SEO 101 - Starting Out

When deciding upon a search solution for your website be wary of any firm that guarantee's a specific ranking. SEO isn't an exact science. Most search engines will vary their algorithms often to thwart attempts at manipulation. There are ways, however, to improve your chances of ranking well over the long term. Fact is, there isn't any quick and easy solution. Getting to the top for a highly competitive keyword takes a little luck, time, hard work, constant analyzing, and adaptation. Below are the steps to take when optimizing your site, it's really not as difficult as you might think.

How do Search Engines Work?

Search engines send out what they call a spider. Each search engine has their own name for their spiders. Google's is "Googlebot". Yahoo has the "Slurp". MSN has the "MSNbot". Basically their just IP's that bounces from one link to another across multiple servers. They send back their findings and each SE posts the results. Each SE has it's own way of determining ranking order, so it's almost impossible to optimize for all of them, but there are ways of getting good results for each. MSN and Yahoo rank similarly. Google has its own way of doing things.

How do Search Engines Rank Sites?

Search Engines rank sites based on a few criteria but the main way they determine rankings is by using the feedback their spiders provide or Off-Page Optimization. Spiders jump from link to link, like mentioned above. How other sites link to your site will ultimately determine how you rank for a specific keyword. For instance, lets say you run a site called BlueWidgets.com. Other sites that find blue widgets interesting will link to your site with the anchor text information on blue widgets. So by getting more links to your site that say "blue widgets" will allow you to rank higher for that specific term. There are also ways to optimize your site with specific elements that are located on individual pages or On-Page Optimization. Elements like the H1 tag, Title tag, Meta Keywords, Keyword Density, Bold Text, and Underlined words will allow SE's to determine what your page is about. By using optimizing your On-page and Off-page factors, you can rank well for any search engine.

Keyword Targeting and Domain Name selection

We'll get into targeting keywords for existing sites later. Let's first determine the best possible keyword for your product or service for a new site. Lets say you want to start a vitamin site (very competitive), specifically "Vitamin C". The term vitamin c gets approximately 2,000-3,000 searches per day according to Digitalpoint's keyword suggestion tool. So a great name for a site like this would be Vitamincdirect.com or Vitaminconline.com. This strategy does 2 things. It gives you great name recognition and when other sites decide to link to you, the term Vitamin C, will often be included in the link text which is very important in ranking high for a specific keyword. See our Off-Page Optimization guide.

Now to the topic of targeting keywords with an existing site without having your targeted keyword in the URL. This can be difficult because when other sites link to you they won't have the optimum anchor or link text. An easy way around this is to simply ask the sites that link to you to change the way they link. This, however, can be difficult these days with the amount of spam out there and possible linking formats from the linking site. In this situation you'll need to optimize your on-page factors as best you can. See our On-Page Optimization Guide. H1 tags, Title tags, and keyword density will be your best friend.

Getting Sites to Link to You

Ah the link exchange. Still a good way of getting links to your site, but it's not optimal. Yahoo hates it and will ban you if they come across it on your site (their spam team is very inconsistent though). Google doesn't mind it but will penalize you if you use it too much. It's still being tested in MSN. The one thing to avoid with any link exchange program is a Free-for-all strategy. Don't link to just anyone. Examine their page. Look at the code. Determine if the search engines are finding the links to you, and most importantly make sure the link to you is relevant to your site. Make sure the link is relevant. Again make sure the link is relevant. Irrelevant link exchanges will do more harm than good.

Link exchanges aren't bad per se but getting links that don't have to be reciprocated are 100% better. How do you get this type of link? Step One - Create a useful site. Create content that is interesting. Don't just list a product. Tell something interesting about the product. Get into as much detail as you can "think outside the box". If you create an awesome site, people will link to it naturally. That's what the web is all about. Step Two - If you're not ranked yet, tell people about your site. Their are Press Release web sites that you can submit articles to announcing your products and services. These articles are picked up by newspaper and magazine sites across the country. Step Three - Ask other sites for a link. If you have a great site, 9 times out of 10, other sites will link to you if you just ask them. A simple email.

Purchasing Links

Purchasing links can be tricky. Always analyze existing sites with inbound links from your target before entering into an agreement. Are they passing along their ranking? How well are other sites ranking for their targeted keywords with the link? Avoid long term contracts whenever possible. Month to month is optimal. Make sure there is a way of exiting the deal quickly if things don't work out.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization Main