Most online businesses appreciate being able to do things themselves …I know I do. It not only saves me money but I learn a few things along the way  

SEO isn't hard; it's just a matter of knowing the key strategies, understanding why they work and putting them into practice.  As soon as you start doing them they'll become second nature to you and pretty soon you'll be doing them without even thinking about it. 

So if you've got a website and want to optimize it without hiring a professional or using expensive tools, here's what you need to do …       

Use Your Best Keywords
This is a pretty important one and you should really take your time to examine your options. For example, each page of your site should be optimized for the best keywords possible.  Start by 'summing up' what the page is really about, then ask yourself what keywords accurately describe the content.  Once you have a good list of about 2 or 3 keyword phrases use a keyword tool like Wordtracker to determine which keywords get the most searches and have the least amount of competing web pages.

Learn to stay away from general words like pets, candy, shoes, computers; instead look for niche long tail keywords like 'women’s red tennis shoes' or 'black licorice candy sticks'.  Long tail phrases like this target several keywords, for example, ‘black licorice candy sticks' includes the keywords, 'black licorice', 'licorice candy' and 'licorice candy sticks'.

Create Search Engine Friendly Content
The search engines have always looked for content however it's more important than ever.  That means you have to focus on creating only good, quality content that is unique and useful. 

You also have to make sure the search engines can read it. Flash content or text embedded in images can't be read by the search engines. You're far better off using anchor text and make use of 'alt' text in your images.   Also use your best keywords that you wish to rank high for in the body of your text, use heading tags correctly and don't try to hide text by blending it into the background of the page.

Ensure Your Content Gets Indexed
Once you create content and upload it to your site or blog, check to see if it has been indexed by the search engines.  This may take a few days, however if you don't get indexed it may be because the site is still fairly new, there may be duplicate content, there may be links generated by JavaScript instead of HTML, it could have poor site architecture or has orphaned pages or various other factors.  If your site isn't getting indexed try writing to Google and asking them. Their responses can sometimes be a little cryptic but sometimes they do provide a few good suggestions. 

Get inbound links
Inbound links are simply your links that appear on other websites. If you have lots of quality sites that display your website's URL the search engines determine this as a vote for your site.  There are lots of ways to get inbound links, all of which are completely free methods.  However those sites that contain your link should be well-established sites that have quality ranking themselves.

Exchanging links with other sites is still an acceptable method but there are much better ways.  Keep in mind that using link farms and buying links are frowned upon with the search engines so avoid them.  Here are the methods that work best:  

• Submit to directories like Yahoo! Bizdirectory.org, DMOZ, Joeant.com and others
• Find blogs that relate to your site’s topic and make constructive comments or ask questions.
• Write articles that contain your website link and submit them to relevant websites and article directories
• Submit a press release that creates a backlink to your site. 

Start participating in social media and bookmarking communities
Social media and bookmarking is pretty new but it's creating quite a buzz and sites using them are experiencing some amazing traffic results. Social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Furl, Digg, Del.icio.us Reddit, and Technorati provide users a way to store their favorite pages and media online plus share it with others.

In addition services like Facebook and Myspace provide services for creating a comprehensive profile that gives you a way to promote your content which in turn helps you create your own personal "buzz" throughout the internet. 

A word of advice, social communities won't do much for you if you are pushing or promoting products.  Social media is based solely on popularity, so if what you are sharing with people isn't interesting, unique and of interest to them you won't generate much interest. 

If you're pretty much on track with all of the above suggestions …and I hope you are, but you need to get on a faster track, then you're probably an excellent candidate for Traffic Secrets 2.0.  It's designed for the user that needs more of a competitive edge by getting the high octane strategies that can sky rocket your traffic.  It's definitely worth a peek.   

You've got nothing to lose except tons of traffic.

One of the things that's important to the success of your website, but often overlooked, is your website's structure. Today the search engines place fairly hefty weight on how your site is laid out, what components are included and your content.

Let's start with one of the basic components that easily get out of whack for most sites — directory structure…     

Before you begin building your website, sit down with a pencil and paper and map out what topics your site will include.  Your main topics should be included in your site's navigation.  Each topic should link to a separate page.   Don't try to include too much varying information on a page, instead divide your information into chunks and link each chunk to a separate sub-page.  

Try to keep your links no deeper than 3 pages deep as the search engines rarely index beyond that. 

Your Website Keywords
Your site has an overall theme or niche for which your site's domain name should reflect the best keyword.  If your site is about 'running shoes', then the words 'running shoes' should be in your domain name. It is imperative that you find not only relevant keywords but the keywords that will get you the most traffic.  That's why Wordtracker is my tool of choice.  Another pretty good tool is Google's Keyword tool, which is free

Next, each page of your site should reflect what is called your long tail keywords. 

For example, a site about running shoes should have ‘running shoes’ in the domain name.  A page talking about 'how to buy running shoes' might look like this:

http://www.runningshoes.com/how-to-buy-running-shoes.html

Your Title, Description & H1 Tags

It's a big deal to be #1 on the search engines but not everyone at the #1 spot gets the clicks they expect, that's often because their title and description tags fail them, meaning the title and description aren’t compelling enough to warrant enough interest. 

How unfortunate is that!

Your title tag should contain a clear title for your page that also contains your best keywords, but also think of the title tag as if it were an ad because this is what the search engines will use as the link descriptor to your site, so it's to your advantage to make it something that encourages a click. Keep the title to about 5-10 words, anything longer than 65 characters will get cut off so keep it short and direct.

I recommend creating a separate description for each page; your description can also influence the reader to click so again use your same keyword phrase as in the title tag and use a description that expands on your title tag. 

Your Heading or <H1> tags

Your heading tags are just good practice.  It's also a reinforcement for the search engines that your page really does contain what your title and description say it contains, and you want all the reinforcement you can get.

The header tags appear like this: <h1> Page Header </h1>

Your Site’s Content

The search engines require sites to offer value to its readers.  A search engines determines value by the amount of fresh, useful and unique content they find.

But what does unique content really mean?  Unique content is content that isn’t found everywhere.  An article on your site that is on 500 other sites isn’t going to do much for your reputation.  That’s precisely why private label content has become extremely popular because many PLR writers only distribute a set number of licenses. 

However the very best way to generate unique content is to generate your own.   Here are a few ideas for coming up with unique content:

• Perform your own case studies
• Perform your own product reviews
• Create an FAQ page derived from your own visitors
• Request feedback from viewers and post the results
• Start a forum – this is an excellent way to encourage people to visit and comment
• Personally comment on industry related news items

It's not hard to figure out how to create a website and there are plenty of easy website builders and information on how to create a blog, however before you start building and creating your website or blog make sure you focus in on a profitable niche, have a good idea what your will be offering on your site and organize it into a logical order and keep each page of your site focused.  No matter how good the site builder it will still depend no your ability to include the necessary information and organize it so your readers can find it.

[tags]website structure[/tags]