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Twenty Basic Tips for SEO Newbies
By Theresa Sheridan (c) 2010

If you have a website and are trying to earn a living from it,
then you need to know Search Engine Optimization. SEO is key to
driving more visitors to your site. More visitors means more
business, so you definitely need to read on.

As with anything, you can take it to the limit and hire an
expert in the field, but there are things that you and your
web designer should be doing to optimize your search engine
rankings. Here is a list of 20 things you can do now, to
increase traffic to your website.

1. Use a keyword tool such as the Google Adwords Keyword Tool
(https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) or their
Search Based Keyword Tool (http://www.google.com/sktool/). You
will then be provided with other key words and phrases that
users search for that you can then integrate into your site.
Take care, however, not to stuff your text with keywords in an
unnatural way, which can count against you.

2. Content dominates. Web crawlers love ever-changing
content, so update your site regularly. Post good, well-written
material that is unique and be sure to include your keywords
within the content. Consider a blog, if your site content won't
change frequently. Spiders LOVE blogs!

3. Content may dominate, but links rule. Make sure to
get your site listed in numerous trade directories,
associations, colleagues, etc. Be sure the locations of your
backlinks are quality ones, and relevant to your site.

4. If you like image maps or Java script drop-down
menus, be sure to include text links in another location on
your pages. Web crawlers can't decipher your images and they
require real text to follow.

 5. Page titles are important! Title each page individually
according to its subject matter. Title tags should be keyword
focused, and if you insist on putting your business name in it,
put it at the end.

6. Write articles. As usual, be sure to include your keywords,
post them to your site, and then post them to article sites.
You will be amazed at where your articles will end up after a
few months, all linking back to YOU!

7. Hyperlinks within your site should be written with
the proper keywords, i.e. "green t-shirts" and not "click here".

8. Go easy on the Flash. Spiders cannot crawl flash
animations, so keep them to a minimum, especially if the
animation contains text that you want your visitors to read.
Integrate that text into the page instead.

9. Make sure that external links to your site link to
the actual domain, i.e. http://www.redroses.com, and not
http://www.redroses.com/index.html.

10. Renew your domain name promptly! Domains that are
about to expire, or even that have less than one year remaining
can be considered spammers by some search engines, and this will
hurt your rankings.

11. SEO is not a one-shot deal. Since searches, and searcher's
needs, change quickly and frequently, expect to work on your
optimization daily, in order to get the best results. Getting
crawled initially can take weeds, and getting high rankings can
take months, sometimes a year or longer, depending on how much
effort you put into in. Nothing ventured, absolutely nothing
gained, in this case.

12. Use captions with your images. No brainer, and use ALT tags
with them as well. Include the words "picture" or "image" in
your ALT tags, as searches will often be for a keyword along
with one of those words.

13. Use an XML sitemap. You can get one of these from Google as
well. Sitemaps provide very crawl-worthy text for hungry little
web spiders.

14. Search engines love video, too! Be sure to include video
in your sites, and then upload the video to other quality
sites, such as Metacafe, AOL, MSN, Yahoo and, of course, YouTube.

15. Get a Google Webmaster account at http://www.google.com/
webmasters/tools. This will provide you with numerous tools that
you can use to better enhance your visibility.

16. When you have your Google Webmaster account, enable the
"Enhanced image search" feature. Allowing Google to find your
photos will help in your SEO efforts.

17. Monitor your account. It's vital to know what page your
visitors are coming in to your site on, and what page they're
exiting from.

18. Link back to yourself. Putting links to other pages
in your site is an easy way to increase traffic to individual
pages.

19. Name your URLs clearly. It's easy to understand what
www.cowboyboots.com/women/buckarooboots.html would contain, but
if your page is titled www.cowboyboots.com/45773/bbb.html,
search engines are much less likely to figure that one out.

20. Don't make the mistake of paying money to companies that
say they can get you ranked higher! With a little time and
effort, you can improve your site's rankings yourself, and some
search engines consider links from these sites to be of poor
quality.

I hope these tips help you on your way to better website
optimization!
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Theresa Sheridan runs a freelance website and graphic design
(http://www.theresasheridan.com) company in Central California.
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