10 SEO tips and Techniques to get you started

When I first started to dabble in the world of SEO it seemed like quite a daunting task. One that would require many a hours of study, and isolation from the world, sipping on coffee and Mountain Dew to wipe the sleep out of my eyes. It turned out to be a little less mundane and depressing. Through trials and error I figured out quite a bit and most importantly what is the best way to get started.

Now please note that these steps are just what works for me, but they are in no real particular order of when things need to be done. Some might work for you and some might not. But the most important RULES are you have to put in time and have patience. Now on to the list (because everyone loves lists).

1. Have your site BUILT.  Content is the key here.  Make sure all images have ALT tags and all internal links are thought out.  DONT USE “CLICK HERE” UNLESS YOU HAVE 0 OTHER CHOICES.  Instead use keywords where possible, “Click the following link for more of my services.”  You should get the idea from that.  “More of my services” is called anchor text.  Your anchor text when creating links within your website or to your website should be your keywords.
   WHY?  How else are the search spiders supposed to know what keywords are for your site.
2. Make sure you have your important keywords built into the content for their respective pages.  Telling Google to check out a page of yours for a certain key word and its no where to be found is not good.
3. It is ideal to target about 3-5 key words per page.  Dont over do it.
4. Leave the more generic and high level keywords for the homepage and sub head pages (if you check out my post on how to structure a site you will understand).  Put specific keywords (ie. Orange County Graphic Designer) in deeper pages and leave Graphic Designer for the home page.  I don’t do that because I am not interested in such a competitive keyword but Orange County Graphic Designer is important to me.
5. Make sure each page has a unique title and description in the meta section.  Meta keywords are not that important, but I personally use them and if someone wants to see what keywords I am using go ahead.  Remember SEO is a game of chess, you have to see several moves ahead if you want to advance.
6. Dont duplicate your page content either.  Use Canonical URLS if you must.  Why?  Because you want to tell Google or any other bot which set of the same information you want indexed.  So when it reads XYZ on page 1 and XYZ on page 2 it will then know, if you specify, which page is the all mighty one. Just add<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product.php?item=whatever” />
   in the head section of the page you want to be indexed for content that is duplicate.
7. Dont overdo your strategy.  Focus on 4-6 words in the beginning (30-60 days) and add more as time goes on.  Why?  Because the more keywords you are managing the more pages you have to tweak and work that needs to be done.  So prioritize your words and move ahead.  If you can afford a firm to do this for you then double the number.
8. Create a 50 and a 100 word summary of your site along with the relative keywords you want to pursue (these will also be called tags from time  to time).
9. Build an XML sitemap and submit it to google.
10. Get your site up in directories.  DMOZ, Yahoo, MSN, blah blah.  The list goes on.

So these are just the starting point for your adventure in SEO(ing??).  You can always hire someone like Darryn Cooke to help you out and consult and he would be extactic to do such a thing.