"Straight Talk on Search Engine Optimization" The complete article including helpful links can also be found at GetYouPaid.com *This article contains no advertising. Any links are to useful, non-affiliated websites or GetYouPaid.com. To get your website listed well in
major search engines, you have to perform search engine optimization (SEO). If your website was built without search engine optimization "in mind", it will probably not appear in any search results. SEO can seem complicated. This article attempts to make SEO easy. This is a basic SEO plan with tips for doing SEO and getting results within 1 month. Google is primary target of this overall plan. I. - Choose Your Weapons (keywords) - You need to choose WHICH keywords you want your website to focus on for potential search engine listings. It can be better to focus on achievable high rankings (moderately searched specific terms), than for high rankings for keywords that are ultra-competitive or too general. Focus on getting "some" high ranking results and then shoot for more popular terms over time.
II. - Lock and Load. Prepare Your Site - SEO on your website is mainly about putting a high concentration of your target keywords in strategic places on your pages.
III. - Party Invitations. Get Your Site Listed on High Pagerank Websites - If you want Google to recognize your website, it must be "mentioned" in good places on Internet, which builds your sites' Pagerank. A high Pagerank link in a directory or on another similar website can make all difference in world with getting good search engine listings. Getting "reciprocal links" is free and builds your Pagerank. One-way links are even better.
** - Bear in mind that Google search results can vary from day-to-day
Note: The target of this SEO plan is Google. If you can get your website listed in Google, other major search engines will tend to follow.
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Tools You'll Need for Your Own SEO Solution Project:
1. A website in which you have CONTROL over its contents (the html). An affiliate web page that you can't change can't be optimized for you. You'd have to start your own website and put affiliate contents on it. 2. You need to get Google Toolbar if you don't already have it installed. Enable Pagerank display feature. 3. You'll need some type of website tracking (your host may have possibly provided it already) that can identify search engine spider hits (primarily Googlebot hits). 4. You'll need a basic understanding of Google Pagerank and crawls (search engine spiders). If you don't know about them, read below, otherwise you can skip this part.
Google Pagerank
The Pagerank system, in short, is basically Google's system on a 1-10 scale of measuring a website's importance. Google.com has highest Pagerank (PR) of 10. A brand new website domain has a PR 0. There are other websites that discuss how it's calculated. Here is a quick gauge: 0 - new website, 1-2 a "drop" of popularity, 3 - popularity is beginning, 4 - an established web presence with periodic attention from Google, 5 - a stronger presence, 6 - a semi-powerful website that gets crawled daily, 7 - a powerful, frequently visited website, 8 - a very, very powerful website, 9 - 10 - Off charts in power.
The Pagerank of a website influences a. How often it gets crawled for future search listings, b. How high those search listings will be listed. The Pagerank of a website will appear in Google toolbar (with Pagerank enabled) when your browser is on page of that website. This plan will show you how to increase your Pagerank and frequency of crawls by Google.
Spiders and Crawls
For search engines to "index" your website, it will send its "spider" robot program to "crawl" your homepage and any other pages it "sees" on your domain. Visits by a spider are erratic, at best. Spiders will visit your website more frequently if it thinks "your website is important". With Google, importancy is measured by Pagerank. I discuss raising your Pagerank is Part 3.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. - Choose Your Weapons (keywords) Obviously, some keywords are searched more than others. In nearly same proportion, more websites will optimize for more popular keywords over less popular ones. This means that you have a higher chance of success (less competition) if you target "moderately" searched keywords, instead of going straight after "the big ones". I'm not trying to underestimate or limit your success. My strategy for anyone is to achieve "some" success first, and then increase it over time. Many webmasters will "swing for fences" and after not having any success for so long, bow out of race entirely.
I'll give a rule-of-thumb way to gauge your competition for optimized keywords. With Google toolbar on, search Google for broadest keyword term that describes your website. For this website, I chose "small business". You'll probably see a bunch of high-powered PR7 and PR6 websites that have your term in title. Observe their Pagerank (PR) rankings. Getting listed on front page for a popular broad term is a tough battle and a long process that may be too high to reach for a new website.
Next, search for less-popular, but more specific keyword terms that describe your website. For this website, I chose "low risk business". Depending on keyword term, you'll eventually find one that is specific to your site, but competition doesn't have those scary-high PR rankings. You should be able to find terms that only have PR4 and PR3 sites listed for them. This is target for YOUR website. If you're finding that you can't find keyword terms with lesser competition, you may seriously consider altering your website's theme to make it more specific for a particular "niche" of market.
