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Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process
by which webmasters and online business owners
get their websites to rank highly in SERPs (search
engine results pages) for keyword phrases that
are both heavily searched for and related to their
industry or niche. Two of the biggest types of
SEO work are keyword optimization and link-building
(increasing the number of incoming links to a
website or specific page).
Here are a few SEO tips to keep in mind when
thinking about keyword optimization for a new
website or online business:
1. Use keyword suggestion tools to research keyword
phrases related to the website’s or online
business’ industry or niche topic.
2. Don’t focus exclusively on very general
(often one-word) keywords or keyword phrases that
would be very difficult to earn a high search
engine placement for. At the same time, don’t
focus on keyword phrases that no one is searching
for. It’s sometimes better to be a “big
fish in a smaller pond” than a “little
fish in big pond” where you can’t likely
rise to the top.
3. Include keyword phrases throughout a page,
with particular emphasis on titles, highlighted
subheadings, and early in any text areas.
Building incoming links to a website or online
business is also an important part of SEO and
improving search engine rankings. This is because
search engines look at incoming links almost like
a “vote” where another website is saying
the site, or some page within the site, is of
high enough quality to recommend to its visitors.
Obviously, link-building can be manipulated in
many ways that don’t equate to “votes”
(such as by purchasing banner ads or text links
on another website). For this reason, some incoming
links are considered more valuable than others.
Here are a few link-building tips to keep in mind,
to build higher quality incoming links:
1. Try to achieve incoming links that are one-way,
rather than reciprocal (a one-way link looks more
like an honest “vote” than a trade does).
2. Build incoming links from relevant websites
(of a similar topic or niche), rather than from
generic link farms.
3. Get incoming links from “authority websites”
(high quality and popular websites) whenever possible.
4. Look for one-page content-based text links
if purchasing links, rather than site-wide banner
advertisements (makes the link seem more natural).
5. To get a specific article or internal Web
page to rank well in SERPs, build links to that
page rather than only the site’s homepage.
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