO ...

[weblaunchphxx]

Good post,all informations are very important.

[hawash]

also focus on typo it is much easier to get hits from typo than regular keyowrds

[mjtaylor]

Some of you may find this transcript pf SEO tips for bloggers (and the rest of us): Matt Cutts 2007 SEO Wordpress talk at Wordcamp helpful.

Some major points - many useful for regular sites as well as blogs:

• Don't put your blog at the root of your domain
• Use categories that are good keywords
• Dashes are better than underscores
• Use full text RSS feeds
• How to switch to a new web host
• How to move to a new domain

FWIW, MJ

[webreporter]

Backlinks. How important are they? (I know the answer, but some reading this might not.)

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by webreporter

Backlinks. How important are they? (I know the answer, but some reading this might not.)

Very.

So, since you know, , just *how* important are they?

As much as 50% of the algorithm?

More? Less?

MJ

[incrediblehelp]

Considering the "beginner" feel of this thread, back links were not on my radar. Another point on back links is that they are usually acquired through age and following the points in the thread.

[hawash]

consider naming the urls with keywords use h1 tags for keywords (in title ) take care of keywords density

[dharrison]

Jaan your example link, is no longer online.

Just thought I'd say.

[Ezhel]

Incrediblehelp, thanks for the good tips, I try the first one and it's working, you're really a big help.

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Well it seems we are getting some fresh blood here lately in the WPW which is a great sign of the forum growth. I think some of the recent posts on WPW are pointing to the need for Newbie thread. I have usually pointed people to the HR newbie thread but I think we could create a useful one here.

I was thinking this thread could serve as great starting point for a recommendations on newbie thread. So if you have a few things that you would tell newbie to do to get kick started in SEO what would it be?

Here are mine:

1. Internal Navigation
Sure the search engines are getting better at learning to crawl complex websites, but you need to make as easy as possible. Avoiding JavaScript, Image Maps, Image Based navigation and session IDs are just a few of the pitfalls many newbie's miss. Create your navigation in CSS or standard text. One way to see if your navigation is easily crawlable is to check the Google cache and click on the link "Click here for the cached text only." If you can see your links in hyperlinked form you are probably ok. This is probably the most universal issue I see as a problem on SEO newbie's and even some of the largest online companies have in common. Get this fixed and do nothing else and you could see large improvements.

2. Why Are you The Best?
Maybe the 2nd most important item in marketing your website online is setting yourself apart. If your just another website that offers DVDs (or whatever) online for the same price as BMG, Best Buy, etc what makes your website better? The internet is network of interesting content, products and services. You must make you content, products and services stand out above the rest. How you do that is another story all together.

3. Links
OK in a perfect world you could make a great website with awesome content and it would rank fine. Our world is hardly perfect and the search engines not even close. The search engine will more than likely use some sort of linking weight in their algorithm, so after you build this great website, let the world know. Contribute in blogs, forums, messages boards relating to your website. Write articles. Contribute to the internet. Become an authority on what your website deals in and before you know it you will be getting those one-way links without even asking for them. This is truly the link you want. Remember their are no short term link building strategies, that work long term.

4. Content
a) OK obviously you cant just have a website made up of images and one sentences on each page. Text is the meat that those search engines love to cook and grub on. The more relevant text you can write on each page the better it is for the search engines and the better it is for your end users. One thing to remember here is not to squeeze to many subjects onto one page. Break pages out as much as possible. Check out this example:

http://orchidsbyohlman.com/Care.htm

What a great page full of great content, but much different content. The search engines rarely associate many keyword combinations to one page. So break it down for them. Each of the caring tips for the orchids should be broken down into its own page and expanded on even more.

b) I think a second point to consider when writing content is natural langue queries, personalization and local search. these will be the future of the search engine algorithm, so consider them when writing.

c) I will tell you right now. If you don't have a blog create one now. Blogs mean easy in-bound links to you, fresh content, and are easy to crawl, nuff said.

5. Title Tags
Another no-brainer. Looking at the example above, the website owner is not using unique title tags one each page. You must have this throughout your website.

6. Duplication
Sure we have heard all kinds of confusing horror stories on content duplication. Sure you want to avoid doing it, but I have yet to see Google or other search engines actual penalize for it. What the search engines do is rank one page over another and yes sometimes if they find a duplicate they will toss it in the supplemental index. If you call that a penalty fine, but I call it Google choosing one version to rank over another. Make sure you provide them with only one to rank! Also if you write an article just make sure to publish it on your website and WAIT a couple of weeks and then syndicate it. it will give the search engines time to associate you as the author/owner of it.

7. Competition
Please recognize who your competitors are. If you are going head to head with websites that have been online for years and maybe even decades then you should realize your SEO battle will be uphill and difficult.

8. Finance
If you are on a shoe-string budget or just have been burned by SEO's in the past and don't want to invest more money into now, this is OK. But please understand the leg work is now on you. Only expect "high-level" ideas and recommendations from forums. The best thing to do is to dive in and do the work yourself with the support of the forum. Don't rely on the forum as cure for your website marketing sickness, but rather a antibiotic that works within your body to heal.

9. Tracking
You better do it! If you don't know if your website is making you money, then who cares if it is optimized. Who cares if it is ranking? Who cares what Google PR it is? Two hundred #1 rankings mean nothing if you not making money off of them. That mind set is important. If you not tracking leads/sales then start now.

10. History
How long have you been online? Less than a year? More then 5 years? This makes an ENORMOUS difference. I don't care what anyone says. The longer you have been online the more likely you are to have good results. If you still don't have good results and you have been online for a while, don't fret. Your fixes should be take hold quicker in the search engines once you make them.

11. Code Bloat/Download Time
OK I understand you might be a SEO newbie, what do you know about coding websites, let alone inline CSS or JavaScript? Bottom line, your either going to need to learn or get someone who does know. No excuses here. It is becoming more important to have valid and easy to crawl code. I am not saying it is absolutely necessary. I see websites that rank all the time that are ridiculous when it comes to valid code, but if you can fix this, then do it. If should hire someone that will. The second part is to make sure you pages download in a reasonable time. Once again you will find slow websites ranking all the time, but get it fixed not only for the search engines, but for your end users.

12. One Change At Time
Sometimes even minor fixes of one of the concepts above is enough to make the jumps you target in the search engines. Take your time and evaluate changes one at time. Changing to many things at once can cause "Chasing Your Tail Syndrome"

These are just a few off the top of my head. I sure some other super members of WPW will have more.

[duongo75]

Excellent post, thanks! I just have a query on one of your points. Re publishing articles on your site. Is it better to in fact have the whole article text on your own site, or is is just as effective to have a link to the article? I have some articles on ezinearticles, and have put links to those articles on my site, rather than pasting the whole content. That OK?

[incrediblehelp]

I see that Deb, oh well, this thread is pretty old.

Duongo I would publish the whole article on my own website and leave it there for a few weeks before attempting syndication.

[darsh999]

Well i must say that all above mentioned points by the moderator is so true and i think all the SEO professionalists would agree with me on all those above mentioned stratergies in starting of SEO .

[castanet]

Just wanted to add my thanks for the original post - and the myriad other suggestions. Even when you have heard these guidelines before, it helps to have them reinforced, again and again. Cheers

[eye 4 image]

Great post! I'd just like to comment on the content section. SEO is a very good marketing tool to draw visibility to a company's website. It is what the visitors do once they reach the website that is important to the company.

Make sure the content on the website is well constructed. Don't lose sight of the fact that you still need good material on your web pages to convert those visitors into clients!

Also get access to a good web stats package so you know what visitors are doing on your website. What page are the seeing first, where are they clicking to, where are they leaving, etc. This can be invaluable information when building a web marketing campaign.

Cheers!

[RKramer]

Great Post! And all great posts following! I can see that being a member on this forum is going to help educate me to success in my SEO venture! Thanks everyone!

[subhzash]

Good post

[hawash]

The easiest way to get search engine traffic is through typos I geet decent visitors from google for synonims

[vijay mohan]

hello friends i am new in this forum and very thankfultl this forum for providing me adequate knowledge and define me about SEO.

[vijay mohan]

hello friends i am new in this forum and would like to say hello first then i would like to ask u guys that i want to be a SEO expert .can u provide me a link that can help me in define that where do i begin to be an expert .

[marksgirsl]

I am a raw beginner at building websites; I built my first one recently, extremely basic with no fancy tools or HTML knowledge, or very little at least.

I found your site very interesting. I need to learn a lot about links, what they can do for me etc.etc.

I would be interested to hear what you have to say about my little site if you would be so kind. Its kind of different in its content (I'm almost too scared to ask but please don't be too cruel!!!

Linda

[Himalayan]

SEO is all about research work for getting good ranking in search engine result pages and business from the websites. Nice and helpful details.

[terryson01]

Nice post, but some another thing is there SEO begin

[ericajoieake]

you have to begin in site analysis, where you have to search for an appropriate, effective and high search per day keywords. That is the on page optimization!

[josh08]

great post dude!
thanks!

[full house]

a very informative post! Its very helpful!

I added my thanks also . . .

[emeraldisle]

Somewhere on this forum, I found a list of links to online diagnostic tools (to check for errors on your site, etc.) I have been searching and searching this forum, and can not find them now! Does anyone know where that list of links is? Thanks so much!

[emeraldisle]

Any other online diagnostic tools would be also helpful. I understand there are some that run on your own operating sytem, bus since I am using a Mac, they would have to be Mac-based. Thanks again!

[emeraldisle]

I found it! Here it is for everyone else:

TIP: Before you submit a site for review do this...

[mark.smith]

Hi

Well work has been done by you. it will help to all those who are new to SEO as well as also them who are out there at SEO for a long while.

Once Again Thanks.

[david20]

Hey,

That's great advice.
I will apply all this things in my SEO Services.

[onlydo]

great post this was helpful for me

[yaykivrot]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

9. Tracking
You better do it! If you don't know if your website is making you money, then who cares if it is optimized. Who cares if it is ranking? Who cares what Google PR it is? Two hundred #1 rankings mean nothing if you not making money off of them. That mind set is important. If you not tracking leads/sales then start now.

Great point, incrediblehelp.

Site Diagnostics are vital to SEO success. I would start with setting up a Google Webmaster Tools account.

GWT offer great diagnostic features:

1. Get a list of your Top Search Queries from Google. (Filter by Country and Search Type).
2. Crawl Stats: find out how often your site is crawled by Googlbot.
3. "What Googlebot Sees": See details about how the Googlebot sees your site.
4. Find Title Tag Issues (Duplicate Title Tags, Missing Title Tags, Long/Short Title Tags, Non-informative Title Tags)
5. Find Meta Description Issues (Short/Long Meta Descriptions, Duplicate Meta Descriptions)

This is a great place to get real stats right from the source.

[root123]

that's a great list for Newbies.........

I would also like to add one more thing i.e about the importance of "keywords", since it's keywords that the ultimate fight is all about in search engines.

[confettiguru]

Great Tips. I always say, "it's a cinch by the inch". It can seem overwhelming to work on your website but just one or two things a day make a difference. If you have only 5 minutes, use it to tweak a title tag, keywords or add content.
Again, IT'S A CINCH BY THE INCH"
Confetti Guru

[reebene]

Years later and I'm back to this thread again.
I tried following these tips when I built my first web site.
I eventually got top rankings with Yahoo but Google I just can't crack the first page, frustrating, but I'm in a very competitive market and keep trying.
Now I'm re-building the hotel site under a new name and came back to remind myself.
If anyone has fresh advice, especially for Google, bring it on please.

Ree

[DallasNovelty]

Thanks for some awesome tips i am definitely on this like white on rice. I am webmaster for about 6 different sites and they all need good ranking.

[Shadowbend]

As someone who is just getting started in SEO, these forums are an invaluable resource. Thank you so much!

Take Care,
Skip

[emanuelh]

Originally Posted by reebene

Years later and I'm back to this thread again.
I tried following these tips when I built my first web site The Lipa Lovely formerly Big John Resort, Hotel Koh Samui
I eventually got top rankings with Yahoo but Google I just can't crack the first page, frustrating, but I'm in a very competitive market and keep trying.
Now I'm re-building the hotel site under a new name and came back to remind myself.
If anyone has fresh advice, especially for Google, bring it on please.

Did it occur to you that if you've done anything recommended here but can't climb to the first page of Google you've simply missed the specific tip for getting from # 11 to # 10, or it wasn't shown in the first pace? So why do you think that rebuilding the site under a new name will make it easier to beat the competition, as soon as you get to # 11 again? (The disguise?)

OK. So incrediblehelp wrote indeed:

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

7. Competition
Please recognize who your competitors are. If you are going head to head with websites that have been online for years and maybe even decades then you should realize your SEO battle will be uphill and difficult.

But this statement does not explain why the SEO battle will be uphill and difficult. And moreover, you're already very very close to the top of the hill.

[incrediblehelp]

Sure it does. The other website has history and time on his side and you dont. That is always problem one with starting a new website and dealing with competition. Search engines weight history a lot when deciding who to rank.

[emanuelh]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Sure it does. The other website has history and time on his side and you dont. That is always problem one with starting a new website and dealing with competition. Search engines weight history a lot when deciding who to rank.

Yeah? Then how does one site climb relatively fast till # 11 and gets stuck there? And what about a website that has indeed history on its side - will it always climb from # 11 to # 10? And wait a minute, how did the site now at # 10 get there?

[kronikmedia]

The tips and advice are useful. In the first phase onsie factors are important. Ultimately however regular fresh content on website and quality back links to your website will probably play the most significant role to decide whaich website rank on first page of search engines like Google.

[john.lewis]

Quite Informative and well covering.


Thanks for such nice post

[delnaaz]

I am also new in this task and very desirous to know more and more about SEO tactics.
your post is awesome and i hope this kind of information would help me a lot.Thanks for sharing for such a wonderful post.This your posts effect that you are getting a lots of postive feed backs from the forum members.

[jwilson721]

Thank you for the info, I am now hooked to WPW.

[sohel08]

NDA keeps me from disclosing any details), and I came across the issue of which file extension to use. The URL-structure is created with URL-rewrites, the files generated include the proper mine-type, so I am basically free to use any file extension I like.
Now, the question is, which file extension would be best from an SEO point of view. Ie. no extension (à la Wikipedia), or using .htm (Windows/Dos-World) or even .html.
I came across only one article that was at least marginably sound. In that article, it was stated, that anything that helps the spiders detect the file-type properly can only improve indexing. So, they suggested to use

[sohel08]

I think one factor that affects is the IBl from G...as comparing both Ibl's coming from google.com.au your site has 21 results compared to 4 only for businessforsale.com ..quality vs quantity..those 4 ibl coming from a (.gov)..and maybe another factor is on the off page optimization..try to get link to that .gov.au.. see if there will be a chnage..plus domain age is big factor for G..hope this somehow help..

[infrascape]

Need daily updation of website is also good.

[mark.smith]

Hey,

There are so many things are there to do when you want to start an SEo process. You can start with submission of your site in directories( In quality directories) you can go for blogs and can exchange links ,can do bookmarking...these are basic that even A non SEO person knows these days....

[srblogger]

Great post John Freezer.

I rely on original, relevant content and my traffic is climbing on several new domains.

Code bloat is also something that I feel is a seo killer. I validate every single page on my site and my blog template was custom written so that the code is clean and duplicate items such as navigation and calendars are at the bottom of the code, with the content immediately after the <body> tag.