Basic SEO Tips to Get You Going
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Mon, Nov 08, 2010
Every business with a website should make Search Engine Optimization (SEO) a large part of their growth strategy. SEO is all about getting your site as high up the list as possible on Google or other search results pages i.e. increasing your appearance in web visitors’ search results. This translates into more traffic to your site which translates into more potential business for your company.
SEO is Easy
The beauty of SEO is that it’s not really that difficult. Getting to grips with the basics of SEO is all about understanding how search engines work. There are two aspects of search engines to consider before jumping in. Firstly: how spiders work. Secondly: how search engines figure out what pages relate to which keywords and phrases.
Spiders: In the simplest terms, search engines collect data about a unique website by sending an electronic spider to visit the site and copy its content which is stored in the search engine's database.
Search engines: Search engines need to determine which of billions of pages is relevant to a small number of specific words. In order to do this, the search engine needs to know your site relates to those words. To begin with, there are a few elements a search engine looks at when examining a page. After the URL of a site, a search spider records the site title. It also examines the description meta tag. This is where keywords come in.
SEO Strategic Keyword Use
You should be conscious of placing appropriate keywords throughout every aspect of your site: your titles, content, URLs, and image names. Think about your keywords as search terms - how would someone looking for information on this topic search for it? The title tag and page header are the two most important spots to put keywords. But beware putting ridiculous amounts of keywords on your site will get you labeled as a spammer, and search engine spiders are programmed to ignore sites guilty of "keyword-stuffing." Be strategic in your SEO keyword use.
SEO Internal Links
There is probably no more basic strategy for SEO than the integration of internal links into your web site. This is an easy way to boost traffic to individual pages. You should make it standard to link back to your archives frequently when creating new content, also making the anchor text search-engine-friendly. As with all other SEO basics, be sure your links are appropriate and be careful not to cross the line into excessive linking. 
SEO Basic: Adding a Site Map
Adding a site map, this is a page listing and linking to all the other major pages on your site, makes it easier for spiders to search your site. As a rule the fewer clicks necessary to get to a page on your website, the better.
SEO Demands Fresh Content
Your content needs to be fresh. Updating regularly and often with useful information is crucial for increasing traffic. One way to ensure that your site gets new content on a frequent basis is to integrate a blog. An executive blog is an excellent way to reach out to your clients, create more opportunities for internal and external linking, while giving your site a more personal voice.
SEO Simplicity
Remember, the basis of SEO is simplicity. The goal is to make your site easy to find, follow, and read for search spiders and visitors. This should be coupled with well written content and relevant incoming links. Nailing the basics of SEO sets the stage for more advanced future work.
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