SEO Search Engine Optimization. A Beginners Guide – Part 1

As anyone who has used the internet even only for a few months knows, you are likely to only examine the first two pages of the results of any search engine query. 

Given that there are now billions of websites on the internet, these two pages of results don’t just represent the tip of the iceberg, they represent the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

Unless you have an endless budget to invest in a search engine adwords campaign, then SEO or Search Engine Optimization will be the key step you’ll need to take, if you want your website to make it to the top of the pile with out paying for it. 

Put simply, Website + SEO = Free Visitors

SEO sounds technical, but when broken down into a discrete set of tasks, is easily executed by even the beginner. In part 1 of this 2 part search engine optimization tutorial we look at the first five of ten key steps towards optimising your website for the top search engines.

1.) Identify Keywords

When people search online, they do so using keywords which describe what they are looking for. 

If your website includes content which matches these keywords the search engines are more likely to include your site in the list of results.  Sounds simple, but it’s wise not to assume you know which keywords people are actually using and instead do your research.

Start with popular searches and pay attention to the other combinations the search engine offers you in the drop down menu.  The trick is to get the balance right between the more popular keywords for which more websites will be competing, and those less popular keywords which will give you a better chance of a top ranking. 

For example if you sell Mountain Bikes then there will be tens of thousands competing for this keyword, but considerably less competing for the keyword ‘most advanced mountain bike’.

To be really sure you may need to utilise one of the online tools available such as WordTracker, KeywordDiscover.com or  DigitalPoint’s Keyword Suggestion Tool to help you. Google and Yahoo also offer keyword suggestion tools.

Once you have found your keywords you will then be ready to include them in your website content and start on your SEO search engine optimization journey.

2.) Place Keywords in your URL (choice of domain name)

It’s wise to include your keywords in your domain name.  If you have a company name that doesn’t describe what you do, then add your keyword to the front or end of your name, www.abcbeds.co.uk, for example.  If you have already purchased your domain name, try incorporating your keywords into the URL by using them for the names of your webpages and folders.  Something like this; http://www.compila.com/web-hosting/website-hosting-index.html

3. Optimize your current content to include your keywords.

You should include your keywords in all aspects of your website, alt tags on images, page titles, heading tags (h1,h2 etc), as well as what is written on each page.

However, beware you don’t take this as license to just write an endless list of keywords, in place of honestly describing what your site is about. Search engines are more sophisticated now, they are able to recognise so called ‘keyword stuffing’ and will potentially black list your website.

In the written content of any webpage, your keywords should not make up more than about 8% of the total word count.  This is also known as ‘keyword weight”.

4) Link Building

This is without doubt one of the most important things you can do to optimise your website,  and shouldn’t be under estimated – especially for Google, which accounts for anything up to 70 per cent of search queries.

The reason for this is that in ranking a website, most search engines take into consideration how many other sites actually provide a hyperlink to it.  The more links the better. However, a few links from higher pagerank sites is far more important than hundreds of links from Pagerank 1 websites. So avoid link building farms.

Link building takes time unfortunately but you can accelerate the process by providing great content on your website or blog that other people want to link to. Setting up an Affiliate system for your clients, issuing press releases or media via online news outlets, commenting on other related blogs, online directory submission are all popular methods.

5) Unique Website Content

This is probably the most crucial thing you can do for search engine optimization. The content of your website needs to be unique and constantly changing. It also needs to be keyword rich and relative to your target audience.

Google and other search engines love content. If you add constantly changing news articles, blog posts, opinion pieces etc that engage your visitors, you will improve your search engine ranking greatly.

I very much hope you have found SEO search engine optimization Part 1 useful. If you have any questions or thoughts I would love to hear from you. Please add them into the comments section below. Thank you very much.

Related Posts

1. SEO Search Engine Optimization. A Beginners Guide – Part 2
2. SEO Keyword Density And Latent Semantic Indexing
3. SEO Tutorial – Backlinks – Effective SEO Link Building
4. Website Optimization – How To Sustain The Flow Of Traffic To Your Website
5. How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Business