* Keyword Research and Strategy - If possible undertake a user analysis to determine the specific keywords searched for in relation to your site. This might also provide you with the different variations and the scope of the keywords as well.
o One correctly placed targeted keyword would provide better results than general keywords scattered around the page. Place your target keywords (based on the theme and context of your website) evenly in the content.
- Design and create site navigation depending on your keyword.
- Create compelling copy for your website centered on your keyword research.
- Use tools such as WordTracker and Google Adwords for help with keyword.
* Visitors Is Still King - More and more case study shown that the bounce rate will effect you ranking. You need to be aware of who your target audience are, no matter what. You have a site ranking #1 on Google, a potential customer visits your site to discover technical mumbo jumbo or text and design that only a search engine spider can comprehend, then what? A killer SEO strategy is pointless if it does not help fulfill your objective of creating business.
- Find out from forums and discussion portals who your target audience is, what they are looking for and how they find it.
- Use this information for creating your website design and copy
- This information can also be used as user analysis for keyword research and other SEO techniques
* Customized Strategy- Devise a plan depending on the nature of your business or website. Due to stiff competition for limited positions the results will get slower and harder to achieve. Innovative strategies that will help in the long run will be more beneficial.
- There is more to this world than Google like Yahoo and Inktomi, not to mention MSN, AltaVista and Hotbot. Create a blanket strategy for your SEO purposes that can cater to all leading search engines.
- Some SEO strategies such as PPC campaigns are not a very good in the long run as they will get expensive due to keyword competition. In the case of pay per click advertising the lower you invest the lesser is your ROI
- Look to create a site which caters to search engines and target audience alike
* Link Exchange - Make sure your site is link worthy, by creating content and design which speaks quality along with intelligent search engine optimization - Devise a plan depending on the nature of your business or website. Due to stiff competition for limited positions the results will get slower and harder to achieve. Innovative strategies that will help in the long run will be more beneficial.
- Search engines place a lot of emphasis on your link popularity, so increasing link worthiness is a good idea
- In the same way, make sure the sites linking to you are also of good quality and relevant to the context of your site
- Title Tags - Title tags are and probably will be the most effective SEO technique. Slight adjustments in your tags can give quick and quantifiable results.
- Title tags should ideally consist of keywords and phrases and accurately reflect the context of the page.
- Keep it short (ideally less than 40 characters) and cover the related keywords
* Content with Content - Optimized body content provides good SEO results. Keywords and phrases optimally and strategically placed throughout meaningful and informative content strike the right cord with readers as well as search engines.
- Make the content visible; don't hide it in images or behind Flash. Create descriptive text for clickable text and graphic link (Alt Tags)
- There is no hard and fast rule regarding the number of keywords or phrases per page, devise a plan suitable for your purpose according to your keyword research.
* Crawl Worthy URLs - Some search engines, apart from Google, find it difficult to crawl URLs with "?" and "&". Keep your URLs, and for that matter, your entire site crawl able
- Keeping URLs short and clean not only makes them search engine friendly, but reader friendly as well
- This enables users to pass your URL around easily which serves as an added advantage
* Descriptive Description - Keyword stuffed, unintelligent descriptions are only good to drive traffic to your website, for one time. If you prefer loyal customers to errant one timers put some time and thought into your description.
- Create a description which speaks to search engines and readers. Take some inspiration from the keyword research you undertook.
- Maximum 50 characters providing a brief summary of the contents of the page with strategically placed keywords would be an ideal description
* Learn to Submit - Submit at least a few pages if not the entire site to search engines and directories.
- A lot of automated search engine submissions tools are now easily available though you could manually DIY
- Directories such as Open Directory (feeds Lycos, Hotbot, and Netcentre), Yahoo and Looksmart are also given importance by leading search engines
* Patience is a Worthy Virtue - Even after devising a comprehensive strategy, there is no definitive time period within which you will sure shot reach the top ten search engine listings. You might have to wait for a few days, or maybe weeks just to get crawled and indexed. So achieving a high ranking will definitely take its own sweet time. Do not expect over night results, no matter how hard you try.
Being placed high on search engine ranking is not enough, the content, layout and design of your website much achieve its purpose - whether it is to communicate an important message, sell a product or service or generate donation for a cause. Therefore, looking to please only the search engines cannot lead to sure fire success. So along with these search engine optimization tips to ensure your site gets a healthy dose of reader/user optimization as well.
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