Consider description tag just like it is named, a concise description of your site. Keep it to a short paragraph, under 50 words.

Alt tags are text descriptions that are included with code used to display images on a page. Basically an Alt tag is Alternate Text version of image in case image is not displayed. Alt tags are important for creating a fully accessible site for people who use screen reader technology that reads page out loud through their computer speakers. Obviously an image cannot be read aloud, but Alt tag can.

Alt tags are also displayed as a quick popup when you “hover” your mouse pointer over an image. Many search engines, including Google, will index Alt tags along with rest of body copy, making these ideal places to slip in a few more keywords. Just keep in mind that text should accurately reflect content of image. Plus don’t use Alt tags on images that would not normally be read out loud, such as separator lines or bullets.

This brings us to main place to use your keywords, body copy on page, text that your visitors are reading when they visit your site. The major search engines will no longer give you a top placement just for having most instances of a particular keyword on your page. They will give top listing to what they believe is most relevant page on a topic.

Your job is to work your keyword into text frequently, but appropriately. Select one or two keywords and make page specifically about those keywords. Think of yourself giving a PowerPoint presentation to an audience of your best customers. Your PowerPoint slides will be your paragraphs. They should be concise and to point, using your keywords to drive home your point. And, just like in a PowerPoint presentation, you can use bulleted lists to call out several benefits of your site or product, each time relating it to your selected keyword.

So use your keywords appropriately on your site and use them where you can. This will greatly increase your search engine effectiveness.

Article copyright 2005 George Peirson

* As with traditional reciprocal links, a very big drawback is that links are mostly on "Resources" pages that are just lists of links. There's only a small chance of getting significant traffic from these links. Plus, any "Resource" page may well eventually become an easy target for link dampening, if that hasn't happened already.

3. Submitting to Directories

They are legendary fairy lands of SEO: PageRank-passing, no-fee-charging, and actually well-run directories of relevant links. Yes, they really do exist. An SEO acquaintance tells me he knows 200 good ones just off top of his head. Plus, there are other kinds of directories: directories of affiliate programs, of websites using a certain content management system, of websites whose owners are members of this or that group, of websites accepting PayPal, etc. etc.

Ah, a link in a PageRank-passing link directory: it's a good deal if you can get it. But let's say you do get links from all 200 such directories and a hundred more from little niche directories--now what?

4. Paying for Inbound Links

Buying and selling text links on high-PageRank web pages has become big business. Buying good traffic-generating "clean" links is a great alternative to pay-per-click advertising, which confers no SEO benefit. But, there are a number of pitfalls of relying primarily on paid links for SEO:

* The cost of hundreds of links required for substantial search engine traffic can become prohibitive.

* As soon as you stop paying, you lose your link--you are essentially renting rather than owning, with no "link equity" building up.

* Google is actively trying to dampen impact of paid links on rankings, as revealed in various patent filings. A website can try to mask fact that links are paid, but how well it does that is out of your control.

* Given Google's mission to dampen paid links' effectiveness, paid link buyers have an interest in verifying that a potential paid link partner is "passing PageRank." But identifying appropriate PageRank-passing paid link partners is quite a task in itself.

* Google also has a stated mission of dampening value of any "artificial" links. Having most of your links on PageRank 3 or higher web pages would seem to be a dead give-away that your links are "artificial," since vast majority of web pages (note: not necessarily websites, but their pages) are PageRank 1 or lower. Meanwhile, buying PageRank 0 or 1 links would have so little impact on a site's PageRank that it would not be worth expense.

5. Distributing Content

All of above four inbound-link-generating methods really do work. But it is fifth method of getting one-way inbound links that is most promising: distributing content

The idea is simple: you give other websites content to put on their sites in exchange for a link to your site, usually in an "author's resource box," an "about author" paragraph at end of article.

The beauty of distributing content for links is that links generally generate more traffic than links on a "resources" page. Plus, your article will pre-sell readers on value of your site.

The downside, of course, is that it's no small amount of work to create original content and then distribute it to hundreds of website owners. But nothing good ever came easy. And on internet, one-way inbound links are a very good thing.