SEO, Where Do I Begin?

[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.

[bobitza]

Thanks for the tips ...

*takes a chair in the newbie area of the conference room* :)

[etechdesigns]

Great post. Thanks for sharing. All basic points are covered, which are very helpful for new seo professionals.

[Steven1976a]

Great Post. Everyone is a new member or new to SEO at sometime in their life so im sure newbies will appreciate the post.

Ive just forwarded the thread to a friend to help him.

13. Fresh Content
No matter how small I always try and put fresh content onto our website. Not just on the home page but throughout the site.
We change the pictures and some text on the home page of our site every 1-2 weeks not only for the search engines but for our customers.
Fresh Content is important I feel at the moment

[incrediblehelp]

Steven,

I agree Fresh Content is important, but it is confusing for newbies. Do I need to change my product pages or add to them? No, not at all. You cna build them and leave them alone, but having something like a blog (4.c) can greatly help in search engines like MSN.

[Duncan Pollock]

Hats off to you incrediblehelp for an excellent post!
What's interesting about it is that you don't stress (or even mention) any of the so-called quick fixes that people keep coming up with. Instead, your emphasis is on what can perhaps be called a holistic approach: SEO is a whole host of things put together and the more of them you get right the better your chances of appearing well in the SERPs will be.
There's one other point that's perhaps worth mentioning, though, even if it's not really an aspect of SEO.
I'm thinking, of course, of PPC, which is, I suppose, an adjunct to any webmaster's marketing plans. There are numerous WPW posts about it, including the Google Adwords Discusssion Forum. And there are several gurus (my favourite being Perry Marshall, needless to say) who can help you understand the intricacies.
But it does help a new site appear on the first SERP pages until the SEO is correct or good enough to do it on its own.

But again, my full compliments to you for summarizing things so well.
You sure done good, as they say.

Duncan

[RFA]

great post yes..... but... now they know everything and I can fire myself... ahahahah

On an other point, I do have a disagreement/question about your advice on the navigation system.

Using only CSS makes it difficult to go for navigation system with multi layers of menu. I would not recommend using CSS 2 or 3 for that matter because it is not well supported by browsers.

So, am I wrong?

see ya

[Mugzzi]

Wow, this is great....it appears like the rules keep changing and all i wanted to do was place a simple ad. you can't do that anymore and I have had to retrain the thinking of my webmasters due to the new rules.

Thanks for the insight and I will keep them informed as well as myself. I found I'm in one of the toughtest catagories x2. I am also starting another site in conjuction with my Psychic site and it is too...flooded.

But we have been a lot smarter at the start up knowing these tips. Thanks and keep them coming.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by RFA

Using only CSS makes it difficult to go for navigation system with multi layers of menu. I would not recommend using CSS 2 or 3 for that matter because it is not well supported by browsers.

Sure RFA CSS is not supported in some browsers, but it is my opinion it is becoming the future of design standards. I think my point in telling newbie's to use CSS is more towards those whose use JavaScript. CSS can do anything your JavaScript menu or navigation can do, plus it can be crawled by the search engines. Newbie's sometimes get trapped in the cosmetic look and feel of websites when starting out. The point is you don't need to lose that great look and feel, while gaining crawlability. You see where I am going with this? The point I was making was crawlability.

[Mugzzi]

Hulk, question?

I just read somewhere, that google will penalize you if you use the yahoo or msn dirctories. Is this true? Can you recomend some good directories for my business.

thanks,

[incrediblehelp]

Not true. Just do a few searches on WPW and you will find a bunch of great directory list threads, like the sticky one right below this thread.

[SemAdvance]

I have to take exception with anyone calling Perry Marshall an Adwords guru. Far from it. His method of tossing shite at the wall and something good should fall from it, is simple rubbish.

I have worked with webmasters chasing 5000 keywords with terms like

bora bora bora timbukutu widget green

optimization engine search content improved rankings

Nobody searches with terms like these. To have people waste their time and money to learn a hawksters shrill is poor business in my eyes.

I can do more with a targeted list of 100 keyword terms, Ads written to match, drive high CTR and conversions to leads or sales, and make my clients live much more enjoyable, and their campaigns better organized, than having them spending hours chasing the tail.

Opposing view.

[SemAdvance]

Originally Posted by Mugzzi

Hulk, question?

I just read somewhere, that google will penalize you if you use the yahoo or msn dirctories. Is this true? Can you recomend some good directories for my business.

thanks,

As incredible said not true....

And I will add being listed in Yahoo Directory is very good for your site, and Msn is a good one too.

In fact when checking whois records it is noted whether your site is in Dmoz and Yahoo Directory.

You can test this yourself..Check rankings now, then pay for Yahoo Directory listing. Check rankings once accepted ,and then again a month, and two months later, you should see improved results.

Peace

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

I have to take exception with anyone calling Perry Marshall an Adwords guru. Far from it. His method of tossing shite at the wall and something good should fall from it, is simple rubbish.

I have worked with webmasters chasing 5000 keywords with terms like

bora bora bora timbukutu widget green

optimization engine search content improved rankings

Nobody searches with terms like these. To have people waste their time and money to learn a hawksters shrill is poor business in my eyes.

I can do more with a targeted list of 100 keyword terms, Ads written to match, drive high CTR and conversions to leads or sales, and make my clients live much more enjoyable, and their campaigns better organized, than having them spending hours chasing the tail.

Opposing view.

Who is talking PPC here?

[G[dot]com]

Man, this was a GREAT post! Excellent.

And the word... CRAWLABILITY... I think you nailed it. That´s seo about it.

thumbs up!

[webace]

I Have to agree on the point regarding code bloating.

I had a few sites which ran Google adwords, a few weeks back Google suspended my adwords account (which was not my fault)however after removing their code from my sites I was surprised to notice that my Google ranking and traffic improved quite drastically accross all the sites.

[jackson992]

Any opinions on the best way to track whether our changes have made an improvement for us larger sites? With so many pages I have no idea whether any changes I do has made any effect and it's a real chore to go through thousands of pages with the Google site:domainame command.

[incrediblehelp]

Jack please start out another thread on question. You will get a better response there.

We want this thread just for helpful, newbie SEO advice.

[jackson992]

Done:)

[duker665]

great post, sound good advice

[incrediblehelp]

I made some grammar error fixes and change some things to be more in a article format. I would update it here, but I cant edit posts. Here it is if anyone is interested:

http://www.jaankanellis.com/seo-where-do-i-begin/

In fact I recommend reading the blog posting over the items above, because the number of spelling and grammar errors I found in my post.

[tomhoryn]

Awesome post. Thanks Jaan!
BTW, I also believe that CSS will be the future of design standards. Too bad not all browsers support that.

[internet-marketing-cr]

Thank you increbible help, that is a great post, for us new one's in Internet Marketing is a valuable source.

[Tamaloo]

Belatedly adding my thanks for your incredible post; very helpful.

[crush123]

it is really helpful.
all the points are very informative.
especially the 12th point is very important for me.
thanks

[wuxingrun]

Good tips, thank you.

[webnewsroom]

It's obsurd that new companies seeking to market on the net expect to have such huge results.

It's nice to see that basics are presented to these masses.

Suggestions, as I have been online with various blogs and wires for more than 10 years.

Some of the most important things I have learned is the explicit use of META tags, PROPER description tags (not irrelevant topics) and title tags in your links e.g. (alt="About Us").

People who contact me always ask the same question. How can I get to number 1 position in Google or yahoo with a particular keyword? Its tough people, you need to realize that without forking out a few bucks for a consultant on the subject, you can get nowhere really fast winding up with only an extra 50 people or so.

2 of our sites will see approximately 3 million unique readers this month. Why? CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT. And not content thats robbed from somewhere else! Although we do post press releases from the networks, we typically add in our own commentary.

Search engines like Google can figure out copied content. Take the time to write quality content in your pages and become a pro on your particular subject, most importantly, give a link or reference to material borrowed or quoted elswhere on the web. It adds to your credibility in the long run!

Regards to all and thanks Web Pro World for your dedication.

J. R.

[Steelchord]

A couple things to add:

1. Don't overuse keywords; the " buy rings buy watches cheap watches by cheap watches" not only doesn't help, it potentially damages your pr. Use natural language, aind aim for btn. 700 to 1200 words per page, and a keyword density of about 5-10 per page,and target a page for 3 keywords/phrases tops, unless you are a very skilled writer. Those are pretty loose guidelines, if someone has better defined ones I will bow to their experience.

2. When starting out, don't ignore the other majors Yahoo! and MSN, and the b-rate search engines; it's potentially much easier to get to the top of their searches, depending on your approach, and there is still much reward to be had from appealing to their particular quirks. Yahoo directories are a primary example.

3. If you are selling a product, go directly to the shopping sites like Shopzilla and Amazon; do not pass go, do not collect 200 keywords. Once you have a organized approach to their sites (a master database of product details is hard work for the uninitiated, since variations between site data feeds are many--but it's well worth the effort), and a respectable presence there, THEN start working on search engine optimization. Not only with the links from those sites (except amazon.com, which is above such pettiness as redirecting users to merchants outside of their site) help with your pagerank, but the time you spend perfecting your ads on their sites will help immensely in structuring your home site and determining what online representations of your industry you want to create a presence in. That's assuming you've got a unique product or a reduced cost to sell, thus being competitive--if you don't, why are you bothering?

P.S. while you're checking out shopping.com, look into epinions--I found it to have potential but because of time restrictions I haven't investigated it too deeply, but it might prove to be a good entryway for some SEO efforts.)

4. Once you have a solid site with decent content, start at home. I.E., find local city & county newsrags and companies, and start your SEO efforts there. It's been said before but it's worth reiterating.

5. CSS *IS* supported by ALL browsers less than 4-5 years old; CSS2 and a lot of CSS3 is included in that statement. The box model is entirely the way to code your site; tables have so much wrong with them it causes me nightmares every time I go in to repair somebody else's site (which is where 90% of my business comes from). When I have the opportunity to create, or recreate, a site from scratch, I use CSS; the pages load faster, the code is about 40% leaner on average and it's easier to find and fix mistakes.

The thing to keep in mind is that CSS is supported somewhat differently in each browser for each version of HTML/XHTML; but by now, the bugs are well-documented and the workarounds are not only easily implemented, but standards-compliant; and future proof (M$ willing). I don't have to use a comment \/ hack anymore to fix a internet explorer border bug, I can just a)use an include for the code I want a dom compliant browser to see and a link for the rest; or b) use .class[class]{} statements for dom compliant browsers. Used correctly, there is no bug that can't be fixed with this method.

Sorry for the rant; the upshot is that CSS used to be unusable--but now it's the only way to go, and CSS/ajax driven pages update in G faster and more accurately than their .asp or .php counterparts, as any research slog through Google caches will demonstrate. So newbie webmasters, learn CSS!!

6. Have a marketing plan outside of SEO; google and the others WILL move your page up the ranks, even if you have little to no inbound links, if your site represents a known product. I know that's a heretical opinion here but I've seen it happen. (I saw it with www.pods.com for "pod", actually, last year they were at the top 1 spot with 1 INBOUND LINK(!!!) and P.O.D. was pushed down to #2 despite having a stupid amount of fan links and corporate sponsors; although the year or so since then pods.com've actually gotten some people to link to them, so that might mean nothing about Google algorhithms or policies anymore.) plus you'll eventually get people linking to your site in forums and such as they hear about you, so it's just generally a good idea to have a marketing plan anyway. The more you put your product or service (and website) out there, the more this will happen.

That's all I've got for now, hope it helps out a bit.

[joseph33]

Besides getting tags, description and key words right, th most important thing in SE submission is creating new, unique content.

No one knows how the SEs operate - it's all guesses, really. But they are there to provide relevant information to searchers and in that way get clicks on ads. So they will probably and most of the time prefer sites which provide that information.

[Phrozt]

2 other big things to point out.

1) You used the orchids page as an example, but I've done a variety of searches, and it hasn't shown up anywhere! If it were a good example, it would be reflected by how it appears in search results!

2)PAGE STRUCTURE!!!!
I'm suprised you didn't mention this, but one of the best and easiest things you can do is apply good page structure. This means good use of your header tags! Use only one, POSSIBLY two "h1" tags. This is the most relevant thing on your page, and one of the first things that a spider will scan. From there, use h2 tags sparingly, and h3 tags for anything that is marginally important (they will be more prevalent in site with multiple tiers of navigation, or sub products etc.)

The nice part about CSS, is that you can use h2's all you want and still make your site look great!! Remember, with CSS and all the hacks that it provides (you can specify different things for different browsers to work around the problems each one poses), you can change virtually ANYTHING on your page!!

Here's an example of how I've used CSS to make my h2s stand out:
http://www.fixmyspeaker.com (this is just one of my current projects to illustrate use of page structure).

There's also a hidden example of how you can REALLY utilize an h1 on your page... see if you can find it! Also look at how I use an ordered list rather than a table to construct the top navigation. Still looks cool, but now it's in a list, which makes it not only look better to search engines, but also makes it more portable to other browsing devices.

PLEASE NOTE: This page is very very new and will not appear on search engines yet. It is simply an example of good page structure

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Phrozt

1) You used the orchids page as an example, but I've done a variety of searches, and it hasn't shown up anywhere! If it were a good example, it would be reflected by how it appears in search results!

um, yeah because they never hired me or another SEO. So I used them as an example of what NOT to do with page structure.

To much varying content on one page is very bad thing

[Phrozt]

ahh, this line was confusing to me:
What a great page full of great content, but much different content.

To me, it read like "it not only has content, but different content" as a good thing...

Maybe that's just me.

[Phrozt]

Yep.. guess I read it wrong.

But what I said about page structure is still valid

[incrediblehelp]

Yes then I go on to say:

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.

Which pretty much says what I said above.

[JohnJ]

Great help Page Thank You

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I made some grammar error fixes and change some things to be more in a article format. I would update it here, but I cant edit posts. Here it is if anyone is interested:

http://www.jaankanellis.com/seo-where-do-i-begin/

In fact I recommend reading the blog posting over the items above, because the number of spelling and grammar errors I found in my post.

Do you know that you rule incrediblehelp? Thumbs up man!

I will add your article to my blog immediately.

[incrediblehelp]

Thanks man, just looking to help. The more of us that know how to deliver great info the end users of search the better the internet will be.

[incrediblehelp]

I know I post this everywhere, but it is so useful for newbies in SEO. Check out this post from SEOmoz.org called:

SEOmoz: Beginner's Guide to SEO

for some beginners help.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by wuxingrun

Good tips, thank you.

Check my thread here, which I started yesterday: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=64841

[incrediblehelp]

Good thread Webnauts.

I found another solid beginners thread at cre8asiteforums.com

[greenlie]

That is sensible info I can apply immediately to my
own business. Thanks!

[bj]

One thing you missed--

Sites should be RSS enabled to make sites sticky. RSS also allows pinging of the aggregators, which creates more links to your content.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by bj

One thing you missed--

Sites should be RSS enabled to make sites sticky. RSS also allows pinging of the aggregators, which creates more links to your content.

Bj do you mean for every page of a web site? Or only for articles, tutorials and so on?

[bj]

Most of my site is dynamic and RSS enabled. It's set to ping the ags whenever content is added. The sites I build for clients are usually 100% RSS enabled, and also set to ping the aggregators.

Most good scripts are rss enabled these days and there's very little reason to build static html sites anymore (but that could be just my prejudice since I HATE doing data entry and don't want my clients to ever call me to "update the webpage")

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

We are using the template system "Smarty". I still did not understand. Do all pages need to be added to an RSS feed?

What sense would it make to have for example the contact page?

We have for example this: http://www.webnauts.net/resources.xml

[bj]

I'm not sure I understand the question. What does smarty templating have to do with rss?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by bj

I'm not sure I understand the question. What does smarty templating have to do with rss?

We have added some functions to our template system for generating some stuff dynamically.

But that is not my point. Sorry that I messed that up.

My question is. Should we add every single page of our site in the feed?

[bj]

When I build wordpress, modx, esyndicat, cubecart and other dynamic sites, the only pages that aren't fed are the ones that are either password protected or secure.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by bj

When I build wordpress, modx, esyndicat, cubecart and other dynamic sites, the only pages that aren't fed are the ones that are either password protected or secure.

Well we have an XML Site Map with all pages which should be indexed. To have same pages added in an RSS feed too? Hmmm, I still don't get it.

[bj]

If you're doing your own backend, then you can do whatever you wish.