Why ? - SEM ( Search Engine Marketing )

What is SEM ?

Where SEM is an acronyms of Search Engine Marketing and which is the fastest, most powerful, highly-targeted, most dynamic, highly-measurable and most cost-effective marketing strategy that can give your business the power to reach potential customers anywhere in the world.

Search Engine Marketing or SEM is about making sure that your Web site appears on the top 20 of search results every time potential customers search for whatever products and/or services that you offer on any of the major Search Engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN.

So Search engine marketing is an alternative to traditional marketing such as commercials, brochures, and print advertising.

Types of SEM

There are two forms of search engine marketing today. They are:

1 - Natural search engine listings - such as those returned in numeric form on major search engines like Yahoo, Google and MSN.

2 - Paid search engine listings - such as those returned in sponsored areas of search results on these same engines and others that belong to their network.

What are natural search engine listings?

There are two kinds of search engine listings. Natural and Paid. Natural listings are the listings that are not paid for. They are determined by the search engines' algorithms for finding, sorting and ranking pages based on relevancy. Because natural listings are considered "more accurate" by searchers, getting in natural listings is typically preferable to getting in paid listings.

What Is Paid search engine listings?

Paid listings are usually labeled in a separate section such as "sponsored listings.Paid search engine are those returned based on auction type keyword bidding. These listings are displayed in sponsored areas of search results and are paid for on a per-click basis.

So search engine marketing is an essential part of business and should not be underestimated and Search engine marketing is responsible for millions of consumer transactions daily.
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High Search Engine Ranking Needs Concentrated Effort

With the advent of search engines, there have been users who have used ways and means to achieve high search engine rankings. In the beginning, these search engine techniques were fairly simple, such as stuffing hidden tags with keywords or using invisible text on pages. As the search engines caught on to these tactics, the techniques used to achieve high search engine ranking evolved into more sophisticated methodologies.

What is overlooked is the fact that the search engines have established ranking criteria based upon extensive study of their users. In most cases, the sites that do not have high search engine ranking are not giving the visitor what the search engine rule book has deemed important. Unless they have the awareness to know what search engine users want, how could a web designer or business owner expect to do better?

In short, put informative content on your pages. Your search engine techniques shouldn't center on taking an existing site and changing it as little as possible for the sole purpose of achieving high search engine rankings- rather it should center around making whatever changes are necessary to directly address the interests of your visitors. 'The Visitor is King.' - keep that in mind when working on your website, and the search engines are sure to reward you with high search engine rankings.

For high search engine ranking you also need to make sure that your website gets fully indexed. There are two main ways to ensure that your site is spider friendly and that the relevancy is added. The first is to place text links at the bottom of your homepage to your main internal pages. The second is to create a sitemap to all your internal pages and link to it from your homepage.

Remember, all major search engines give credit to sites that have quality links pointing to them. How many is enough depends on your industry and targeted phrases. The first place to seek links is with topic-specific directories. After that you may want to move into reciprocal link building. Some webmasters will simply link to any website that links back to them. But we advise you to link to relevant sites only

If your web designer is unable to show high rankings for your site, its time to change hands. Search engine optimization (SEO) specialists bring you effective solutions to give your site high search engine ranking. Find a specialist with a good track record and reap the results.

Learn How Improving Your Web Site Content Could Improve Your ROI

Web Content, content, content. What the Search Engines were originally designed for and over time web content has been somewhat put on the back burner of Website Marketing Importance.

Good Web Site Content could set your site apart from your competition online by providing the information that surfers find so valuable as well as search engines and putting together great copy that sells could convert visitors into buyers or subscribers.

Although web content is important, well-written web copy that demands attention, talks to the customer and gives a proper call to action can be very powerful in your website marketing campaigns.

Here is how you can make you web site content sell: First thing to consider is the headline, it should speak out loud grabbing the attention of the reader making them want to read on. Be creative and don't be afraid to be a little controversial.

Then you may want to start with a question or a statement that makes the reader start to think about the problem they are having which is the reason they are looking for the answer that can solve that problem.

Web Content, content, content. What the Search Engines were originally designed for and over time web content has been somewhat put on the back burner of Website Marketing Importance.

Good Web Site Content could set your site apart from your competition online by providing the information that surfers find so valuable as well as search engines and putting together great copy that sells could convert visitors into buyers or subscribers.

Although web content is important, well-written web copy that demands attention, talks to the customer and gives a proper call to action can be very powerful in your website marketing campaigns.

Here is how you can make you web site content sell: First thing to consider is the headline, it should speak out loud grabbing the attention of the reader making them want to read on. Be creative and don't be afraid to be a little controversial.

Then you may want to start with a question or a statement that makes the reader start to think about the problem they are having which is the reason they are looking for the answer that can solve that problem.

Next you may want to list some bullet points which list problem solving items to their problem. Try to avoid talking strictly about how great your item is, how wonderful your service is, this area will come later.

Note: Internet surfers can tell in seconds if your are advertising to them in your web site content, I think it is better to ease the reader to the call to action vs jumping in there face with another lame ad. Studies have shown that visitors will just click away if they feel that your are selling to them instead of trying to solve a problem for them.

The idea is that your web site content needs to create trust with the customer, make them invision using your product an or service and have them realize that they just can't live with out your product. If you show that you can help ease there pain and solve the problem they have they will be more likely to purchase from you.

Next you can tell them a little information about you and your products and or service.

This one may seem like it does not have much importance because customers should know what to do next but it is very important to include a call to action ( buy now!, call today!, click here, etc ) telling them what you want them to do next. This part is crucial.

There is more in-depth information about web site content writing but I think this will give you a good idea on what you may want to think about when putting together your web site content.

Internal Links – Are You Making the Most of Yours?

Are you yielding the highest possible return in search engines from optimizing your pages internal links? If not, then maybe it’s time for a link audit.

With so much time spent being myopic over link building and external links (development of one-way,reciprocal links or building your blog roll), people often forget that they have the most relevant authority site sitting right under their nose – their own pages.

Instead of looking past your own site, how could anything be more on-topic than the pages you have complete control over. If the pages are aged and already have page rank, then it’s just icing on the cake, this is the basis of link equity. By tweaking the structure of how your pages pass rank, you can essentially mold how search engines treat the content on those pages.

Did you know that than external links? probably not, because so many schools of thought want you to think otherwise or simply go against the grain.

In fact a new site set up properly, themed and topically structured to reach a targeted or specific series of keywords, has a much greater chance of dominating the top 10 than an older site by comparison (in reference to content, internal links, the code in the pages, the naming conventions of the folders and filenames).

So let’s get started with tidying up the On-Page SEO factors that you ultimately have control over before you even consider Off Page SEO strategy. But just in case it’s too late and your site is seasoned and stuck in a rut, you can still apply any of the 10 methods below to clean house a bit and lighten the load to make each page more relevant.

When starting over is not an option, there are a few things you could do to salvage an older site by performing a content and link audit.

1. Make all of your links absolute, remove secondary keywords that are NOT RELEVANT.

Replace /pagename.html with http://www.yoursite.com/pagename.html this way when the pages age, they pull each other up in the search engine result pages. In addition, if your content gets scraped (copied) then at least the are pointing links back to your pages (so you get the back link).

2. Cap all out-bound links (links leaving the page to no more than 10 per page) or create a new page to keep the focus laser-like.

Less outbound links mean that each page has more link juice to pass to it’s own keywords and less energy being transfused or hemorrhaging away from the page. This becomes more apparent when you start building external links, how quickly the pages rise in the SERPs (search engine result pages).

3. Optimize your anchor text (the text in the link). Make sure your main keyword/phrase is on the page (at least one time) as well as in the title.

Use each link wisely as this will augment your page in search engines, anchor text is essentially screaming “hey, this is what this page is all about” so if used wisely you can literally anchor the context of the page and cement 4 or 5 choice terms that you would like to predominantly show up for “exact match style” when people are conducting searches.

4. Don’t try to optimize a page for more than 3 terms / keywords.

If you want to aim high and rank for competitive terms and variations of competitive keywords, keep the information on topic. Once a page reaches 750 words is enough, then create another page if you must with another variation of the keyword (this is also a great way to get a double listing in search engines, using two pages that dovetail off the others keywords). This tactic is for creating a ranking blockbuster, it is not to say that you cannot exceed that, but the term optimization also applies to the page size, so keep it lean and mean.

5. Use contextual links in the content, the higher on the page the better as links higher in the page are known to carry more weight in search engines vs. footer links.

If you are using contextual links (links from one page to other pages in the site, instead of navigation to pass page rank and flow) then make sure that you are using the main keywords for the page that you are trying to rank with. For example say I had page (a) and the link (1 of the 10 on the optimized page) was pointing to page (b) then make sure the anchor text (the text in the link) from page (a) was using the keywords for page (b) that you are trying to rank for. That way when it ages, it becomes the perfect back link for page (b) while in the meantime it creates relevance for your entire site. By linking your pages this way, each page supports the next like a dynamo (with the ideal link / anchor text to boot).

6. Keep your pages lean 20k or less (optimization also means loading time), this includes images and code bloat.

If you have Adobe Photoshop, open your images and use shift+control+alt+S then resize your images using jpeg compression. The jpeg format was designed not to lose resolution visually, but you can drastically reduce loading time, which definitely impacts where you rank.

7. Optimize your in-line code. Keep all of your java script and other programming code off page (in their own respective files and hyper-linked to the page like a style sheet).

CSS (cascading style sheets) are ideal, since they separate the content from the images and essentially provide the search engines what they want with the least amount of clutter and fuss. But if you must go old school and use tables and java script, then at least keep the java script off the page in a .js file and the link to it (using the same line of code that you would use for a style sheet). Here is an excellent css based (flash / java script looking DHTML menus that look great and are extremely lean)

8. Hone the focus of the page – Make sure your main keyword appears at least 2-4 times on the page and once in the h1 and a slight variation in an H2 tag.

This assures the person that they have found what they are looking for and allows them to quickly find the information they were originally looking for. Remember with so many options, the back button is only one click away.

Now you could go into advanced SEO where you can actually build deep links to pages and then the keywords transcend that page and eventually you start seeing the homepage appear in search engines (which may or may not have the keywords on the page). Or you could simply have a themed site (with highly relevant information) and build external links to the page (even though the keywords are not present on the page) and still rank for those terms.

So, just because you see people stuffing titles and overusing keywords doesn’t mean that is the only way to rank higher in search engines, sometimes less is more. But for the sake of the audit, let’s stick with the basics and use the time tested method (once in the title, once in the description, a few times on the page and once in the h1/h2 tags).

9. Augment your pages through the buddy system – Have at least 5 of your strongest pages concentrating their collective internal link-juice towards your newest rock star page (the page you wish to elevate and send forth as your messenger in the SERPs).

Sounds simple enough, this alone can determine which page is returned for which keywords. Aside from this, this is a great tactic when you are launching a new page.

10. Clean out pages that are off topic, rewrite them for present-tense relevance or remove all but a few links, rewrite the titles (65 characters or less) and the descriptions (2 sentences tops using the keywords only one time each) then republish the page and wait for the spiders to re-index your content. From there you can start building links to gain more elevation in the SERPs.

If none of these options seem industrial strength enough then you can always opt for;

1) Deleting off topic pages and using a 301 redirect to the homepage or a page that has the most relevance (if those pages were indexed).

2) Purchasing a new domain name comprised prominently of your main keywords, then 301 your old site to the new one (allow up to 30 days for the rankings to recover) build links and when it comes back in full force it will be stronger than ever, granted you utilized the basic fundamentals above.

This option is a last resort, ideally you could just add a blog on a subdirectory (with impeccable code) get it listed in blog directories and start generating new content frequently to increase spider activity until it revives your whole site through all of the increased pinging and spidering activity.

Make sure you give the spiders something juicy to chew on, otherwise you can’t really expect a reward. Even combining a title and description audit and removing the verbose words can be enough to bump your page up 10-20 positions, from there you can focus on off-page SEO to accomplish the rest.

These tips are essentially for non-content management systems as most CMS systems already have themed architecture and internal linking built in to the structure (at least to the degree where you can personalize it with a few custom plug-ins).

I have always been under the impression that it is good to have a combination of static and dynamic pages, but that is just my personal preference (that way you can control the prominent pages/internal links and page rank flow easier when you start building link externally). If your content is all withing a content management system (like word press), each page gets the equal amount of link juice, which can be a plus or a minus depending on your ranking strategy.

This is why I mentioned briefly that in a nutshell by adding a blog to an older static site, sometimes that can be enough with a few tweaks to the pages to jump start the search engine ascension process, however each site is unique and has it’s own internal and external link threshold.

20 Practical SEO Tips to Super-Charge Your WordPress Blog!

We would like to introduce WordPress Expert John Lamansky, who we managed to extract from the lab just long enough for him to compose this brilliant WordPress Top 20 SEO Guide.

Got a WordPress blog that you’re eager to supercharge for optimal search engine performance? Read on! We’ll cover pinging, sitemaps, canonicalization, link juice, header tags, slugs, tags, timestamping, social media, permalinks, and a whole lot more!

WordPress SEO Tip #20 — Don’t Block the Search Engines!

First and foremost: make sure you’re not inadvertently telling the search engines to go away! Believe it or not, some WordPress installations block the search engine bots by default.

From your admin panel, go to Options > Privacy and make sure it’s set to “I would like my blog to be visible to everyone.”

Bonus Tip #1 – Are Comments Enabled?

Some WordPress users restrict comments to registered users, or disable them entirely. While this may be appropriate in some situations, in most cases comments are a very beneficial factor, and a defining mark, of a blog.

Comments engage your readers, help you get more “fresh content” SEO brownie points, and give search engines another reason to come back frequently.

Here’s how to fully enable comments:

1. Login to the WordPress administration center
2. Click “Options” on the menu bar
3. Is “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” checked? If so, consider unchecking it.
4. Click “Discussion” on the submenu bar
5. Make sure the following are checked: “Allow people to post comments on the article” and “Allow link notifications from other Weblogs (pingbacks and trackbacks.)”

WordPress SEO Tip #19 — Does Your Blog Have a Topic?

Some of us would prefer to have a blog where we talk about anything that comes to mind: cars, movies, photosynthesis, dust mites, you name it.

In and of itself, such a blogging style isn’t wrong; however, you can leave search engines clueless as to what your blog’s about and thus for what search queries your blog should appear. And some of your readers might get annoyed in the process as well.

WordPress SEO Tip #18 — Ensure URL Canonicalization

If your blog posts are accessible from more than one URL, you could end up with:

• Search engines confused as to which URL to display in the SERPs.
• PageRank split between multiple pages.
• Duplicate content penalties.

Starting with version 2.3, WordPress takes care of this and makes sure your content is accessible from only one place. So if you use an older version, either upgrade to the latest version of WordPress, or install the Permalink Redirect plugin.

WordPress SEO Tip #17 — Check for Valid XHTML

Most code errors are minor, but the more serious ones can cause content misinterpretation by search engines, lower rankings, and rendering errors.

WordPress itself produces valid code, but errors can crop up from two other common sources:

• Poorly written plugins or themes
• User-created coding errors (in the blog posts themselves, or through theme customizations)

First check your site for errors. If an error is found, look at the surrounding content to determine the source of the error.

If a plugin is the culprit, fix it if you’re good at that sort of thing (the beauty of open source!), or send a quick email to the plugin developer and let him or her know.

WordPress SEO Tip #16 – Don’t Leech Link Juice!

One characteristic of WordPress blogs is the sidebar, which is typically present on every single page. Do you really need to be passing link juice from every single one of your pages to every single one of those links? If the answer is no, consider adding rel=”nofollow” to the less important ones.

WordPress SEO Tip #15 — Use Images in Your Posts

Not only do they increase visitor attention and retention, they give you an opportunity to use keyword-rich “alt” attributes, “title” attributes, and filenames. Plus it’ll give your blog visibility in image search engines.

WordPress SEO Tip #14 — Does Your Theme Use Header Tags Correctly?

• The blog title, or your main keyword should be in an

  tag.

• If your subtitle is keyword-rich, you can put it in an

  ; otherwise I recommend putting it in a non-header tag like

  .

• The post titles should go in

  tags.

• Sidebar section titles should be

  tag or non-header.

Unfortunately, some themes (including the WordPress Default Theme) put the sidebar section titles in

tags. Although this makes sense from a strict structural point of view, it also gives irrelevant sidebar headers (“Categories,” “Archives,” “Meta,” etc.) equal weight with your SEO-important post titles.

To sum it up: Use a theme that utilizes header-tags properly, or try fixing the theme you have.

WordPress SEO Tip #13 — Use Pinging

A ping is a “this site has new content” notification that invites bots to visit your blog.

WordPress pings one website called Ping-o-matic by default, which in turn pings others. You can also add additional services by going to Options > Writing in the admin panel. (For example, the pinging URL for Google Blog Search is http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2)

Another Bonus Tip: Once a post is published, WordPress issues pings whenever the post is edited. Try to cut down on after-publishing edits to avoid being considered a ping spammer.

WordPress SEO Tip #12 — Install the Google XML Sitemaps Generator Plugin

XML Sitemaps are search-engine-friendly directories of your blog’s posts and other pages intended to help search engines spider your site. Though pioneered by Google, they’re supported by Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com as well.

The Google XML Sitemaps Generator for WordPress makes creation of these sitemaps easy and automatic. It also lets the engines know when you post new content.

WordPress SEO Tip #11 — Avoid Sponsored Themes

There was a debate in the WordPress community not too long ago on the topic of sponsered themes. These themes include paid links (usually in the footer) than can suck PageRank and possibly result in a Google paid links penalty.

Stick with WordPress theme directories that don’t include sponsored themes, like the WordPress Theme Viewer.

Bonus Tip #2 — Write Right Post Titles

SEO isn’t everything: once you’re high in the SERPs, you need action words to prompt clickthroughs.

Put keywords in your title if at all possible, but not if it’ll compromise the click-trigger action title.

WordPress SEO Tip #10 — Use Traditional SEO Techniques

A WordPress blog is a website too, so the traditional SEO techniques still apply:

• Use important keywords in the title and throughout the post, but don’t overdo it.
• Bold your keywords when it makes sense.
• Develop links to your blog.

WordPress SEO Tip #9 — Use the Power of the Slug

Ever wondered what the “Post Slug” on the “Write” page was? It’s the text that goes in the URL when you have “Pretty Permalinks” enabled (see tip #2).

By default the slug is a “sanitized” version of the post title. However, if your title is overly long or keyword-sparse, you can change the slug through the Post Slug box.

Yet Another Bonus Tip: The SEO Slugs plugin can take out common words like “you,” “is,” etc. out of the slug for you automatically.

WordPress SEO Tip #8 — Use Timestamping to Stagger Fresh Content

Search engines and visitors love fresh blog content on a steady, regular basis. But for a lot of us, creativity comes irregularly: 10 post ideas one week, none the next.

Enter timestamping. When writing a post, click the plus sign next to “Post Timestamp.” Set a date and time, and the post will publish by itself whenever you specify.

Search engines will keep coming back, and visitors won’t be inundated with a ton of new posts all at once.

Hint: If you’ve timestamped a post, don’t click the Publish button, since that’ll publish your post immediately regardless of your timestamp. Instead, select “Published” under “Post Status” and click the Save button.

WordPress SEO Tip #7 — Use Tags for Free Keyword Boosts

WordPress 2.3 and above include a tags feature that lets you assign keywords to your blog posts. Once you start using them, then since each tag gets its own webpage, you’ll be generating a ton of your own themed, keyword-oriented internal backlink pages.

WordPress SEO Tip #6 — Integrate Social Media

Adding social media links/buttons like the ones above makes it easy for visitors to promote your quality content (hint, hint). Social media is a great way to build links naturally as well as drive targeted site traffic.

• Share This is a very popular “social media all-in-one” plugin.
• If you’re a FeedBurner user, you can use FeedFlare to add action links, including social media ones, to the bottom of your posts.

Lots of social media sites provide code you can use to generate buttons like those above. Grab your own code from:

• Digg
• Sphinn
• StumbleUpon
• Mixx
• Scoop

WordPress SEO Tip #5 — Implement Deep-Linking

Here are several great ways to implement deep-linking on your WordPress blog:

• Within your posts, link to other posts on your blog and use important keywords in the anchor text.
• Install the Similar Posts plugin, which inserts a list of related posts you’ve written to the bottom of each of your blog posts. This process will create aged deep links and increase visitor retention.
• Display your most popular posts in your sidebar using the Popularity Contest plugin. Gives your most popular posts tons of internal links, and helps your visitors find your best content.

WordPress SEO Tip #4 — Make Scrapers Work to Your Advantage

Most of us would probably be upset if someone used scraping (automated content stealing) to publish our laboriously-written posts as his or her own.

But with a little work, you can make the scrapers work for you, not against you.

Here’s how to do it, courtesy of EarnersBlog.com:

If you use Wordpress it’s very easy to take full advantage of these sites linking to you, all you need to do is create links back to your content within your feed.

What you’ll need for this:

• Cave Monkey’s Full Text Feed Plugin
• Solo Technologies Add Related Posts to your Feed Plugin

These plugins simply show your entire post in your feed & also add some related posts in your feed only (which will also increase the amount of people in your feed reading more than 1 post).
Now, everytime anyone scrapes your blog via your RSS feed & republishes it they’ll be deep linking to 5 or more of your existing posts. Bingo.

WordPress SEO Tip #3 — Install the All-in-One SEO Plugin

Like the name implies, this plugin covers a lot of the bases.

• Puts the blog name after the post title, giving your keyword-rich titles more prominence.
• Allows you to override title and meta tags on your homepage as well as your individual posts.
• Lets you add “noindex” to your category and/or tag pages to avoid duplicate content.
• And more.

A must-have for serious WordPress SEO.

WordPress SEO Tip #2 — Use “Pretty Permalinks”

Sure, you may already use Pretty Permalinks, but are you using the best possible permalink structure?

For those of who don’t use Pretty Permalinks, it’s a must-do for WordPress SEO. Permalinks, in essence, are the URLs of your WordPress blog posts. “Pretty Permalinks” put slugs (which should contain keywords — see tip #9) in your URLs instead of the default numbers.

To enable or change them, first login, then go to Options > Permalinks.

The two options you do not want are “Default” and “Numeric.” Here are my suggestions for picking a “pretty” permalink structure:

• Date and Name Based: The problem with this is that your posts are several extra directories deep, which can decrease relevence in some search engines. However, such a permalink structure can nevertheless be desireable if your blog is news-oriented or date-sensitive.
• Post Name Only: If your blog covers one topic that has no subtopics (which, though possible, is unlikely), select “Custom” and type /%postname%/
• Category Based: If your blog covers multiple topics, implement category-based URLs. (You have to look into the Codex to find information on category-based URLs, so many WordPress users probably don’t realize that this option exists!) To implement it, select “Custom” and type /%category%/%postname%/

WordPress SEO Tip #1 — WordPress Secret: Use Category-Based Permalinks for SEO Siloing

Here’s the big finale. Problem is, this tip is so important (and lengthy) that it really merits its own post.

Here’s a teaser: it entails implementing the powerful siloing technique on your WordPress blog through a combination of plugins, settings, and strategies.

Conclusion

Okay, so it was actually more like 23+ tips instead of 20. I certainly hope you gleaned a useful strategy or two in your quest for WordPress search engine optimization. If you enjoyed this post, please social it, email it, link it, or leave a comment!

Stay tuned for the “mega-tip” later this week! If your eager to try these techniques out, download our free WordPress SEO Theme, Small Business SEO.

John Lamansky is an up-and-coming web developer who has building websites for 7 years and has been working with WordPress for almost 3 of its 5 years of existence. He is experienced with XHTML, CSS, PHP, WordPress, and much more, and looks forward to providing WordPress tips, services, and resources to the blogging community.

SEO Tips to Build a New Website

Here are 10 powerhouse SEO tips that you can use to build a new website and make sure it gets off to the right start. First, the strategy, then a brief synopsis of the tactics are outlined below.

SEO Tips to Build a New Website:

1. Start with a theme (meaning your market and the top level keywords).
2. Use Keyword Research to build that theme into the site navigation, internal links, tags and naming conventions.
3. Determine the tipping point is for the top 5 competitors and exceed them using time-released content.
4. Leverage internal links to select preferred landing pages.
5. Build a stable base of off page links from trusted sources first, and then ensure a fresh supply of relevant ongoing links.
6. Build pages properly the first time “optimal” using a pliable CMS system which does all the SEO / heavy lifting by default.
7. Use keyword research to integrate less competitive keywords (branches of the root phrase) into supporting posts, pages and off page content (then go back to point #3).
8. Keep site architecture flat and make sure to link to a sitemap for that segment of the site (if you use categories).
9. Make changes to older / trusted pages – If ranking priorities change, go back and edit and add additional links and content to leverage pages 4 months or older to link to new pages with supporting keywords.
10. Measure the results and rinse and repeat.

Start with a theme: Understanding the competitiveness of the keywords, based on competing pages, the authority of the competitors holding down the top 5 spots and the content and link thresholds they exhibit is a great start for any endeavor.

You can also expand your base of modifiers to embrace multiple variations or flavors of the market to drive additional traffic that competitors may be leaving on the table due to their own narrowness or lack of creativity. *Links will be provided at the end of this post for further elaboration on various tactics and techniques.

Use Keyword Research: When conducting keyword research, keep in mind, it is the long term objective that matters, so you have to build the most competitive keywords and phrases into the site structure so that it is always present and acts as a hook for a node of relevance.

Then, using faceted or tiered navigation, you can drill down from the most broad phrases into the category and / or product level (giving each page its own focus) vs. trying to mash everything together as a keyword free for all.

The rule of thumb is a page should be optimized for 3 -5 keywords per page, anything else is just mid-tail and long-tail traffic which will happen anyway, once all the pages are indexed, linked and working in unison.

Determine The Tipping Point: Each keyword has a tipping point, determining what that is takes to outrank others requires observation, analysis and execution to overcome.

For example, is it 15 pages of content for keyword A, 25 deep links and 100 internal links from other pages, 5 pages of content for keyword B, 100 deep links and 4 months to season enough search engine trust?

They say practice makes perfect and no two websites are alike, however this is a moving target and requires persistence based on keyword thresholds exhibited by (a) your own website and (b) the thoroughness of your competitors SEO strategies and whether they are hollow or back by solid SEO metrics.

Leverage Internal Links: Leverage the links you build from other websites by using keyword relevant internal links through co-occurrence. If a keyword exists on another page you intend to rank for, and then make sure that all of the subsequent pages are linked to the preferred landing page with the keyword or semantic variation to support the preferred ranking.

Off Page Links: Getting the proper type of off page inbound links matters more than the quantity of links pointing at a page or website. Trusted links pass trust; you can have 200K inbound links from sites that are classified as a bad neighborhood that pass nothing of value to your website. On the other hand, you can have 1000 quality links from sites that have trust and authority and pass more ranking factor along than the 200K links.

Aged sites replete with either (a) trust or (b) rankings in the niche, market or segment your site corresponds to are ideal.

SEO for a CMS: You don’t have to over-think your SEO, just build it on a solid platform (such as WordPress) refer to our WordPress SEO Tips. After you set your site up properly the first time, you can easily mirroring the title, h1, meta tags and page naming conventions and focus on adding themed content to add an array of robust keywords and landing pages to garner rankings.

Keeping Site Architecture Flat: Flat site architecture implies building relevant pages in the root folder and using exact match or targeted naming conventions for the url structure. For example, instead of having a site format and naming convention like domain.com/electronics/games/sony-psp/ you could use domain.com/sony-psp-games.html to flatten the subfolders.

Here is a great piece on competition and how to leverage content silos to get that value out of your deeper pages and add traction for specific pages.

Making Changes to Older / Trusted Pages: You can benefit tremendously from refining or editing pages with trust or page rank to increase indexation for other newer pages or site segments.

Many SEO’s don’t tell you that your websites most trusted pages (older than 4 months) are a treasure trove when re-optimized or utilized (by adding additional content or links) to act as pivotal points within a website.

Linking from trusted pages passes along value beyond measureable link flow alone, it allows your other pages to rank on less inbound links from other sites (as inbound links or external inbound links are treated much in the same way).

Measure, Rinse and Repeat: No explanation needed here. Just test the metrics, keep a log and make adjustments where needed to dial in specific keyword variations.

These 10 SEO tips should allow you to make a great start and strong ranking finish. Now, as promised, here are the links.

Top 5 SEO Tips

Here’s some real SEO Tips you can actually use to increase your sites search engine rankings in Google.

No wishy washy, get backlinks (with no pointers how to achieve this) or obvious tips like build good content (what the heck is good content!).

SEO Tips You Can Trust

These are all SEO facts NOT SEO myths.

SEO Tip 1 Anchor Text of Nofollow Links

The anchor text of nofollow links count towards the Google ranking of the page the nofollow link is ON (this was an unexpected result when I tested this). However, as expected it does NOT count towards the page you are linking to and does not use PR/link benefit.

SEO Tip Usage – You can link to relevant external sites and add the nofollow to the link and gain on page SEO benefit from the anchor text used without wasting link benefit/PR to the site your linking to.

SEO Tip Blackhat Warning – I’ve not seen a page/site that uses nofollow excessively receive a penalty, but even so it’s something to take into account. It’s not a clean white SEO tip, it’s a little grey.

SEO Tip 2 Title Attribute and Alt Attribute Text

The title attribute (that’s title=”keywords here” normally associated with text links) does NOT count towards a pages rankings, the alt attribute text (that’s (alt=”keywords here” normally associated with images/image links) does count.

SEO Tip Usage – Makes no difference what you put in the title attribute, but try to be keyword rich in your alt attributes, meaning if a page is about SEO Tips try to use SEO Tips as alt text.

SEO Tip Blackhat Warning – Like any on page SEO technique, don’t go over the top with stuffing your alt attribute text with long keyword lists. Be descriptive about your images whilst covering your pages SERPs and you’ll be fine.

SEO Tip 3 Google Sandbox

The Google sandbox is not avoided by using an aged PR0 domain name. The sandbox is the effect caused by a lack of aged links and so adding links and maintaining them until aged (minimum 9 months old) is the way out of the “sandbox” (how long you are in the sandbox depends how good and how old your links are).

SEO Tip Usage – Basically it’s add enough links and wait for them to count fully. Higher the PR a link is an longer it’s been live the better, if the anchor text is relevant as well, that’s icing on the cake.

SEO Tip Blackhat Warning – With link building growth is slow at first, don’t be tempted to cut corners (link spamming for example) because it’s moving to slow for you. I tested adding 25,000 links to a new site almost over night, the home page hit PR7 first PR update, but it NEVER received any decent Google rankings (was penalized for sure). Be patient, remember the links you add today will not mature until 9+ long months from now (give them a year to be sure).

SEO Tip 4 Anchor Text

Anchor text of a spiderable link is not only important to the page you are linking to, but also to the page you are linking FROM.

SEO Tip Usage – From an SEO perspective anchor text is considered more important than standard body text so use relevant (that means relevant to the SERPs you want for a page) anchor text a LOT.

SEO Tip Blackhat Warning – If you own multiple domains be careful with how you interlink them, it’s very easy (talking from personal experience here) to link way too many times from one site to another. Try to avoid site wide links, not completely (one is OK to a domain), but don’t make the mistake of adding multiple links to the same domain in a site wide fashion.

SEO Tip 5 Title Element and Meta Tags

The contents of the title element (that’s the title a lot of webmasters call a title tag, it’s not a tag/attribute, it’s an element) is damn important, more important than any other on page factor so don’t waste it’s SEO value. Conversely the meta tags DO NOT count towards a pages rankings in Google, though the description meta tag can be used for the SERPs description so add something to increase CTR from a Google search.

SEO Tip Usage – Spend a lot of time on your pages title, (ideally targeting one main SERP per page) and a small amount of time on your meta description (think sales copy, sell your page) and forget about your meta keywords (I copy the title elements contents and forget about it).

SEO Tip Blackhat Warning – It’s difficult to do anything blackhat with the title element and meta tags. That said if you make really spammy parts to your pages and a manual Google reviewer sees it, it’s not going to look good. There’s no benefit in spamming your meta tags, so don’t waste your time trying. You could make a really long title element, (Google counts a lot of characters, far more than it shows on a SERP) but every word you add to your title shares the benefit, add 100 words and each receives just 1/100th of the titles benefit!! So don’t spread this valuable SEO real estate too thin.

ALL the above SEO tips have been thoroughly tested and confirmed by myself over the last 5+ years through countless SEO tests and observations of real world SEO examples.

21 Essential SEO Tips & Techniques

Small Business SEO Checklist:

1. Commit yourself to the process. SEO isn’t a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment.

2. Be patient. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business online.

3. Ask a lot of questions when hiring an SEO company. It’s your job to know what kind of tactics the company uses. Ask for specifics. Ask if there are any risks involved. Then get online yourself and do your own research—about the company, about the tactics they discussed, and so forth.

4. Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great Web resources (like Search Engine Land) and several terrific books you can read. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book, Jennifer Laycock’s Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are three I’ve read and recommend.

5. Have web analytics in place at the start. You should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and what’s not.

6. Build a great web site. I’m sure you want to show up on the first page of results. Ask yourself, “Is my site really one of the 10 best sites in the world on this topic?” Be honest. If it’s not, make it better.

7. Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.

8. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.

9. Do keyword research at the start of the project. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Ignore the numbers these tools show; what’s important is the relative volume of one keyword to another. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which doesn’t show exact numbers.

10. Open up a PPC account. Whether it’s Google’s AdWords or Yahoo’s Search Marketing or something else, this is a great way to get actual search volume for your keywords. Yes, it costs money, but if you have the budget it’s worth the investment. It’s also the solution if you didn’t like the “Be patient” suggestion above and are looking for instant visibility.

11. Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. The page title is the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing. Related bonus tip: You can ignore the Keywords meta altogether if you’d like; it’s close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don’t appear on the page.

12. Write for users first. Google, Yahoo, etc., have pretty powerful bots crawling the web, but to my knowledge these bots have never bought anything online, signed up for a newsletter, or picked up the phone to call about your services. Humans do those things, so write your page copy with humans in mind. Yes, you need keywords in the text, but don’t stuff each page like a Thanksgiving turkey. Keep it readable.

13. Create great, unique content. This is important for everyone, but it’s a particular challenge for online retailers. If you’re selling the same widget that 50 other retailers are selling, and everyone is using the boilerplate descriptions from the manufacturer, this is a great opportunity. Write your own product descriptions, using the keyword research you did earlier (see #9 above) to target actual words searchers use, and make product pages that blow the competition away. Plus, retailer or not, great content is a great way to get inbound links.

14. Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tells spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say “click here” do nothing for your search engine visibility.

15. Build links intelligently. Submit your site to quality, trusted directories such as Yahoo, DMOZ, Business.com, Aviva, and Best of the web. Seek links from authority sites in your industry. If local search matters to you (more on that coming up), seek links from trusted sites in your geographic area—the Chamber of Commerce, etc. Analyze the inbound links to your competitors to find links you can acquire, too.

16. Use press releases wisely. Developing a relationship with media covering your industry or your local region can be a great source of exposure, including getting links from trusted media web sites. Distributing releases online can be an effective link building tactic, and opens the door for exposure in news search sites. Related bonus tip: Only issue a release when you have something newsworthy to report. Don’t waste journalists’ time.

17. Start a blog and participate with other related blogs. Search engines, Google especially, love blogs for the fresh content and highly-structured data. Beyond that, there’s no better way to join the conversations that are already taking place about your industry and/or company. Reading and commenting on other blogs can also increase your exposure and help you acquire new links. Related bonus tip: Put your blog at yourdomain.com/blog so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts. If that’s not possible, use blog.yourdomain.com.

18. Use social media marketing wisely. If your small business has a visual element, join the appropriate communities on Flickr and post high-quality photos there. If you’re a service-oriented business, use Yahoo Answers to position yourself as an expert in your industry. With any social media site you use, the first rule is don’t spam! Be an active, contributing member of the site. The idea is to interact with potential customers, not annoy them.

19. Take advantage of local search opportunities. Online research for offline buying is a growing trend. Optimize your site to catch local traffic by showing your address and local phone number prominently. Write a detailed Directions/Location page using neighborhoods and landmarks in the page text. Submit your site to the free local listings services that the major search engines offer. Make sure your site is listed in local/social directories such as CitySearch, Yelp, Local.com, etc., and encourage customers to leave reviews of your business on these sites, too.

20. Take advantage of the tools the search engines give you. Sign up for Google’s webmaster Central and Yahoo’s Site Explorer to learn more about how the search engines see your site, including how many inbound links they’re aware of.

21. Diversify your traffic sources. Google may bring you 70% of your traffic today, but what if the next big algorithm update hits you hard? What if your Google visibility goes away tomorrow? Newsletters and other subscriber-based content can help you hold on to traffic/customers no matter what the search engines do. In fact, many of the DOs on this list—creating great content, starting a blog, using social media and local search, etc.—will help you grow an audience of loyal prospects and customers that may help you survive the whims of search engines.