In this article I will look at some of the basic techniques of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
What Is SEO
SEO is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site as high as possible. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags. It also involves off site activities such as link building. The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves.
How do they decided what ranks well?
Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. New sites do not need to be “submitted” to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.
SEO Technique: Use Keywords In Page Titles
It is important to use keywords in page titles. Whatever text you place in the title tag (between the <title> and </title> portions) will appear in the title bar of browsers when they view the web page. Search engines also rank this as an important factor when deciding which terms your page should rank for, if any. It is also the title your page will be listed as in SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages), so it needs to appear attractive to humans also.
SEO Technique: Keyword Density
Keyword density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears in the web page. If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial site or spam site. The accepted standard for a keyword density is between 3% and 5%, to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it.
Simple steps to check the density:
- Copy and paste the content from an individual web page into a word-processing software program like Microsoft Word.
- Go to the ‘Edit’ menu and click ‘Select All’. Now go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Word Count’. Write down the total number of words in the page.
- Now select the ‘Find’ function on the ‘Edit’ menu. Go to the ‘Replace’ tab and type in the keyword you want to find. ‘Replace’ that word with the same word, so you don’t change the text.
- When you complete the replace function, the Word will provide a count of the words you replaced. That gives the number of times you have used the keyword in that page.
- Using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.
Free Keyword Research tools
To decide what terms you should target you need a keyword tool to find out what terms are searched more regularly. Both of these tools are ideal for this job:
Other SEO Technique which I haven’t covered
Here are a few more SEO Techniques outlining the basic principles of SEO which I haven’t covered already:
- Create a site with valuable content, products or services.
- Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document.
- Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags, Headers, etc.
- Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc. Also use Yahoo Site Explorer to find out where they are getting their links from, then get links from the same places.
- Use reports and analytics to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyse your visitor location and their incoming sources whether from search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.
- Search google for terms like SEO Tips.
Test you site for broken Links
You can use this tool to check your site for broken links. It is worth removing or updating broken links.
Dave
The most important part of SEO is the keyword phrase that you use for the anchor text of your inbound links. If you target long tail keyword phrases with little competition you can achieve top rankings relatively easily.
Dylan
Don’t worry about word and all that to find out your keyword density, there are lots of things out there that let you do it easier.
One, for example, is SEOMoz’s term targeting tool: http://www.seomoz.org/term-target
Simon
SEOmoz is good, although you do have to sign up!
Jenna
Thanks for posting that! I’m still learning and that was really informational and helpful for me!
Tom
I´m into blogging, and the SEO is done for me automatically (wordpress plugin).Blogs get indexed by search engines faster than normal websites, especially if you update your blog regularly with fresh content and tag your content properly.
Søgemaskineoptimering
You can always use Iwebtool http://www.iwebtool.com/keyword_density to find your keyword density, and best of all, you don’t have to sign up.
Qaswer
I am wondering where PR Green Bar stands in that race? I have seen people mad about link building to get high PR, should we count that in all SEO strategies?
Edward
I would agree with your comments about title, meta description etc etc…but you haven’t mentioned one thing that I personally find very helpful to my projects – choice of domain name!
It is not the be all and end all, but if you register a URL with your most important keyword(s) in, I have found consistently it gives you a head start, and I have tried various TLD extentions. Coupled with your advice above, it all works well
@Qaswer – PR is largely dead isn’t it? I have several sites doing organically well with less PR than competitors. Can’t say I worry about it anyway, personally. Link quality is more mportant than sheer quantity. Unless you want to rank in Live, that is…
World Seo Beginner
SEO is a very complex thing…an all of the 1000 thing that are involved in it are important. The most Important thing is to be patient and to understand the “puls” of the internet!
Barter Guru
Having your keywords in the SEO and your link WILL definetly get you higher page ranking!
A Mesa SEO
When did AOL become a search engine? Don’t they rely on Google?
Simon
Yes AOL uses Google for search…however, for the point of the article AOL is a popular search portal…albeit one that uses google.
Safety Protection Technology
Someone in comments said, “SEO is very complex thing”. I am not agreed with that. Following some simple techniques and to be very genuine it is not difficult. My many sites hold #1 on Google for many highly competitive keywords and i did nothing special with that. Just let your blog, site, or forum in a natural way.
SEO
Hi, Ref: Safety Protection Technology’s comment – I wholy agree with you. “SEO” Search Engine Optimisation is not rocket science if the available SEO help and tools online are utilised. I provide SEO in Chester, Cheshire UK – Google “webmaster tools” and their “webmaster guidelines” are great to help make SEO simple to understand for anyone
My SEO results include my website ranking top ten for relevant search terms with 50million+ results and I would be the first to say I have a LOT to learn about SEO Search Engine Optimisation.
In SEO every day is a school day
SEO Chester, Cheshire UK SEO UK.
Allan from ViSwiss
For your readers that use Firefox, I highly recommend the SEO Quake extension. It provides a tool bar that indicates keyword density, incomming and outging links, PR, Alexa etc. You can also enable it on Google search results to see at a glance what those stats are for pages that are ranking ahead of you. Just my 2 cents.
Eriko from LA botox treatment
Thank you for nice sharing. It’s true that SEO is complicated but this article helps me to get some idea.
Alex from Jewellery
@Simon on March 30th, 2008 10:07 pm
I have tried seomoz for more than a month now it is good but i used softwareprojects few days back and i think it gives more precise information in one page and saves time if you use it on a daily basis.
az from addicting games
I think finding right keyword is the most crucial stage of SEO…apart from tedious link building.
One other thing may be including keywords on the first paragraph within 20 words. It weighs more than adding later into paragraphs plus bold and italic adds value.
Wilson from Searh Engine Optimization
That was a good read, i must say that your grasp on the topic is pretty strong.
I liked the points about keyword density. Cheers!
Ian from Intellionics Seo Services
I never really paid attention to the key words in the title and your post has come as a whack on the head.
Thanks for the two tools that you have mentioned, I think that this has been a good value for time for me.
web hosting nerd
thanks for posting it
i am learning it..
isabella from Website Design Midlands
Very useful information about SEO, this has been of great help to me in optimising my website. thanks a lot.
peterK
Always nice to get updated. Great and informative article on SEO.
LOCC - Tha Most Gangsta
19. Take advantage of local search opportunities. Online research for offline buying is a growing trend. Optimize your site to catch local traffic by showing your address and local phone number prominently. Write a detailed Directions/Location page using neighborhoods and landmarks in the page text. Submit your site to the free local listings services that the major search engines offer. Make sure your site is listed in local/social directories such as CitySearch, Yelp, Local.com, etc., and encourage customers to leave reviews of your business on these sites, too.
Robert from Free SEO Ebooks
If you want to check your keyword density try with analyzer provided by submitexpress.com. Just put the link of your home page or inner page in that query, and you will get a complete analyze of your page. submitexpress(dot)com/analyzer