Getting Started With SEO.

[Web Gazelle]

With search engine optimization, like everything else that is learned, you have to start with the basics. You get your feet wet then dive deeper. People who have been doing SEO for awhile may consider the information in the post to be trivial. People just getting started should read over this and even bookmark this thread.

The two basic parts to search engine optimization are onpage and offpage seo. Onpage involves optimization of the content of the website pages and optimization of the site layout. Offpage optimization involves building up link popularity by getting inbound links.

Onpage Optimization:

To optimize the pages of a website targeted keywords and search terms should be placed in various areas of the page.

Title Tag - Include targeted search terms in the title tag without stuffing it.
Meta Description - While the meta description may not have much effect on actual rankings a good description with targeted search terms will show up as the description that is included with the link to the site in the search results.

Header Tags (H1, H2, H3...) - Use these tags to add headers and sub-headers to the web page. Make sure to include targeted search terms in the header tags.

Page Content - Write content for a person who might visit the site and don't focus on trying to get the targeted search terms in the content a certain amount of times. Write it naturally and keep the search terms in mind while writing it.

Title and Alt Attributes: These attributes are found on images and links. Include search terms in these attributes.

Anchor Text of Links - Search terms should be included in the anchor text of links. Do not stuff the links full of keywords but just include one or two main keywords in the anchor text. The keywords should be related to the page the link is pointing to and not the page the link is found on.

Offpage Optimization:

Offpage opitimiztion is the process of building up link popularity through getting inbound links. Some places to get links from are...

Web Directories - Submit to both paid and free directories.

Reciprocal Links - Find websites that offer content that is related then ask to exchange links with that site.

Articles - Write articles about products or services offered on the website and submit the articles to various article publishing sites on the web. Be sure to include a link to the product or service on your site.

Press Releases (PR) - Similar to writing articles. Press releases can be submitted to places like PRweb and PRleap. They then can be picked up by other news sites including Google news and Yahoo.

Questions, comments and suggestions are welcome.

W.G.

[King]

A few good resources for beginners:

http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginn...e-optimization - Beginners Guide. SEOmoz is actually rewriting it at the moment though (its a bit dated). You can always do a search for beginners search engine optimization to find the newer rewrites, it doesn't seem done yet.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/ranking-f...ion-2-released - Sorry to post two from one site, but this is a pretty amazing article.

http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml - Yeah its old, but it has tons of great ways (not to mention bad ways, no worries it sets those apart from the good) to build links.

[businessprod]

Nice tips thanks.

[avstu]

Some great tips there. Cheers mate

[namecritic]

Page Content - Write content for a person who might visit the site and don't focus on trying to get the targeted search terms in the content a certain amount of times. Write it naturally and keep the search terms in mind while writing it.

Great tip there. The search engines are getting smarter and putting terms that are related to each other together. You don't need to spam your key phrase all over the place anymore.

On the reciprocal links though, I don't think they have any SEO value, but if you believe users of the other website will also want to visit your website and vice versa, then trading links has value for that reason.

Also, no mention of blogs as having seo value. On purpose or didn't add them for a reason?

Anyway, great tips there and you separated onsite and offsite seo very well. I think people get confused about the terms sometimes.

Nice forum. Surprised at just finding it.

[Web Gazelle]

Thanks for you feedback. I didn't mention blog because I was trying to stick to just the basics with this post.

[Dan Schulz]

Yeah, he's got the basics (of the basics) covered while I write a comprehensive guide (which will be offered here free of charge, of course).

[Web Gazelle]

You know there is much more to it than what is in my post. I expect that people will ask questions about things not in my post and that is what these forums are for.

[jayg5000]

I expect that people will ask questions about things not in my post and that is what these forums are for.

I agree with Web Gazelle. The best way to learn and keep up to date with SEO is through forums.

[King]

I agree with Web Gazelle. The best way to learn and keep up to date with SEO is through forums.

Not these days. Thats why I'm contributing on this forum. I have a feeling that seo.com has a good chance of becoming a real SEO forum instead of entering the mire of spamming Digital Point and others has become. Currently the best way to learn SEO is reading blogs IMHO.