The Essentials of Search Engine Optimization

Stay organized. The internet is a huge and constantly changing entity. For effective search engine optimization, develop good planning habits and record-keeping and stick to it.

Start with a good website. This is a basic requirement of successful search marketing, and it’s often overlooked. If you site is boring, uninformative, and unoriginal, why would the major search engines want to send visitors there? They wouldn’t. And if you think you can outsmart the search engines with clever search engine optimization, you’re wrong.  So build great content. If you don’t, no-one will care, and all of the steps in this article will be useless.

Directory submissions are nothing to get hung up on: just do it and move on. Directories, even the best ones, are just a base on which to build the rest of your search marketing campaign. They are not a campaign in themselves. They are more useful for link popularity than for traffic, although some good ones may send you some traffic. You can find suggestions for good directories to use at www.directorylist.org, www.isedb.com, and www.searchengineguide.com.

Write regularly and promote your articles online. This is the guts of your search engine optimization campaign. To get found on the internet, you have to get your name known in your niche. You also have to get links back to your site, so you can rise in the search engine rankings. By publishing good quality articles via some specialized article distribution sites, you can accomplish both. You should also use article-writing to help you acquire links to important inside pages on your site. (Known as “deep-linking.”) Some reliable article distribution sites to check out include www.goarticles.com, www.articlealley.com, www.isnare.com, www.ezinearticles.com, and www.authorconnection.com.

Become a trusted community member.  Increasingly, you can’t sit on the sidelines on the internet. Search marketing is all about community and neighborhoods. If  you don’t join in, you won’t get recognized.  The easiest way to begin is by posting to forums in your field. Real posts, not just link-dropping. You can find forums by a quick search. If your niche is “search marketing,” then look for  “search marketing forums.” Can’t find a forum in your field? Even better! You can start one, and become the trusted authority. Social networking also belongs under this heading. You can join MySpace, and start spreading the word about your business, your hobby, your work, whatever it might be.

Write a blog and get it hosted under your website’s domain. If you aren’t doing it, you are truly missing out. A ten year old can go to www.blogger.com and start a blog (many of them do). Learn how to add tags at www.technorati.com, and add them to every post. Write regularly on your blog. Visit other blogs in your field. Leave genuine comments. Start a “blogroll” on your blog (that is, blogs you like). Do something useful with your blog (announce meetings, do reviews, whatever) then ask for links from trusted sites  to keep your good work going. See the links to your blog (your domain) coming in. You have just created some deep links to your site.

Go on regular, organized link hunts. Pick out your targets, such as “trade asssociations in online marketing,” and go to those sites. Ask them for links. Look at their links pages. Follow the links that are on those pages. Look at those sites. Ask them for links. And so on, until you reach the end of a particular line. The trick here is to keep it organized and keep good records. (I use Excel).

If organized link hunts are important, disorganized link hunting is just as important. Huh? It’s one of the secrets to successful search engine optimization – you must be both organized and disorganized in turn, in order to maximize your returns. It’s really important to keep track of the competition, because they’re the ones you want to beat. So you need to track what they’re up to, and who is linking to them. Then you try to get the same links. That’s why it’s disorganized – you are just hunting around wherever your quarry leads you.  To do this, you can set up alerts at the major search engines, but they are limited. For really in-depth snooping, try the paid service from www.googlealert.com. They are not a part of Google, but they track Google, and they are Google-approved.

Use a web analytics program. In order to do effective search engine optmization, you must track who is coming to your site, how they are finding you, and how they navigate your site. Without stats, you are flying blind. Good web stats programs can be found at www.google.com/analytics, as well as www.websidestory.com, and www.webtrends.com, to name a few.

Stay on top of the news, and be ready to pounce. This is another often-overlooked part of search marketing. When things happen in your industry – a new product, an event, a controversy – be ready to talk about it. If you don’t, someone will, and they will get all the links. Don’t let that happen. If news occurs, talk about it in forums, on your site, in your blog, and so forth. Staying current, keeping your information fresh, is an absolute “must-do” to keep your site high in the search rankings.