Passions That Pay

If you are like me and your eyes glaze over at the mere mention of Search Optimization or SEO as it is more commonly referred to, because you know the speaker is going to reel out a whole string of terms that you do not understand, then here is a basic introduction using everyday language. Any terms I DO use I will explain. Why SEO is so important is because it helps your pages be found by being listed on the first few pages when someone types in a search term that is relevant to your website.Very few people go much beyond the first few pages on any given search. It refers to the listings on the left hand side of the page – the “natural” listings – not the paid for listings on the right hand side (though great SEO can even help your rankings there too)

Anyone who was on the internet pre-1999 will remember how hard it was to find anything at all on the internet. A page that had a glancing reference to whatever your search was about could appear on the first page and a page that described everything to do with your topic could be on page 10 and so never clicked on. It was a very frustrating experience. So the Google founders knew that with a carefully designed algorithm which would give a score to a page based on over 100 factors, searches could become relevant and searching the internet would become much easier. They succeeded in doing just that and have risen to be by the far the most used search engines , dwarfing former leaders such as Yahoo. The algorithm is a closely guarded secret and is regularly tweaked.

Search engines send what are called “spiders” which analyze your website pages and rate them on various factors for the words that are used commonly on your site – these are called Keywords. Therefore the very first task before even designing your website should be to make a list of all the keywords that relate to your site (if you have already written your site then this is still a vital exercise and your may need to overhaul your site somewhat. A great free tool to help you with suggesting keywords is http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ . Get together a list of at least 50 but preferably 100 or more keywords that you think your target market are actually using to find you.

On Page Optimization – writing your pages so they rank well on search engines.

Your most important keyword – the one word or phrase that you believe is being used by potential clients to find the products and services that your provide should be used in the Domain name and in what is referred to as the “Title tags”. If you look at the very top of the page, above the url bar, you will see the title tags of the page your are reading followed by the name of the browser you are using. In a wordpress blog this is whatever you used in Options–> General –> Blog title .
The header tags are the title of each post in a wordpress blog and in default appear with the title tag at the very top of the page whenever an individual post is clicked on. It should be both relevant to the post you are writing and should include keywords from your list. If possible list more heavily searched for keywords first but ALWAYS have it make sense to your readers. It is no good having a perfectly optimized site for search engines robots if it is poorly optimized for your readers.
Keywords should also be in the text of your post or page. The recommended density is between 3% and 7% – in other words a particular keyword or phrase should appear between 3 and 7 times every hundred words. Again make sure that you always balance this with writing a quality post that your readers will enjoy – I personally will always sacrifice density for quality but it is something to keep in mind when writing for your website.Also make sure when you link to internal pages within your website that you use keywords in your anchor text

I will also talk about where on your page keywords should be later this week.

Inbound links – other websites pointing to yours.

This is the second most important piece of SEO – getting other people to link to you, preferably with your keywords in their anchor text. Search engines places heavy emphasis on inbound links because in theory if other people are directing traffic to your site then that should say something about the quality of your site. Of course as with every part of the algorithm which is uncovered this was immediately abused and the so called link farms blossomed – these are sites that existed only to provide links to other sites usually for money. Google warns heavily against using what is calls “artificial linkage” and will penalize sites who utilize them
Therefore only get legitimate links. You can email webmasters of sites similar or connected to yours and suggest reciprocal links. You can comment on people’s blogs. You can have cross blog conversations with other blogs. You can use a signature file with a link to your website on forums that allow it. And of course you can have such wonderful content that people link to your website just because they want their readers to read it too.
Links are given more “weight: and therefore add more to your overall ranking when they are from sites which rank very well in search engines. Roy Montero, the SEO and Blog guy therefore recommends commenting on blogs from the thought leaders within your niche so that you get maximum results from your work. It will also help you to gain visibility within their communities. Make sure your comments are well thought out and really add to the conversation rather than a whole lot of comments that just say “I agree” or “good job”.

These are the two pieces of the SEO puzzle that make the most difference. There are nuances and depths that I have not gone into here so if you want to find out more then speak to an SEO expert such as the aforementioned Roy and also Ashwin Ramesh, Internet Marketer for more specifics on SEO and also my good friend and Keyword rich webcopy writer Kim Emerson.