SEO: 6 steps to improve rankings

Search Engine Optimization attempts to improve rankings for relevant keywords in search results by improving a web site’s structure and content. The info in my last article was a bit over simplified to dramatically state that quality content is super important. Here is a good bunch of info that explains this SEO thing pretty well:

SEO Basics:

As many of us web developers already know, Google is rated as the number one search engine in the world. Getting indexed by Google can be a pain, but getting highly placed rankings for specific keywords seems to be the nut that not many web developers without search engine optimization experience or SEO training can crack.

Believe it or not, basic SEO is all about common sense and simplicity. The purpose of search engine optimization is to make a website as search engine friendly as possible. It’s really not that difficult.

In the simplest terms, search engines collect data about a unique website by sending an electronic spider to visit the site and copy its content which is stored in the search engine’s database. Generally known as ‘bots’, these spiders are designed to follow links from one document to the next. As they copy and assimilate content from one document, they record links and send other bots to make copies of content on those linked documents. This process continues ad infinitum.

Good content is the most important aspect of search engine optimization. The easiest and most basic rule of the trade is that search engine spiders can be relied upon to read basic body text 100% of the time. By providing a search engine spider with basic text content, SEOs offer the engines information in the easiest format for them to read.

The Most Important Steps:

Step 1:

Market Research:

The first step is to search the major search engines to see what types of websites are ranking for words which you deem to be important. For example, if mostly colleges, media, and government institutions are ranking for your most important terms it may be difficult to outrank them for those types of queries. If, on the other hand, the market is dominated by fairly average websites which are not strongly established brands it may be a market worth pursuing. This is usually what is considered a “niche.”

Step 2:

Keyword Research:

What keywords are people searching for?

Keyword research tools are better at providing a qualitative measure than a quantitative measure, so don’t be surprised if actual traffic volumes vary greatly from the numbers suggested by these tools. When in doubt you can also set up a Google Ad Words account to test the potential size of a market.

In addition to looking up search volumes for what keywords you think are important, also take the time to ask past customers how they found you, why they chose you, and what issues were important to them in choosing you.

You can also get keyword ideas by doing things like

·        checking your web analytics or server logs

·        looking at page contents of competing websites

·        looking through topical forums and community sites to see what issues people frequently discuss

Step 3:

Site Structure:

How should you structure your site?

Before drafting content consider what keywords are your most important and map out how to create pages to fit each important group of keywords within your site theme and navigational structure based on

·        market value

·        logical breaks in market segmentation

·        importance of ranking in building credibility / improving conversion rates

Step 4:

On Page Optimization:

It is hard to rank for keywords that do not appear in your page content, so each page should be organized around the goal of ranking for a specific keyword phrase, with some related phrases and related keywords mixed into the page copy.

Unique descriptive page titles play a crucial role in a successful search engine optimization campaigns. Page titles appear in the search results, and many people link to pages using the page title as their link anchor text.

Each page also needs to be sufficiently unique from other pages on your site. Do not let search engines index printer friendly versions of your content, or other pages where content is duplicate or nearly duplicate.

Step 5:

Link Building:

Search engines view links at votes, with some votes counting more than others. To get high quality links (that help your site rank better) you need to participate in the social aspects of your Factoidz.com community and give away valuable unique content that people talk about and share with others.

Step 6:

Viral Marketing:

Link building is probably the single hardest and most time consuming part of an effective SEO campaign, largely because it requires influencing other people. But links are nothing but a remark or citation.

The beautiful thing about viral marketing is that creating one popular compelling idea can lead to thousands of free quality links. If your competitor is building one link at a time and you have thousands of people spreading your ideas for you for free then you are typically going to end up ranking better.

For One on One Help:

I would like to introduce you to Sunil Harika. sweetharika1@gmail.com This incredibly sharp young lady from Hyderabad, India taught me a thing or two…allright, actually everything I know about SEO. She not only willingly shares the secrets that others refuse to even begin to utter until you whip out a credit card, but if you are still a little slow to understand these concepts, or if like me you can just about get your head around them -but putting them into practice is another story, then for a very affordable price her company will do all the footwork for you. Simply turn over your basic marketing concept, your best ideas for keywords, and within days you will be on top of Mount Everest! Until I met Sunil, I thought SEO was chasing rainbows. I’ve even written articles about how impossible creating effective SEO could be: http://factoidz.com/technology-gadgets/the-best-approach-to-seo/  I took a chance, invested less money than I had into adwords…And three days later, I was thrilled to be proven wrong. Sunil made me eat crow…and boy was it delicious!