The 7 Points of Do-It-Yourself SEO

Ever felt intimidated at the convoluted, jargon-ridden information about Internet marketing for small businesses available on the Net? Ever been horrified by the huge fees the experts charge, putting search engine optimization beyond your own means? Ever thought: What exactly is search engine optimization anyway, and can I do it myself?

The answer is: Yes, you can! The basics of search engine optimisation in applied web marketing are simple. It's all to do with the keyword content of your text copy, and can be summarised in seven points.

1. Register a good domain name which reflects what your site is about. Even if you are an established business, don't register www.FredJones.com if you make widgets. Rather, you want to register something like www.BestWidgets.com because that would inspire confidence in people looking for quality widgets who would not necessarily have heard of Fred Jones the widget-maker.

2. Name your page URLs based on reasons similar to the above for your web promotion, except now you can be more specific. Search engines like to know what your page is about. Name a page after a product (BigYellowWidgets.htm) or a service or action (Buy-Widgets-by-Post.htm) on one of the sales pages.

3. The text in the title tag is crucial in letting search engines know what each page is about. Put your important keywords in your title tags, using both the singular and plural versions (people will search for both) and make these tags different and specific for each page. For example, "Widgets and After Sales Widget Services". Whatever you do, don't call the home page "Index", but treat it almost as a mini-description.

4. The other tags (at the top of the html page) between the two "HEAD" tags are not as important as the title tag, but the description tag is still used by some search engines in displaying what you would like web users to see when they scroll down a page of search results. Some search engines don't use the description tag at all; others, like Google, sometimes use part of it together with part of the main body text surrounding prominent keywords on your page. So you may as well treat the description tag seriously; make it brief (about 25 to 30 words) and as comprehensive as possible in the short space allowed. Make sure you have your popular keywords included within your description tag. The ALT tag is used for a very short description of an image or graphic file, and is what is displayed if you allow your mouse pointer to hover above a graphic. These days it is not considered important for search engines. The COMMENT tag is never displayed on the body page, and is used by coders and designers as an instruction or reminder to themselves about what that section of html coding should be doing; in the past, some webmasters in their quest for website promotion and search engine ranking used to stuff keywords in the comments tags, but now it is generally acknowledged that the main search engines pay little or no attention to these.

5. Keyword density. Each search engine has its own preference as to how many times a keyword phrase appears on the page in order to signify the relevance of that keyword phrase (in other words, in order to help the search engine understand what the page is about). Around 5 to 8 per cent is a rough guide as to the optimal level. Don't overdo it, otherwise it will be seen as spam or keyword-stuffing. Also use your keywords in the headings tags H1 and H2. There is an H3 tag as well, but it is doubtful whether search engines bother with that, as it is perceived as less prominent on the page, therefore less relevant to what the page is about.

6. Don't forget good linking in your website marketing. Search engines will judge the importance of your web pages to some extent on the number and quality of incoming links from other sites. Ask other webmasters with sites on similar themes to yours for a link, in exchange for a link back. These sites should not be in competition with yours, but should be similarly themed. You may occasionally be asked by other webmasters if they can link to your site. If this is so then have a look at their site; make sure that their site is relevant, that it has at least some Page Rank, and that it just "feels" good, and has no nasty surprises like redirects or unexpected popups. You don't want to be associated with a "bad neighborhood"!

7. Make sure that important keywords are included in the anchor text within inbound links from other sites. This is crucial to search engines when they try to figure out the relevance and importance of your pages. The inbound link from the other site should take the form of something like this (I'm using normal brackets instead of angle brackets so as not to use compromising html): (A HREF="http://www.Yoursite.com") your important keywords included here(/A). You should definitely avoid something like (A HREF="http://www.Yoursite.com")click here(/A), which tells search engines nothing except that your site is about "click here". Be careful!
About The Author:Gordon Goodfellow is an Internet marketing consultant and practitioner. He lives and Works in London, UK, and has helped companies in many industry sectors with clients worldwide. His main site is http://www.applied-web-marketing.com

The Absolute Basics of SEO

Search engine optimization is the process of maximizing the ranking of you site in search engine listings. The most important factors to consider to achieve a high ranking are: the keywords you use, your title, your description, the text of your site, and the links others provide to your site.

To begin selecting keywords, consider what words and phrases the people you are trying to reach will be searching on. When placing keywords in your keyword tag, it is best to use phases rather than single words. Almost all single words are in very widespread use, thus will not tend to produce high rankings. Keyword phrases can be better tailored to your business. Also, since phrase searches produce fewer results, people are more likely to search on them. It is also a good idea to produce a list of keyword phrases for every page of your site. If you must include difficult to spell words, it is a good idea to include some common misspellings of these words as well.

The title is just as important, if not more important, than your keywords. Most search engines place the highest level of importance on the words found in the title when calculating the ranking. You should place your most important keyword phrases first in your title, as some search engines limit the number of characters you can use. Make your title a readable sentence, as this is the first text that will appear for your listing on the results page. One thing you should avoid doing is simply listing keywords. This could be regarded by the search engine as keyword spamming, and may lower your search ranking, or even get your listing removed from the site. As with keywords, it is a good idea to give each page a unique title.

In your description you should once again make use of your best keyword phrases. In this case, you can use more of them, since search engines will give you typically around 1024 characters for the description, while they will give you only around 50 to 80 for the title. Again, place your keywords as close to the beginning of your description as makes sense.

In the text of your site you should make use of, yes, you've guessed it, your keyword phrases. Also include any text you have used in other tags, such as meta tags, alt tags, and headings. Having a lot of content helps as well. A minimum of 200 words per page is recommended. Having many pages of content also increases your rankings.

Having many other sites link to you is another good way to increase your search rankings. Both the links themselves and the increase traffic which results will help. Also, having bloggers link to your site is a good idea.

Although these practices will boost your rankings, there are certain design elements that can interfere with your search rankings. These include frames, dynamic URLs, Flash, using image maps for navigation, and using javascripts for navigation. Also, there are certain practices that search engines regard as spamming, and these practices will get you permanently removed from the site. These include using keywords in your meta tags that do not relate to the content of your page, using multiple instances of the same tag, and listing keywords in the text of your site.

This is just the briefest introduction to search engine optimization. One book available on this topic is Search Engine Visibility, by Shari Thurow. Software packages that can assist you with SEO tasks include Bruce Clay's SEOToolSET and Web CEO's Web CEO. If you prefer to have someone else do your SEO for you, Marinerblue is ready to help you for free with your .ws domain.
Regards, Matt------Matt CanhamCopywriter and Internet Marketerhttp://www.ws-domains.marinerblue.com

Seo Services....Are they For You

SEO Services line the internet super highway like gas stations. On every entrance and exit ramp seo services shine their bright neon signs hoping to attract attention and get you to stop in and pay.

Sooner or later you will have to stop in and see what they are offering. Some are flaky internet squatters hoping to cash in on your desperation. Others provide a good service for what you pay them. You will stop in because your competition is outranking you in the search engines and taking valuable customers and profit out of your business. How are they doing it and why can't you do it? Or you are contemplating starting a web-based business and realize there is no point if you do not have a high ranking. Without a high ranking be prepared to spend lots of cash on driving traffic to your site. On the other hand with a number one ranking traffic and customers will find you without you having to spend a dime on advertising. For the beginner with little money to invest it is crucial to get a good position in the search engines. Otherwise you will go broke trying to advertise and driving traffic to your site and in a few months you will have to close the doors.

Well, there is more than one answer to this puzzle. There is no magic code you can put on your site that will instantly transport your site to a number one ranking. Seo services will use multiple paths to get you a better ranking. There is nothing magical about it.

There are two key areas that you will need to concentrate on to improve your website's ranking. Are you ready? Here they are: Keywords and back-links."Keywords" are those words or phrases that your potential customer will use to find you."Back-links" are links on other websites that link back to your site.

These are two of the most important areas to consider when using seo services. "Keywords" and "back-links" can be further broken down into other categories. If you have an existing website you might have to reconsider your keywords. For sure you will have to work on your back-links. If you have yet to start your website you will need to spend many hours researching, and choosing your keywords carefully. If you don't you will fail before you get started.

One more thing. Keywords and back-links are not independent of the other. Rather they depend on each other. Pair them up as a team and you will be way ahead of your competition. You can do it with or without the help of paid SEO Services.JD DonahueSEO Services http://seo--services.blogspot.com