SEO Basics

SEO Basics you hear about most

Navigational Menu

Navigation menus have the potential of hurting SEO sites. Making a navigational menu look excellent and still be SEO-friendly, the use of CSS navigational menus are a must. Use of JavaScript in navigational menus is discouraged because not all browsers have capability or it has been turned off.

H1, H2, etc. tags

H tags are headers to search engines and end-users. They delineate to search engines and users the topics of your content. They are organized into a tree-like structure. Ex. h1- h2- h3 h3; h2- h3 h3, h2- h3-h4 h3-h4.

Page Titles

Page titles should reflect the content on each page. Page titles should never be duplicated from one page to another, they are specific to the content of that page. Page titles tell search engines what your page is about and therefore should reflect the verbage that one would use in a search query. Ex. Searches for “18k gold” would return pages in the search engine that have content and titles that contain the words 18k gold.

Meta Keywords and Description

Meta tags are important as they tell the search engines about your website. Keywords tell the search engines what words are in your content and what words your content should be found by a search query. We recommend keeping keywords narrow. Usually between 3 and 10 keywords on each page. Keywords can be duplicated from one page to antoher, however, the keywords should be different in a general sense for each page.

Internal Page Linking

Internal links are links in your own website to other pages within the same website. These are counted as a “vote” for that page by search engines. The anchor text in the link should match what query would be used to find that page.

Sitemaps

Sitemaps help your end-users find things on your site. Google recommends that a sitemap be placed on each site. It can be on its own page or it can be in the footer of the site. Visit Sitemap for an example of a good sitemap.

Reciprocal Linking and Back Linking

Reciprocal linking is when two websites link to one another. Reciprocal linking can help search engine placement, although back linking is a better way of linking. Visit Back linking for more information on back linking.

What are the fundamental factors to SEO?

• Relevancy

  The search engines are always changing the way they show results, but the sure fire way to get some good placement is to be relevant. You must prove to the search engine and to users that you are a relevant listing for the keyword query string. If someone searches ‘tennis shoes’ your website must prove that it will yield what ‘the user’ intended to find.

• Time

  Search engines (especially Google) value the length of time that you have ‘been in business’ on the internet. New websites do not hold as much credibility as those sites that have been around a while and have proven themselves. We recommend also that you register your domain names for an extended period of time if you are sure that it is a domain that you will be using for a while. This shows the search engines and users that you are legit and will be around for a while.

• Size

  The larger your website is, the better chance it will have to rank well. Search engines and users are looking for websites that give lots of great content. Search engine spiders eat up content the best. They want to see valuable, well-worded, organized content. You might consider hiring a professional copywriter.

• Growth

  Growth is a big factor because just like offline businesses that grow, search engines also like to see if your website is growing and changing. This helps them determine that a company has not been stagnate and is constantly updating their information. When a website is growing, as in adding more content, the search engine spiders will continually come back to crawl the new content and they will see more growth.

• Popularity

  This is the area of search engine optimization that marketers such as Innovation Simple perform on a monthly basis on a marketing fee. This takes time and much tedious effort on the part of the internet marketer. Popularity includes link building and social networking but is not limited to these two alone. Those serious about internet marketing and building their online presence will allocate a marketing budget for their internet marketing company to do search engine optimization on a monthly basis.

The SEO Process Phase 1 - Onsite SEO

The frst step to having a website perform well in the search engine results page is to have an awesome website! Websites that have the best content, look good, feel good, and attract users are the websites that perform well in search engines. The coding of the website must adhere to search engine standards and be of high quality. This is the basis of true SEO. You must start here if you want to have real SEO success.

• Keyword Research
• Semantic Code
• Link Structure
• “Title”, “alt” and “meta” tags
• Content Optimization
• Copywriting
• XML Sitemap

The SEO Process Phase 2 - Off-Site SEO

This is where your long term growth really takes off! Hire Innovation Simple to market your website all across the web. The following are some of the variables in off-site SEO that are critical to success.

• Directory Submissions

  Directory submission is where you submit a website to directories that are online. Directories are websites that have several sections included making the website like a phone book where people can search them to find website. There are different kinds of directories where some are general and others are more targeted like web design directory.

• Article Marketing

  Article marketing is used by internet marketers for several reasons. The purpose and goal of writing articles on popular topics is to then publish those articles in article directories to be distributed around the web. When these articles are published, they are then found by others who are looking to post and share articles with others.

• Social Bookmarking

  Social bookmarking is where you can bookmark a particular web page or video in a social bookmarking website. There are several websites online that are called social bookmark companies because they provide a way for people to bookmark something and others across the web can see what has been bookmarked by other people.

• Press Release Marketing

  One of the fastest ways to get the word out about your new business is to write a press release. A press release is where a company writes any newsworthy material that would be of interest to any journalist or media. When a press release is written it can then be sent to multiple news release companies that will broadcast your press release into various media streams.

• Google and Yahoo Tools

• Social Media and Content Networks