SEO - Some Simple Rules

[Nikki - Web Mums]

 

SEO – A Few Simple Rules

Before I continue, let me explain what SEO is; SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. This means that you optimise your website for when the Search Engines come and crawl through it. Optimising your site is laborious but imperative for you to have any success in the searches. You might have a lovely site and a great product but it will be to no avail if Joe Bloggs can't find you on a search.

Most people use search engines to find what they are looking for and Google is the most popular of these. If you are looking to buy something like a polka dot bikini, size 10-12 (I wish) then you would most likely go to Google and type that info in. The results will bring back the matches for your request. This is also known as an 'Organic Search'. We all want first page results on the Organic Searches as it's FREE and one of the most powerful ways to drive traffic to your website.

If you don't optimise your site – then you will fall waaaay down in these searches and lose the majority of your potential custom.

So below you will find some simple SEO rules to follow. If you implement them then you will see some good results from all of your hard work. Work through them slowly and use this article as a reference guide. I have written this in the simplest format, without technical jargon as this makes it far more user-friendly. If, however, there are things that you don't understand or would like some more clarification on then just drop me an email or reply below.

1. Research Your Keywords – If you are writing some fresh content for your site – then research your keywords. The best way to get some SEO clout is to use the keywords you have chosen in your title again within the body of your text. You can use the free tool at wordtracker to give you some idea of how popular your keyword string is and how many people are searching for it. Experiment until you come up with the best title.

   Ideally you will want to use this string of words 2-3 times within the text – if it doesn't look ridiculous!

   You can also do this when you are first deciding on your domain name. It's not imperative but it will serve you well if you can use keywords in the title of your website.

   For example, if I were to consider opening an e-commerce site that sold cloth nappies for babies then I would blast out some ideas like so;

   cloth baby nappies

   eco friendly nappies

   baby cloth nappies – and so on and so on.

   Once I had decided what were the most popular keyword searches, I would look at my domain name options. So perhaps econappies.com or similar.

2. Fresh Content – No one likes a boring, stale site and Google is the same. Google salivates over fresh content and who are you to deny it? Besides SEO purposes, your customers also like to see fresh new content arriving or else you will lose them to another site.

3. Website Images – Did you know that you can use keywords to describe your images with 'alt' tags? It basically means that when your mouse hovers over the image some text appears which describes the picture. Not only is this appreciated by the search engines, it's also appreciated by customers, especially vision impaired customers that use a site reader. The site reader can't read an image but it will read out the alt tag which enhances their experience on your site. So, back to the cloth nappies example; I could have a picture of some cloth nappies with a Disney design. I would have the keywords 'Disney Cloth Eco-Friendly Nappies' in the title (or whatever I chose from my research), I would also include this within the text when I described the item and I would also use it in the alt tags like so;

   <img src=clothnappies.jpg height=”200” width=”200” alt=”Disney Design – Eco Friendly Cloth Nappies”> The 'alt' text will appear when you hover the mouse over the image.

   These images will also be picked up by Google images if they have an 'alt' tag. Many, many people use the images to search – so that is also an additional bonus!

4. Submit Your Site To Some Directories – If you have the money then the $299 for the yahoo directory is worth it but if you are on a tight budget make sure you list to some decent directories like Dmoz etc. It can take a while to get listed – sometimes months, so get in quick. You want a link from a page that is ranked 3 or higher – preferably. Without wishing to hard sell, you can always sign up for the Web Mums directory on the home page and that gives your site an important link from a PR4. (page rank 4). Make sure that whatever title you choose for directory submission is full of keywords. So my cloth nappies site, econappies.com would have something like this; Title = Eco Friendly Cloth Re-usable Nappies – Description = Econappies – suppliers of eco-friendly cloth nappies, UK, Online Store. The 'clickable' bit will be the title. Don't worry if it doesn't have your company name in it. People who haven't heard of you are searching for your product – not your company name!

5. Get Some Backlinks – There are numerous ways to do this and again Web Mums will give you a good backlink from the directory and from your blog posts and forum entries. Make sure that you tag your posts with relevant keywords as these really do get crawled by the SE's (Search Engines).

   Joining some forums is a great way to get backlinks, as not only can you natter about your product – if appropriate – but you must, must, must make use of your signature in your posts. Most forums will let you set up a signature and you can use this to advertise your business. So under every post I could have; EcoNappies suppliers of eco-friendly cloth nappies | biodegradable disposable nappies | cloth diapers

   All of the words you see underlined would be links to various parts of my webstore.

   Internal links within your site is also very important – it helps the search engines find their way to some pages that may be overlooked and counts towards some links for your site.

   If you have a great site with fresh content then over the course of time backlinks will naturally form as word spreads about your site.

   Another great way to get backlinks is....

6. Get Yourself A Blog – I would highly recommend WordPress.org for this but WordPress.com is also good. If you have no clue what-so-ever about blogging then visit this site on How To Become A Blogger as it gives very simple and basic tutorials on how to set up a WordPress Blog. If you'd like even more info then Click Here for a free PDF on Blogging. Blogs are pretty SEO'd up without you having to get too technical. If you do the same with your blogs as you would with your content then that will be a great string of backlinks. So – Keywords in the title, keywords (exactly the same string as the title) in the main text and alt tags (if applicable) and then keywords in your tags. Then submit your blog with the same keywords to some of the social sites like del.icio.us, reddit, Spurl, blinklist and so on.

   Also, make a point of getting to know some other bloggers within your market. Read their blogs and leave comments. Your comment will also be a backlink to your site and readers of blogs will likely pop over to see what you also have to offer!

Okay – that's about it for some simple steps that everyone can do to help themselves with SEO. It can be a whole lot deeper than that and there is an awful lot more technical stuff that you can do but if you at least do the above you will see results!

[Yvette Segal]

Thanks for yet more useful information Nikki.

[Sue Wynette]

Well done Nikki there are some great tips there. Off to get working on them!
Regards Sue Wynette
Films cells & film memorabilia by Filmstruck

[Lisa - Baby Not Included]

Hi

When you say add tags to your posts, how do you do this?

Thanks for the other bits of info.

Lisa

[Nikki - Web Mums]

When you start off a discussion or add a blog, you get the option to add 'tags' at the bottom of the post (you'll see a seperate box). These are powerful ways for your posts to get indexed and found.

[Lisa - Baby Not Included]

Okay, thanks

I will keep an eye out for that.

Lisa