SEO HELP - Just The Facts

I have put this page together to summarize and break down to the bare essentials the SEO and Link building ideas to make it easy, everything on this page will be straight forward with no little story in between just the facts. I have also included some great SEO links that you can follow as I did and read them for yourself and possibly grow your own web site.

There are 8 keys to getting your site notices:

1st. Choose your keywords carefully
2nd Use your keywords wisely
3rd Make sure to Test keywords, the best way is with pay-per-click advertising.
4th It is essential to Build up the links to your site from other sites, try and make sure the links are relevant to your site. The more relevant the better.
5th Don’t forget to Submit your site to the search engines. If you do not submit your site they will not know how to find you.
6th It’s a good idea to Monitor the progress of your SEO, but be patient, your site like any other business takes time to grow and get known, it won’t happen overnight.
7th and of course the never Ending Blog, it is a must have in order to promote your site.
8th Last of all if you are finding it to over whelming and have the money you might consider outsourcing your SEO.

CHOOSING YOUR KEY WORDS:
Quality research will pay off in the end. Do a search phrase on the major search engines and see what your competition in the phrase is like. If the results display something like 1-10 about 3,610,000. Then that tells you your competition for that phrase is relatively high.
Another source of research for keywords is your server log files. When a visitor finds your site using a search page, the words they used to find you are entered in your server log files. By looking at this information you can find out:

1. keywords to target
2. phrases to target
3. ideas for new pages

There are some excellent tools to help you develop new keywords, The Key Word Tracker tool from Word tracker displays what other words have been used in actual searches on a topic or phrase. This is also a great way to find some of the less competitive keywords.

Always think like your Audience. If you sell Baseball Equipment, you would want pages based around bats, balls, gloves, brand names and specific products related to baseball. Over time you slowly create more and more pages using phrases like ‘Louis vile slugger’ for example to cater for specific searches.

If you want to get really technical about your keywords, you might want to know the density or word count of keywords on your pages. A part of search engine optimisation is researching the ideal density of keywords on the pages - around 5 to 10 per cent is considered about right.
A page needs to feature the keywords prominently but not appear like they were added purely to boost your search rankings. A Great tool to help you do this is Website grader by Hub spot.

USING KEY WORDS WISELY:
Your site's keywords should appear in each of your pages. The "meta title" appears at the very top of the browser window, above the menu bar.
Your keywords should appear regularly throughout the opening Web page. It is also important that they appear frequently in the opening paragraphs of your site. You must always resist the temptation to overuse keywords. This is called "stuffing." The search engines can spot it and might reduce your page rankings. There are plenty of Tools available to help with optimal keyword density, I use the ‘Keyword Density’ not only does this site have this tool but it offers more useful tools that I also use.
SEO golden rule: Never sacrifice quality of content for keyword placement. This can and will affect your ranking. Not only that but, your site won't appeal to visitors.

TESTING YOUR KEYWORDS:
Google's Ad Sense, MSN ad Center or another pay-per-click advertising program which will test keyword effectiveness. You will be able to see if your keywords will bring traffic to your site. You will also ensure your keywords target paying customers. Pay-per-click advertising can be expensive. But used correctly, it can bring targeted customers to your site.Pay-per-click advertising is not a replacement for SEO; it should be used in conjunction with SEO to help you evaluate keywords. If your results are poor, you may want to consider changing your keywords.

BUILDING LINKS TO YOUR SITE:
Search engines view inbound links as a vote for your site. So the more incoming links, the higher your site will rank.
There are limits. The search engines must view the linking sites as quality addresses. Having disreputable sites link to yours can harm your rankings.
Offer to exchange links with sites that are related to your business. If they have a higher rank, all the better. I personally use ‘Link Market’ even though the free version only allows you to request 5 links per day; I find that has been more than sufficient for me. I also use ‘Links Room’ these two sites have been by far my most useful sites for finding and exchanging quality links.

Don’t be afraid to ask disreputable sites to remove any links to your site.

To pull up a list of sites that link to yours, try using a search engine. Simply type Link: yoursitename in the search box.

SUBMIT YOUR SITE:
You want to make sure your site is indexed by the search engines. If your site has numerous inbound links, the Web spiders will find it automatically. Web spiders crawl the Internet and update an engine's database with site/sites information. If your site doesn't appear automatically (most don’t), you can submit it for indexing through a submission service or on your own. I use ‘traffic Seeker light’ it allows you to submit to multiple engines at once, saving time.



MONITOR YOUR PROGRESS:
SEO doesn't happen overnight, consider SEO just like a project, It will take months to get good page rankings. Trying to rush your SEO campaign can lead to mistakes. And the consequences of these mistakes can be severe.None the less it is important to monitor your ranking progress. Do searches with the major engines for your keywords to see how you rank. You might be surprised to find you start popping up for related terms. If so that’s a bonus.

Results can and will fluctuate. Rankings change daily and even hourly. Check frequently for an accurate gauge of where you stand. Don't worry about the minor ups and downs. However if you notice a downward trend, take action immediately.Some good tools for keeping up to date with your sites ranking are

1. Alexa
2. Search engine position
3. GeoSEO

As your site traffic increases, so should your sales. If your sales are not increasing, you may want to re-evaluate your site content and navigation.


CONSIDERING OUTSORCING SEO:
Search engine optimization is an ongoing process, and can be a full- time job. There are many companies who specialise in SEO.
Hiring an SEO company to optimise your website is expensive. Shop around as prices will vary depending on your site, the services offered and the length of time the firm works for you. The advantages might make it a wise investment. If you are thinking of going this way just remember you would be hiring experts, Chances are they can achieve Much better results than you. Their expertise and knowledge will more than likely increase business for you, and in return cover the cost plus.