SEO Techniques for Beginners

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the technique of increasing the web site's exposure to different search engines. The goal of the search engine optimizer is to get top rankings on the search engine result page for search queries. Most of the internet users used to click on the first few results of a search, especially if their search needs were met with an exact find (maximum up to 3rd page of search engine result page). SEO techniques also help to bring new visitors to sites through referrals from many other sites and directories.

How it works!
Search engines use what is called a spider to reach out into the Internet to find new and updated websites. As a page is published, the spider stumbles upon the page depending on what words, images, video or other content is on the page. The spiders don’t actually recognize the images or the videos; they recognize the words in the description of the image or video. When someone does a search that includes these words, the search engine pulls that up in its results. These words are called keywords. The more often these keywords are used in a webpage the better chance the search engine will see it and put it up on the results. The more keywords, including combinations of keywords, the higher the page will show up in the search engine ranking.

The spider also used to refer to the Title and the Meta tags on the page, Heading, content and links to the site from other websites. But you have to make sure that you stock each of these areas well with your primary keywords (for which you are optimizing your site) but don’t overdo it because the spiders do seem to have a temper and pages do get banned. A 2% to 7% density of keywords is the preferred standard. Also it depends upon the page. If it sounds good and relevant to your page content, then there is no problem even if the percentage increases to 12.

This is why the webpage code is so important. Many people spend a lot of time making their web pages look visually appealing to people, but they don’t think about the spiders in the search engines. Spend more time on your web site’s code for search engine optimization and you will find yourself getting high rankings. I am not saying to create a page for any spider (or software), the page should be for the human visitors but should be well optimized from search engine's point of view.


SEO techniques for top ranking
Title: This is the name that you can see at the top of the window of your web browser (Blue Bar), also called the Title Bar. Make sure that your title is short and descriptive. It also needs to contain the targeted keywords that are relevant to your site. The search engines also use to show this title in the search engine results. Hence, it should clearly describe your sites content so that the users will be interested in coming to your site.

Keywords: Keywords are an important part of SEO techniques. Unfortunately many webmasters overdo it. Keywords are one of the most important factors in ranking high on search engines. You will find many tips on adding keywords, such as ALT tags, anchors and other areas. While these are meant to be used if you want to help boost your keywords, they should be relevant to the image or the place where you are linking. Many people try to stuff keywords into every possible place. As a general rule, I would say you can optimize one page with 3 keywords or phrases. I would recommend starting with one or two. But never overuse the keywords. Again, it is wise to put other relative key words (secondary & tertiary) that are similar but not quite the same as your main key words. The main benefit of using such keywords for bringing new visitors to your site through long tail key phrases. By having a wide variety and volume of key words in your webpage you may very well be the only result when someone uses one of those combinations of keywords in their search. This technique is very successful but many people do not use it. When trying to get new visitors to your site you will want to use as many strategies as possible. Using alternative keywords is a strategy that you should use for every page just like you use main keywords.

Meta tags: There are two parts to the Meta-tag:
1. Description
2. Keywords

The description should be short, but it should sound logical and descriptive to the reader. Many times this will be the text that is seen under your title during the search. You will want to give the reader a small overview of the page. Write something that will make them understand what the page is all about and force them want to click on your site.

The keywords will be the same keywords that you have thought of while running your SEO research. These are the same key words that are also in the text of your page.

Links: When other sites on the web link to your site, the search engine spider finds these links and counts it as a vote of support. The more quality pages that link to your page, higher ranking in the search engine. A great way to get one way links is directory submission. Also if you have unique and informative content on your page, then other sites will be interested in linking to your site and refer their visitors to your site.

Many websites don’t get visitors because of low search engine rankings. Use the above discussed SEO techniques to maximize your search engine rankings and achieve your objective with good number of visitors through organic results.

SEO Project - Optimization & Maintenance

SEO is a technique to increase organic traffic to a website. The main objective of SEO is to help people find the information (website) relevant to their search query. If they are looking for a keyword or a key phrase and your site's content is relevant to that searched term, then your site will show in the search engine results page and they will visit your site. Hence, SEO techniques help to get you targeted and relevant human visitors through organic methods.

Neither SEO is a rocket science nor are the techniques easy as many people think. There are many details to follow before optimizing a website. Most tasks are related to keywords, site design and architecture and at the end few off page promotions. To perform this sort of project, you will need to have some professional knowledge. On the other hand, if you prefer hiring an affordable web site marketing company or a search engine optimizer who takes on the project on behalf of clients to carry out it, then it is always good. And you will be able to find the most appropriate for you over the Internet. The role of a SEO company or an optimizer is to offer designs, new ideas, and extra information to guide its clients during the process of changing their websites.

SEO process does not only involve the optimization stage. You must also maintain your website updated by using SEO techniques. You can gain your position in the best search engines if the site is properly optimized. But again it is also difficult to sustain your position in the search engine result page. Although you can work persistently and hard to have a permanent position, it may change gradually. Therefore, you must face a SEO maintenance program. You surely make efforts to rank your website among the first positions, so it is advisable to have a person in charge of the site. Always remember, SEO is a continuous process.

SEO maintenance is not only to keep the same position but also improving it. Maintenance programs may include manual optimization of websites, content addition, blog posting, article submission, directory submission, link programs and competition analysis. Maintenance services are meant for websites that already have search engine rankings; they just want to ensure that they stay where they are and that they improve.

Proven SEO Techniques to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Getting quality and targeted traffic to the blog is one of the key objectives for any blogger. And this can be only possible if the blog is well optimized and search engine friendly so that the ranking in the search engine result page (SERP) increases and receives more organic traffic through search engines. To obtain better position in the SERP, there are few proven seo techniques and tips that can help to make the blog more search engine friendly.

Here I have discussed some of those proven seo techniques to help you get targeted traffic to your blog.

1. Content is King. Quality and informative content will keep your readers coming back to your blog more often looking for new and fresh content. Use catchy titles with one or two relevant keywords and also some relative keywords in the content so that you can get good ranking in the SERP for many long tail key phrases. You can also refer to any keyword suggestion tools available on the web to get an idea of all the relative keywords for your posts.

2. Update your blog regularly. It helps both from search engine as well as human visitor’s point of view. It Search engine spiders crawl your site more often so that the newer posts indexed quickly. Also your readers who do start trickling in have the urge to continue reading your posts. The more regularly you update your blog, the better it is from all aspects.

3. Start social bookmarking your blog and get it noticed in pinging sites and as these are places where bloggers can get extra traffic from other bloggers. It is essential to do this in order to get the traffic you deserve. Blog ping service notifies the weblog services such as Blog Search Engines and blog directories that your blog has been updated. Thus enabling them to index your blog fast and make your content available for a larger audience.

4. Start indexing your blog in popular search engines like Google, Yahoo etc. so that your posts are crawled by the search engine spiders and your blog will rank for more number of keywords in the search engine result page.

5. Start submitting your blog to blog directories so that you get more number of back links for your blog. We all know links are one of the most important factors that can affect your ranking heavily and directory submission is one of the easiest ways of getting one way links.

6. Comment on other blogs of same niche as you but don't spam them with just 'nice blog' or 'nice post' as these comments don't have any weight. Try to engage with your fellow bloggers by leaving quality comments as that will inspire them to automatically visit your site where the comments link back to.

7. Place your Blog Url in forums and in your email signatures as this can bring extra and free traffic to your blog.

All the bloggers like to see visitors arriving at their blogs and putting their comments regarding the posts. And getting traffic to the blog does not happen automatically unless and until we do some promotional effort like I discussed here in this post. We have to promote it in order to gain the most of our blog.

Basic SEO Tips

The most important factor in seo techniques is the keyword for which you are optimizing your site. That is called as the targeted keyword. The most important thing you should know before you start optimizing your page is that the target keyword must be relevant to the content of your site. And also don't forget to include that keyword in different page element like the heading, meta tags and also use the same keyword as anchor text while linking to that page (within your site as well as linking from external sites). It is always difficult to get a top ranking for competitive keywords even if you have a good PR (page rank) and good number of quality backlinks. This is because of the lack of proper seo techniques.

Hence, you should know the following basic seo tips when targeting a keyword:

1. Never target your page with a single keyword. Use keyword combination. That means also use the relative searches for that particular keyword. It increases your sites relevancy for that keyword.

2. Use keyword suggestion tools to get an idea of secondary and tertiary keywords that people are searching. There are many popular keyword suggestion tools are available on the web like google adwords keyword tool, wordtracker etc. Some are free and some are paid. But, Google adwords keyword tool is a good one and also free.

3. Must use your keyword in heading tag, once or twice in the title and description. Do not repeat it excessively and use in such a way that it sounds good. It is against the search engine guidelines and your website can be penalized. Again, internet users always refer to the title and meta description before clicking on the site on SERP (Search Engine Result Page). So, it should be meaningful.

4. Try to keep the Title tag between 65 - 75 characters, and description should be up to 200-225 characters.

5. If you are using images, then insert alt text relevant to the image name. Use short text and if possible use keyword in the alt text.

6. Use keyword in anchor text and it must be relevant to the page content.

7. Avoid all spamming techniques like hidden text, tiny text in the body text. Also don't use excessive link building with irrelevant sites or keyword stuffing inside the site.

SEO is not a rocket science. Don't expect any break through result. Have patience. SEO is a continuous process. Keep on doing off-page seo techniques like blog posting, directory submission, article submission, and forum posting. This is why SEO is also known as Kaizen SEO means continuous incremental improvement. And remember Content is King. Hence, keep on adding good and informative content on your site relevant to your site's topic and visitors will be interested to visit your site again and again and also other sites on the web will be happy to link to your site and refer visitors to your page.

Good Luck.