Copyright 2006 Peter Dobler
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a buzzword that is around
for a long time. There are as many misconceptions about SEO as
there are webmasters. Some webmasters are afraid of SEO,
thinking it is too complex and not worth the effort. Others
believe that SEO will get your website banned from the search
engines and there are the few that actively practice SEO.
Fact #1: SEO can be complex if you want to compete with the big
guys. SEO is all about outperforming your competitors. That
means the less competitors the better your success rate will be.
Fact #2: SEO can ban your website from the search engines if you
break the rules. I will not tell you the dark tricks of SEO that
will ultimately get you on the blacklist of the search engines.
This way you will not be able to break any rules and keeps you
out of trouble.
Fact #3: SEO can be simple and effective. I will show you a few
easy steps to increase the ranking of your website. You will be
amazed about its simplicity.
Ok, here we go.
1. Choose your niche keyword phrase
SEO is all about being a little bit better than your competition
on a single keyword phrase. You need to focus your website on a
single keyword phrase. 2 or 3 words in a keyword phrase work
best. Make sure that people are actually searching these phrases
as well. Wordtracker and Overture are just two methods out of
many to check for usability. If you optimize your website for
the wrong keyword phrases you're wasting your time.
2. Set your html tags right
Your keyword phrase has to be in the -title tag. You can ignore
the keyword and description meta tags for now. They are not as
important anymore as they were a few years ago. Make sure to
have an h1 tag with the keyword phrase. Avoid having an h2 tag
with the keyword phrase. Take control over the look and feel via
cascading style sheets (CSS). This way it is much easier to
control your website's appearance and keeps the html code
clutter free.
Sprinkle your keyword phrase throughout the webpage. Place your
keyword phrase 2-3 times closer to the top, once within the
first 25 characters and once in the last 25 characters of your
text. Change the style variation of the keyword phrase. Make
sure you have at least one underlined, one bold and one italic
variation of the keyword phrase.
3. Check for errors
Spell checking is a must. Search engines don't honor spell
errors on your webpage very well. Check for broken links as
well. Nothing hurts your ranking more than broken hyperlinks.
Well, here you have it. The 5 minute drill to improve your
website's search engine rankings. Ok, I admit it, it's not this
easy. On-Page SEO is only half the battle, maybe only one third
of the battle. To really dominate the search engines you need to
practice a well planned and executed linking strategy. This is
also called Off-Page SEO. Off-Page SEO is your most important
task as a webmaster.
The details of a successful Off-Page SEO strategy are too much
for the content of this article. But here's a little example on
how effective Off-Page SEO is: Logon to Google and type in the
keyword 'click here'. To your surprise you will see that Adobe
holds the #1 position for this keyword. Now analyze the Adobe
page for a minute. There is no 'click here' anywhere on the page
or within the html code. How in the world can they be #1 for
'click here'? Millions of other web pages have a link to Adobe
with the title 'click here' to download the Acrobat Reader.
That's why.
Nothing makes me happier than if you can improve the search
engine ranking of your website by just a few positions by
following my simple advice. 90% of all webmasters don't bother
and that's the window of opportunity for you. Of course a short
article cannot explain the total picture of SEO. However it is
meant to give you some ideas on how to approach SEO. Have fun
while practicing SEO with your website.
About the author:
Peter Dobler is an active real estate investor and successful
internet business owner. Use the free tools at:
http://www.online-business-idea.com to improve your website's
search engine ranking.
