SEO THAT

YOU CAN

DO

YOURSELF

If you are a small business owner with plans to launch a new website to

get more visibility, you must consider search engine optimization,

otherwise known as SEO, so it can be found by prospects. This is

especially important if you plan on selling goods directly on your site.

The rub is that many times web designers spend more time fretting on

form rather than function. As a result, many websites that we have

surveyed are lacking many of the on-page SEO elements that are needed

to get properly indexed by the search engines. To address this

conundrum you need to either hire a knowledgeable optimization expert,

or you can try a little DIY action. When you consider the number of

website analysis programs on the market, DIY SEO is not as much of a

mission impossible as many people believe. In fact, if you invest a

couple of hours a month on your website’s SEO then you can do it

yourself.

Related: How to Increase Google Pagerank Guaranteed

Selection of the right keywords or phrases for your website is imperative

before you start your analysis. That is to say, you need to select the

words or phrases that someone who is unfamiliar with your business

would enter on the search engines in order to find businesses like yours.

For example, if you have a furniture business, you must have the

keyword furniture somewhere in your domain. We can take a second

example, say your business is plumbing and fitting services provider,

then you must have the keyword ‘plumbing’ or ‘plumbing services’

somewhere in your domain name.

Once you have some selections lined up, you need to begin to weed out

those that are less desirable. The best way to do this is by entering your

keywords and phrases into Google’s Keyword Planner which is found

by accessing your Adwords account. (If you don’t have an Adwords

account you can set one up by going to adwords.google.com.) The tab

for the Keyword Planner is located under the Tools tab at the top right of

the page. Once you enter your suspects into the Keyword Planner’s

lineup it will come back with the traffic count for each and every

keyword or phrase entered. More importantly it will also suggest other

keywords and phrases along with their respective traffic counts. The

biggest mistake that most people make is to either choose too many

keywords or choose keywords with little or no traffic. The Keyword

Planner is the perfect tool to help you identify the best keywords to

target.

Also Read: How to Get Google Adsense Approval Today

After selecting the right keywords or phrases for your site now you need

to plug them in. There are several areas that you need to apply these

keywords, namely your Meta Tags, the Alt Tags and at the beginning

and end of your website. The Meta Tags are located directly below the

Title Tag. An example of how these tags should be formatted is listed

below:

The Alt Tags, which are descriptors used at the end of the code for every

image on your website, are the next step. Since search engine spiders

can’t see images, these descriptors tell the spiders what the image is all

about. While many people ignore the alt tags this is a mistake since it is

another way to let the search engines know how to rank your site. Below

is some sample code that shows you what the alt tags look like. Make

sure all off yours are complete if you ever hope to make it to page one of

any search engine.

Keywords must be included in your content. Whether you are creating

verbiage for your website, blog or video you need to find a way to insert

the keywords and phrases into each and every one of these. Just don’t go

crazy with the keyword density or you risk being penalized by the very

search engines you are trying to woo. (In fact there is a black hat SEO

term called keyword stuffing that every search engine knows and

loathes.)

Use of the desired keywords in your content in a fitting way is the goal.

That is to say, it should not look like keywords are thrown in

unnecessarily. Always remember that content is designed first and

foremost to be read by human beings. This means that keywords should

be used only in the proper time and place. They should also be

grammatically correct. Last but not least the most important keyword or

phrase should be used at the beginning and end of your website in a font

that is bold and italicized. This lets the spiders know that the word or

phrase is important.

Recommended: List of Pdf Submission Sites

Off-Page SEO

Even the best on-page SEO is not going to usually be sufficient to

generate a page one result on most search engines in our content-rich

world. But it is a good start. To really get into the game and get the

spiders to sit up and take notice you next need to start providing regular

content that is valuable and interesting. (That’s right folks, the spiders

have learned how to read.) Weekly content has become king due to the

increased competition of the marketplace. People are eager to learn

what’s new and exciting with your business. They want to know how

you can help them save time and money or overcome obstacles. They

want to hear what other customers think about you. Since most people

rarely update their website this makes it difficult for people and spiders

to find out the latest about news regarding you and your business. That’s

what blogs and social networks are all about. They are also good for

creating backlinks to your website which is another benchmark that the

spiders use to rank sites.

When you get to the step of self-promoting your website, you need to

use both On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO techniques. Once your

website receives good ranking on all the major search engines, do not

stop your Off-Page SEO activities. You should continuously work for

your website each week so that your competitors will not overtake your

ranking. Yes, you will require lesser effort and time to do the

maintenance work as part of the Off-Page SEO once your website

receives good ranking. If you do not have the time to promote your

website, you can also outsource some or all of your online marketing

tasks. Just take care to thoroughly check out any SEO expert that you are

considering turning your web presence over to or your site could wind

up DOA.

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SEO THAT

YOU CAN

DO

YOURSELF