When I build a new site or add a new web page I pay close attention to my website search engine optimization. It’s the one thing that will help my web pages gain top ranking.
Without it I’ll be missing out on relevant traffic and of course, sales.
Here are 2 essential steps that I consider important to good website search engine optimization…
Step #1 - My first step in optimizing my site is to start with a good knowledge of the topic or niche I’m writing about, so I’ll have to do a little keyword research to make sure I’m using the best and most relevant keywords and phrases.
When people are looking for information online, there are a number of different keywords and phrases they could type in for their search, so it’s important that I know all the various phrases they might use that are related to my topic.
This is where my keyword research tool helps a lot. I’ll select 3 or 4 of the most popular phrases; those are the ones that have the highest search count. I reserve the most relevant and most searched keyword phrase as my main phrase for that page; this is the one I will use in the title, description and main header of the page. The other phrases I will sprinkle through out the content using each of them only once.
What I don’t do is overuse any of the keyword phrases. Keyword stuffing use to be a way to manipulate your search engine rankings, but today it’s considered spam.
Step #2 - Link building is probably the most effective way to increase the visibility of my website within the search engines. Submitting articles generally comes to mind first so I’ll submit one or two articles making sure my site or page URL is in the resource box.
I’ll follow that by participating in relevant forums that contain my signature that has my URL directly below it. You can also obtain links by writing product reviews and posting them on related websites, again including your website URL.
Don’t link to your home page
The search engines rank web pages, not web sites, so you want your most valuable web pages to rise to the top of the search engines first. Since your home page is typically an introduction to your site, it’s not as valuable a page.
Use keyword competition analysis to determine how to rank well for specific pages on your website. To help those pages rank even better, write articles that point to those valuable pages in your resource box.
SEO Time Wasters
Don’t waste your time on submitting to the search engines. It’s not necessary. As long as you follow good SEO and search engine copywriting strategies, your site will automatically get picked up and indexed.
Google, in particular, has an advanced ability to detect and index new content almost immediately making search engine submission almost obsolete.
A better use of your time would be to post links in your profile on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. These social marketing sites are crawled by the search engines constantly so a link to your new site or new pages can be discovered in as little as a few hours.
As long as you follow good website search engine optimization your site will automatically get picked up and indexed.
I like to use ping.fm. It will post my message to several social sites at once, so if I add a new site, new content page or a post from my blog, I can send it across the air waves to all the social sites I have set up in my account, nice time saver 
If your website SEO strategies include blog commenting, make your comments count. No one is going to follow a link back to your site if your comment says “great info”, or “thanks for the nice post”. In fact most blog owners will delete those comments.
If you’re lucky enough to find a blog that uses the ‘dofollow tag’ and allows this type of commenting, the search engines may pick up your link but it’s worth a less to you than having a real person follow your link to useful information that could result in a sale. My experience has shown me that I can get a lot more high value backlinks by posting content that is impressive, sparks interest or creates curiosity.
If you’re going to go the extra mile by putting time into your website SEO, then make it worthwhile by doing the things that matter the most. Use your best and most relevant keywords, develop quality links and don’t be tempted by the spam tactics.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: Marketing_GA
April 15, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Hi Ms. Liz,
For step 2 I like to follow the backlinks of my competitors (or client’s competitors) and get the low hanging fruit first, the relevant directories. Then I follow up with finding relevant blogs, forums, etc. I haven’t gotten as involved in the social networking sites as you have. Did you need to spend a lot time developing and maintaining them? At this time I primarily use Facebook and a little Twitter.
Thanks,
Howard
Wow this is a great resource.. I’m enjoying it.. good article
Hey Howard, Social networking does take some time each day but if you effectively work it into your schedule it’s completely worthwhile. I do a lot of automation with twitter and facebook, for example I have Wordpress plugins that auto update those tools with my latest blog posts, things like that.
Most of my time was going to finding relevant, quality blog sites and forums to help build my links effectively but 5000 backlinks has helped me save a lot of time there.
Remember, you don’t have to use a lot of social sites, just the ones that help you with your goals. Facebook & Twitter for example are networking sites, they help build your brand, whereas sites like Squidoo and Digg help you build links. Find the sites that will benefit you the most and use them to their full advantage. Hope that helps
Twitter: me
April 16, 2010 at 10:09 am
A friend just told me about Ping.fm yesterday. So i registered but Have not had the time to use it yet. I will give it a try real soon it sounds wonderful.
You’re so right, we should not waste our time on submitting to the search engines. It is not at all necessary. As long as we follow good website search engine optimization our site will automatically get picked up and indexed.