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SEO Tips for People Who Aren't Dummies!
by Philip Lim ©Copyright 2004

Tip One: The Importance Of Key Words

In the world of marketing online, one topic comes up over and 
over with great frequency: site rankings. It can sometimes seem 
to be the 'holy grail' in the highly competitive world of online 
marketing, where search engines rule supreme. The reality is 
that unless you have deep pockets indeed, SEO optimization in 
the long run will be more affordable than simply buying placement 
with click campaigns and advertisements. 

This is the good news. The bad news is that the process is slow, 
and it can take months (and months and months) of dedicated 
effort to achieve decent rankings (one reason you don't want to 
abandon those paid campaigns while optimizing your site). But it 
is well worth the time and effort in the long run, since it 
addresses the one issue that is foremost when marketing your 
product and services online: people use search engines such as 
Google and MSN to do their looking. And search engine listings 
that are highly ranked consistently outperform 'paid listings'. 

So how do you get your site listed and ranked highly? Does it 
take dedicating your life fulltime to this effort, or specialized 
knowledge? The answer is "yes" and "no". It can help tremendously 
to hire the assistance of a firm that specializes in SEO (and, in 
fact, this is highly recommended). They can give you professional 
guidance in this arena, and steer you away from common mistakes. 

But for those with a limited budget (which is most of us, 
nowadays, it seems) it's also possible to do your own site 
optimization, and work on a long-term campaign to help your 
site rise. It isn't easy (unlike those ads and books online 
that promise overnight success with no effort), but by rolling 
up your shirtsleeves and diving in, you can learn a tremendous 
amount, and help your site get found when people type in your 
products into a search engine. 

Tip Two: Select Your Keywords Carefully

Search engine keywords are what lead people (as in potential 
customers) type in their favorite search engine to get to your 
site. When they go onto Google, Excite, or other search engines 
and directories and are looking for a specific item, keywords 
are the ones that they type in during their search. 

To market effectively to them, you will need to think like them 
(this is the basis of all excellent marketing). You will want to 
determine: 

What phrases people type in when looking for your product, 
service, or content during their online searches (including the 
most common misspellings, by the way). Not sure? Try looking at 
your web stats for your site. You should see an extremely 
valuable area called "search strings", with a list of words 
underneath it. 

These search strings are the phrases that actually brought 
people to your web site. Which ones were the most popular? 
You'll want to note these. But you'll want to add more. 

Sit down for a minute, and think of every possible phrase people 
might use for searching for your product. At this point, don't 
edit yourself, just let the words flow and write them down. If 
you sell used Chevrolets in Alexandria, VA, you might come up 
with "used cars, used Chevrolets, vintage cars, reconditioned 
cars, Chevrolet dealers, Alexandria VA car dealers, Alexandria 
VA used cars", as just a start. 

By now, you should have a list. Go through it again, and decide 
which ones seem the most focused for your product or service. You 
want search engine keywords that will bring targeted customers to 
your site, who are interested in doing business with you, and the 
right keywords can help accomplish this. Be specific and relevant 
in your choices. Then, alphabetize your list, since some search 
engines and directories list pages alphabetically; so use your 
best phrases in alphabetical order whenever possible for better 
optimization. 

Next, analyze which keyword phrases are realistic for obtaining 
high rankings. While you may sell used autos, and want to get top 
rankings for that term, 'used autos' is an extremely popular and 
general phrase, and odds are, difficult to get good rankings for. 
But if you sell used Chevrolets in Alexandria, Virginia, then 
it's realistic to hope for high rankings for search engine 
phrases for 'Alexandria used Chevrolets'. You'll also get a more 
targeted audience (think 'more likely to buy from me'), since 
most of your customers will probably come from your locale). 

At this point, you should have a list of keywords. If you have a 
very short one, or are having trouble thinking of some, you can 
gain access to professional software at minimal cost. Just start 
a Google adwords campaign, or a CPC campaign on Overture. Each of 
these sites have "keyword suggestion" tools that will give you 
several keywords based on your product or service, and will 
include the relative popularity of each one.

Tip Three: Place Keywords Carefully

Once you have your keywords, you'll want to use them in the 
right places. The goal is to help search engines find your site 
for those phrases, so you will want to place them in spots the 
engines look closely at. These include the page Title, inside 
the meta tags, inside the heading tag, in the domain name (more 
about this in a later lesson), and the keyword tags. 

You will also want to sprinkle them liberally throughout the 
content (text) of your site, with special consideration for the 
top of your page and its first paragraphs. This is especially 
important on your homepage (index page), which is the one that 
most search engines will cache when spidering through. And 
please, have some real content on your page, and not just a list 
of keywords, or your site could go down in its rankings. Search 
engines do rank according to content relevancy, and the site 
that says "Our dealership provides quality used Chevrolet cars, 
reconditioned to meet our customer's needs," (with at least 100 
words of good, relevant content) will always rank higher than 
the site that says, "cars, cars, cars, buy quality used Chevrolet 
cars, quality used cars are here". In addition, you won't drive 
away customers offended by poor quality writing and obvious 
over-usage of marketing phrases. 

But you do want to maintain a certain ratio of keyword 
density in your text; a keyword density of 5 to 7% is usually 
recommended. If you don't feel comfortable writing copy using 
keywords, a professional copywriter who specializes in online 
writing can help you. 

Three Common Mistakes To Avoid 

Mistake #1: One common error that many people make is to forget 
to place ALT tags for their graphics. You may have a beautiful 
logo or graphic on your web site, but if you don't have an alt 
tag, the search engines can't "read it". Be sure to place 
keywords there, and to label graphics with names that reflect 
keywords. 

Mistake #2: Always have text on your site. When creating your 
site, search engines depend upon text to decide what your site 
is about. The more relevant the text, the better. The spiders 
and bots can't "read" graphics as mentioned above. Don't just 
make the text for the site one big graphic, as some firms do. 
The search engines will skip over the graphic, and assume you 
have no content at all. 

Mistake #3: Finally, please don't spam (by trying to 'hide' your 
keywords by using a font the same color as the background, or 
repeating keyword phrases over and over in the title and meta 
tags). Search engines are now excellent at finding those who try 
to break the rules (and their technology for doing so is getting 
more sophisticated all the time), and will drop spammers from 
their indexes like a hot potato. So play by the rules, and when 
in doubt, ask an ethical SEO firm for advice, or visit one of 
the many excellent forums online (such as Jill Whalen's High 
Rankings Search Engine Forums). 

Your site will rise more quickly, and enjoy higher rankings, if 
you follow these tips and their advice. And your traffic will 
increase, at no cost to you!

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Philip Lim is the editor of NewbiesOnly.com which is dedicated 
to teaching newbies or beginner marketers to internet marketing 
the ropes. Enroll into our free 10 days intensive email course:
"Strategies for Internet Marketing Success". http://www.NewbiesOnly.com
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