Search Engine Optimization: It’s Not Rocket Science
Author of this post: Karen Morrill-McClure | About Blog Authors »
Search engine optimization is big business these days. Type SEO into Google and you’ll find hundreds of individuals and organizations promising to place your page near the top of the major indexes, for a fee of course.
Unfortunately, it’s rarely that simple, for each search engine has its own secret formula for generating results. Meta tags, links and who knows what else influence these calculations, so there is just no one right answer. However, at the most basic level, all search engines seek to deliver the pages most relevant to the search terms entered by the user, so there is at least one technique that always gets results – keyword placement.
When a user enters terms into a search engine, the engine starts to scan the web looking for those words. If the engine finds the words on a page, it will count how many times the words appear and also determine whether the words appear in conjunction or on their own. If the words are grouped together, it’s more likely that the page is a good result.
So, how can you associate your page with certain keywords? It’s simple really. Put them on your page. Put the keywords in the title element, the headings, the file name, and the text of the page.
For example, if you want people to find your information about green turtles, you should title your page Green Turtles. You should also include headings that will make sense to both the reader and the search engines, such as Green Turtles in the Wild, Green Turtles in Captivity, and Diet of Green Turtles. Do this and odds are your page will rank high on a search for green turtles.
Bonus Tip #1: Graphics aren’t searchable, so any text embedded in an image is effectively invisible to a search engine. I still come across sites where much of the text is placed within graphics. This may be aesthetically pleasing and perhaps designer doesn’t know any better, but whatever the case, the engines are shut out. Make as the much of the text on your page actual HTML text and your page will load faster, scale better, and work better with the search engines.
Bonus Tip #2: Don’t focus on single keywords but rather keyword phrases. There are five million pages on the web that contain the word cat, so a search for just that term produces meaningless results. If your page is actually about a Cat Club in California, then that’s the keyword phrase you want to have on your page.
Finally, my thoughts on meta tags and reciprocal link arrangments: Most search engines ignore meta tags, on the basis that the text of the page is a better indicator of relevance. Back in the early days of the internet, search engines used meta tags to aid in categorization, but shady SEO ‘specialists’ stuffed their meta tags with unrelated terms just to get better page ranks, ruining them for the rest of us. Reciprocal links are always good, but they need to be quality links from sites about your topic. Neither technique is worthy of much time or effort, but they are the buzz words that clients will know. Hopefully, you can steer your clients in a more productive direction; help them create good text that contains your keywords.
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October 4th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Yes, you’re right about other factors, I wanted to hit the factors that make the largest impact for the time spent. The fact is that many of my clients don’t want to make the effort to get their text in order, when that is the first and foremost factor.
Also, many of my clients are not in a very crowded field. They aren’t competing with other similar sites for users attention, they need to get their results linked to the right keywords so that the people who are looking for them, will find them. Once again, that is heavily influenced by keywords.
October 14th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Keyword placement on the page is one of the variables to achieve higher placement on the search engines. Indeed, each search engines have their own algorithmic formula to determine whether a page is qualified to be on top or not. As common formula, of course, place your keyword target on a page but sometimes it is not necessarily to do so. There are thousand ways to go to China …. it’s the same with SEO :).
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:20 am
Interesting post, but one myth needs to be killed about SEO – search engines DON’T do a live search when you type into a search engine box, the work has already been done before, and ‘filed,’ The challenge is to understand how the speiders do this filing and rank you, i.e. the keyword phrases you use and the quality of websites that link to you and how they describe you.
November 4th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
This is some good valid general information. What many web site owners don’t understand is how to gauge the value of an incoming link. The quality of links vary and that quality impacts your Google rankings over time. My favorite post on this topic is Jim Boykin’s blog post about “How to understand co-citation.” I think anyone here who hasn’t read his article will learn something.
November 6th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Strategic Internet marketing is a better way to define SEO and getting the attention of your potential market. Before you build a website or Internet business you must studying your potential customers, examine your competition, and explore your opportunities for success. Optimum sales require optimum effort on your part. Starting an online business without first looking at strategic Internet marketing is a sure-fire way to expect failure, both in ROI and SEO
November 6th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
LOL SEO isn’t rocket science … (cool picture) but keeping your site high in google is :) seems no matter your seo workload, it’s a daily battle
November 7th, 2007 at 1:53 am
Great post. As a web developer, I often warn clients about companies that can guarantee them a top ten rating in Google. First, it ain’t gonna happen! Second, the only thing you can be guaranteed is that they will take your money. The criteria that Google uses is kept top secret, and there are no magic fixes.
With that said, there is something I would like to add a point to your article. Besides ensuring you use keywords, there is another sure fire way to get higher rankings. Write content that is valuable to your audience! The internet is still about information, and if you have expert knowledge on a subject, people will look for it. In addition, Google places a high level of importance on how many websites are linking to yours. The best way to get links is to publish content that will be of interest to your audience – like this one!
November 7th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
As a person new to this game, there is such alot relevance placed upon link submission. Are manual submission companies a worthwhile investment. What are the chances they will link to link farms – will this damage ur sites reputation.
Thanks
November 18th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Regarding Tip #1, if you have to use graphics, at least be sure to use the ALT tags and stick in your keyword there as well (in a matter that makes sense). In addition to the SEO value, it’ll provide help for those who have graphics turned off.
November 21st, 2007 at 2:38 am
Good post. Phrases are good not only because of lack of competition but it brings “targeted traffic?.
A person who types in cat could only want some information about their food or care etc. But if he or she typed “buy Siamese cat” , the mindset is usually to buy.
The next step for SEO is backlinks which requires a whole new story.
December 5th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Great tips posted there Karen! Amazingly enough, I did a PDF report today on some SERPs for the keyword “make money online” and this is totally relevant! Cheers! ;)
December 20th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
That is a great article. There was a lot of great tips in there.
January 1st, 2008 at 5:17 am
Those are indeed very nice tips
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
i think it can be rocket science. one thing that needs to be taken into account as well, is that every market is different. you might design one site, and market it with HUGE success, because the market is so small; but then you might be marketing a site where the product is a very popular topic on the net. this could become very tricky!
January 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Another big article, thanks for this post! your tips are great
January 13th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Nice article. i hope it will help me too.
January 13th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
“Bonus Tip #1: Graphics aren’t searchable”
But they are, by adding an alt tag you let the search engines know what your picture is all about !
January 18th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I agree, yet you do need the requisite knowledge and experience to do it well
January 21st, 2008 at 12:12 pm
You can imbed ‘alt text’ with graphics
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:21 am
The only meta tag that really matters at all is the description as this is the one Google uses for your listing in the serps. The title tag is even more important (make sure it has your most important targeted keyword phrase first) than that. There is a whole boatload of other on-page factors that need to be taken into consideration but I’ll save that info for my clients….
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Great post Karen Morrill-McClure ! bookmarked :) have been looking out for something
like this for a while…
February 7th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Great post there. Thanks for sharing!
February 8th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I always thought that graphics were searchable if you use the alt tag effectively, I guess not thanks for the tip.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:22 am
You’re right, Karen: search engine optimization isn’t rocket science. But it’s not as simple as you make it sound either. There are many levels of SEO beyond just the basic considerations you highlight here. At it’s most advanced levels, SEO deals with semantic indexing, fractals and many complex off-page factors.
Regards,
Eric Bryant, CEO
Gnosis Arts Multimedia Communications
http://gnosisarts.com/search-engine-optimization-marketing.html
February 9th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
This is a nice post but pretty general.. keyword phrases are great tp have but there is also positioning.
Plus, just in, Google will be able understand the text within images pretty soon or understand the image itself without text. backlinks are still important but they should be relevant and preferably from authoritative sites. We do help you in your website objectives with Directory Submission Service also known as Link building. site design, articles, (content) and more.
February 10th, 2008 at 6:56 am
[...] Karen over at http://www.notesondesign.net shares her tips on SEO. Her post Search Engine Optimization: It’s not Rocket Science is a useful reads for SEO newbies and a good reminder to those who have been optimizing their blogs. [...]
February 11th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
SEO is now becoming an important ingredient for a online business success especially nowadays. You are definitely right with your post of having a proper Title tag of your page as it will help search engine to easily find your site…
Junior
Technology Blogger
February 11th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
nice article. having right text in your site is essential especially when you want those search engine spiders to realize that your site exist.
February 14th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Karen, Thanks for a great article – I have been learning, practicing and tweaking my blog – it reminds me of the lather, rinse, repeat loop – none of us is ever really done. I appreciate all the tips!
February 15th, 2008 at 7:27 am
nice post Karen! This post will become a very good source of information regarding SEO. hope to see more post just like this so that i can enhance my knowledge regarding SEO.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
There are other factors such as outbound links that today count for a lot more than earlier.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I definitely agree Search Engine Optimization is not just a one task and done but it is a series of tasks to do…And needs time and attention because internet is changing very fast. One minute you are in the top minutes later or even seconds you have a new rank then. So, it is not an easy task to do… :)
March 5th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Excellent tips. So, often people make SEO complex. It’s not- by focusing on the most important aspects of it like title tags, some key phrase usage and backlinks, you can very quickly improve your site rankings.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Great article. I’m just learning SEO and everything you say is what I am finding out. I’ve been up and down in Google so many times I feel like a basketball. Finally it is stabilizing. I’m going more for position based on consistent content. Your tips are excellent advice.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:28 am
a very nice post… now I know how spider crawl web pages and choose which page must be in the number one slot.. firstly, I wonder about PR, I think the page which have the higher PR must always be in the top even some low PR site having the nice content than the high PR.
Now, as a beginner in SEO, first step is to create a good content then link building.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
SEO takes a while to learn and practice. There are a lot of people dishing out SEO advise. Choose wisely. Some know exactly what they are doing and others are just proclaimed experts. Take the time to distinguish between the two before trying to implement the ideas.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:31 am
Thanks for all the great tips about SEO… They are all very helpful and I learn something new everyday.
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
There are a lot of people that make SEO out to be this wildly difficult thing to master. If you know the basics you will be in good shape. Anyone who follows the advice you have given will do just fine. Content and quality backlinks are still king.
March 29th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Great article. I have done all that you say and have had fantastic organic results. I am flourishing while others in my industry who have not pursued similar means are not.
March 31st, 2008 at 2:10 am
My fear is the constant changes in the SEO rules – who finds out what is no longer “acceptable” and lets the rest of us find out what’s going on?
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:39 am
Great article! You’re right, it’s not rocket science…it simply requires alot of sweat equity to stay on top.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:33 am
I’ve read some articles recently stating that if a site looks like it has been purposely Seo’d that Google will “punish” your page rank or “weight”. Keywords, and lots of them repeated throughout your article/page, etc etc. will result in your page/site being lost in the millions of other pages as will other often used “Seo” tricks/tips. if you are going to use keywords, use them sparingly throughout the article to make your point. As others mentioned already, the “guidelines” are always changing.
Best advice is to stick to writing your content that is meaningful and new and you should do well. A well written article/page content wise, will stand out on its own. And people will likely link to it and quote it which will boost your rankings. Id spend more time on anchor text/backlinks. Or even Deep links within your own site with a properly submitted xml map.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Great post – thank you for sharing. This is especially useful information for a small business owner like myself who is always looking to get more exposure on the web and a better website presence. Thank you again for sharing.
Kind regards,
Chad
April 28th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I find that written content about your target market is the best. Answer the question in the web visitor’s mind…what in this for me? Answer it correctly and they will stay on your site.
April 29th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
great post!!
I agree on what you have said from your post it is the fact that search engine optimization is usually have the secret formula of optimizing its site from reaching its rank from the top.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
My number one pet peeve. A good title for your page is in my opinion the single most important factor when it comes to in-page optimization. The title of your page should not just be “name of your company”. You should have a keyword phrase in the title.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Good article but you are right – it just comes down to good phrases and good content.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I agree. Its amazing how many web developers totally ignore SEO techniques like all those mentioned above. Not only do they ignore SEO techniques but they ignore basic web development standards and common practice (like optimizing images).
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Great point John. The amount of users still on dial up is amazing to me but none the less you need to take that into consideration as well. Thanks for sharing.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 am
SEO rules..some follow and win..others ignore and stay obscure!
May 5th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I wonder what goonna happen with seo in 5 to 10 years, when webworld will become so huge and spammed. I can’t predict
May 9th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Ha-ha, I agree. Although I have found it hard to cooperate and adhere Google’s rules and get your site/blog on the front page and keeping it there.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
nice article thanks.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:20 am
well SEO is not all about books or software, it is also about fun time with your website.
if you love your website and spend more time with it, just like any relationships.. it will get better and better..
May 20th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
This is a great post. One thing I’m a little confused about is that I thought if you had text associated with a picture, the serps would pick up on that. I may be getting confused, I believe they’re also called titles. Its when you hoover the mouse over the picture and a brief description pops up. I was under the impression that this was good for SEO.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:17 pm
It is very useful information and very Nice article about SEO, since a lot of newbie really need information related to SEO. Moreover SEO will become very powerful and basic rule for many site to get high popularity that affect their businesses. Thanks you for the information as well.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:50 am
I would also mention uploading your sitemap to Google, Yahoo and MSN. Each SE now has a ‘Webmaster Tools’ section that you can tinker around with to allow their robots to crawl your website and be kept informed of new and outdated pages.
Worth a look. :)
May 28th, 2008 at 9:30 am
As a person new to this game, there is such alot relevance placed upon link submission. Are manual submission companies a worthwhile investment. What are the chances they will link to link farms – will this damage ur sites reputation.
June 1st, 2008 at 5:08 am
Google has recently published a Website Quality Guide. Here are some things Google likes:
1.Fresh Content- No surprise there.
2. Links from relative sites- no surprise
3. Product Reviews- Use title Product Review as part of your ttle page
4. Coupons, discount promotions on your website.
5. Blogs
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:07 am
Also, remember to use H1 tags on every page, but only one per page. This lets a search engine, such as Google, know what each page is about.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Agreed…I just started a new site 7 months ago and by using backlinking and article submission my site has skyrocketed on Google and left many in my office amazed because they have been trying for years to get their sites ranked high with no results.
June 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Interesting article. I think I over did the words on page, title, meta and in the alt tags as I was just dropped from page 3 for my keywords to page 83. I guess I will just have to make some adjustment follow some of your ideas. Good Job.
June 7th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
This is a great article. I like the comment about images not being able to be picked up by search engines, with SEO being as publicized as it is, I’m still seeing a log of sites relying on images.
Now, if someone can clarify for me since I’ve heard it argued both ways…Does the alt tag in the image html get picked up by search engines? I’ve heard it said that if, for example, I have an image as a button link for my about page and give the alt attribute the value “about” it will pick up that and allow it to be indexed with the page?
Is there any truth to this?
June 8th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
It may not be rocket science, but at times it can be quite puzzling. I do pay attention to keywords, and try to use them in all the places mentioned in your post and in some of the comments. But I still come up lacking at times. I do use text tags on my graphics, so I try to take advantage of those when applicatle.
Thank you for breaking down the message about not only using keywords, but keyword phrases as well.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Good advice. Why is it why try to make things more difficult than they really are?
June 13th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Keywords are extremely important to get a high rank in a search engine result page. As mentioned by Karen, it is not rocket science but you would be better off hiring a consultant since there are a few complications that may arise, also the results take a months to show.
June 15th, 2008 at 5:08 am
They are some good tips, thanks for sharing. I agree that it is not rocket science, it is more a combination of hard work and common sense.
June 19th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Search engine optimization is big business these days…. It absolutely is! It’s also tougher than ever to compete in this market. Google has tipped the scales in favor of the big guys… with big budget!
June 19th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Search engine spiders crawl websites looking for content in the form of text. Having keyword rich content – a good rule of thumb is between 200 and 250 words of original content and text on each page of a website – will give the spiders something good to index.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Well said!!!
i do agree of what you had posted. SEO really helps business onli to be well known but the key is in the proper choosing of keywords and other important factors that could step up the website.
thanks for posting..
June 24th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Hey Karen,
Good post… but nowadays two way reciprocal links aren’t all that effective anymore.
Yes, it is important to make sure the site you link to/from is a related and high quality site… but… mass reciprocal links from unrelated sites don’t seem to carry as much weight anymore.
Keep up the good work over here!
Cheers,
- Trevor
June 24th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Hey Karen,
Search engine optimization is kind of turning more and more into an art of creating solid content and generating buzz.
In the end… SEO is heavily reliant on links… which of course is best if they come from sites wanting to link to your site because it’s solid content… but… as you can see from the comments on this site… link spam is obviously still working especially from .edu domains.
July 1st, 2008 at 1:05 am
It is my understanding that excessive reciprocal links is not favored by google. They penalized some well-known companies earlier this year.
July 6th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
SEO is a moving target . In years to come will it still exist I don’t know .
Will your average SME be able to rank for great terms . In the future I believe like most forms of advertising it will be dominated by those who have the funds to position themselves
Thats my 2 cents worth
July 15th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Above all else ranking well comes down to content including proper keywords along with good inbound links and anchor text structure. Do those well and most will be just fine.
September 7th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I think people should understand basic seo and then forget about it…write what you want to write. Say what you have to say and they will come.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
This is some good valuable general information. What many web site owners don’t understand is how to gauge the value of an incoming link. The quality of links vary and that quality impacts your Google rankings over time.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
You forgot to mention that the key word phrases-key words gives twice as much info. Also, all those tags need to be key words as well. There is a good video on YouTube by Google in one of their tutorials that elaborates on the use of the alt= tags for graphics.
October 18th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Designers and programmers have always battled over the graphic test vs. html text and it’s a tough call. If the graphic text ‘looks’ better does it’s use really make sense?
Normally it’s going to boil down to what the client’s main goal is. Do they want to rank well in Google or win ‘Site of the Day’?
Like George said about using alt tags and title tags, you can accomplish great looking design that still has at least some SEO action with it.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Good article but you are right – it just comes down to good phrases and good content.
November 12th, 2008 at 12:04 am
SEO is a long work, every day, every time…
Blog, comment, article….
thank
Chris
November 13th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Search Engines have been changing their algorithms constantly of late. Aside from placing the targeted key phrases at strategic places including title tags, description tags, and header tags, fresh lease of content is what can be highly critical to getting higher page rank. Following are some of the successfully tested tips on quality SEO for new websites.
#1 – Choose your keyword carefully (preferably using a free tool) and write fresh content incorporating those key phrases. If possible, use the semantic relatives of those words.
#2 – Write at least one press release per week and distribute it across many free online PR networks. Make sure, your Press Release is ideally crafted with targeted keywords.
#3 – Sign up with some renowned and relevant forum sites and start participating like crazy. Eventually,you will be blessed with quality back links that significantly contribute to your SEO objectives.
November 15th, 2008 at 4:03 am
I have been into search engine optimization industry for over five years, and I have found optimizing online dating sites one of the most difficult things to do. The keywords and key phrases are very competitive and there’s so much competition around, it is very difficult to retain a position for a long time. I’d like to know if there are any specific ways to easier SEO for online dating sites.
November 17th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
SEO is not rocket science but it is extremely time consuming, especially if you don’t have the time to do it yourself let alone learn.
I see it this way, carpentry is easy to learn too but who has the time to do it. SSEo is pretty much the same.
Meta keywords are still useful especially for smaller search engines and LSI… just a thought
November 23rd, 2008 at 11:56 pm
I guess if I had the time to run my business and do all the SEO it wouldn’t be much of an issue. I spend a lot of time reading and trying new things but it’s tough to keep up. Thanks for the help.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Nice article but misses one glaringly obvious point. SEO is a numbers game. Its about backlinks. I have done some research on a couple of competeing sites that get top ten position in google search for major key words. They have achieved it on one factor and that is the sheer number of backlinks. 13000 and 25000 backlinks is what they have. They are Enlish language sites but the vast majority of their backlinks come from what look like russian directories, at least the language on the sites is written in text that looks russian.
December 10th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
You are so right when you say:
“Meta tags, links and who knows what else influence these calculations, so there is just no one right answer.”
no one truly knows for sure what they are looking for, apart from as mentioned keyword placement. That is why when ever I write an article for my blog I make sure i use good keyword placement. However not at the expense of the article. Don’t try and force words in. It has to be natuaral.
Nice post
December 11th, 2008 at 10:23 am
I am not so sure that reciprocal links are “always good” even if they are quality links about your topic. Sites have been penalized for this because of the appearance of manipulating ranking.
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Great tips about SEO, superb! success!
February 4th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
sure its not..If you have good content than you don’t need to worry. You will get all those links and search engine rankings
February 9th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Oh my god, what a difficult job SEO is, i have been doing SEO for a while and it seems all words from my memory have lost.. can someone suggest me any good books or recommend me if graphics are search able if we include text on them. thanks, nice article
February 24th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Seo is a never ending job. I like reading material such as this article in order to keep my site at the top of the search engines. What works today might not work tomorrow.
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Thanks for the article-the comments help fill it out. Charlotte Real Estate is a very competitive term, and it takes everything: keyword research, On page optimization, backlinks, and persisitence
March 29th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
I really like this post. Thanks for this article, Anyone got any more info about it? I am now your blog’ s rss follower. you are now in my bookmarks.
March 30th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
You make a good argument seo isn’t hard it’s just a tedious but effective process.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:24 am
I love it. SEO is NOT magic. That’s what I keep telling people. But they just don’t believe me. I enjoyed your entry here.
April 19th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
You are right, the best strategy you could go after is two-keyword search. The competition for 1 keyword is too high IMO!
May 2nd, 2009 at 2:42 am
Useful article
Thanks
May 5th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Good article with lots of useful information.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:19 am
This post is packed with information. I am truly impressed.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:36 am
This post is full of useful information. Congratulations for such a good work.
May 25th, 2009 at 12:55 am
Nice work dude… It is helpful for me as well as others..
May 31st, 2009 at 6:47 am
great post thanks, also analyzing the results is very important. Some useful tools like Google Position Tool and Free Seo Tools can be found everywhere but important is to use them productive.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:59 am
SEO is based on experience. And experience is hard to justify to customers.
June 6th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Search Engine Optimization is one of the best way to help your website increase traffic and receive a lot of visitors from people around world. Sharing this information about SEO will benefit people who are starting to learn it. Please keep on posting helpful information. Thank you so much.
June 12th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful and beneficial to your readers :)
June 13th, 2009 at 2:17 am
Just now I have completed reading your post. It’s interesting as well as informative. So, I have bookmarked the page for future use. Let’s see what happens.
June 14th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Even more important than the link is the anchor text of the link. For example, Widgets
(Note: spaces added to deactivate the link.)
June 17th, 2009 at 6:29 am
SEO is not rocket science!.. just hard graft really :D
June 17th, 2009 at 6:40 am
i agree with the above poster
June 17th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
A few good points in the article. It rally is about backlinks. It helps to have a page were title tag has your main phrase but if anchor text in backlinks say your page is about something else and all the backlinks say the page is about something else then it is very likely the search engines will vote that the page is about what is in the anchortext.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Quite good article, thanks
June 20th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Twenty months later and a lot of what the author says is still true today. But it’s certainly not as easy as this article would lead you to believe. If I had one good piece of advice to offer, I would say focus on optimizing a site for Google. If you can get a top 10 ranking with Google, then the others will eventually fall in line. Google ignores the meta keywords tag, but puts great emphasis on the titile and description tags so remember to use those.
June 20th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
I think there is too much attention put on optimizing for search engines instead of optimizing for the people that actually use our sites and blogs.
June 21st, 2009 at 5:48 pm
thanks for the post
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:59 am
This is some really useful information that anyone who owns a website could use. I also agree that when people have articles written to optimize their sites, they don’t care if it even makes sense or not. They just want it optimized for search engines. Thanks for this post
June 25th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
It needs as well a bit patience depending on the site age.
July 1st, 2009 at 10:21 pm
The use of keywords on a page only has a very small relevance to getting ranked in the search engines unless there is very little other competition.
Do a search for “click here” and see what page comes up #1. It is the page to download adobe reader. This page doesn’t contain the words “click here” anywhere on the page. So how does it rank so highly for such a competitive term?
Because everyone that links to the page uses the phrase click here (i.e. to download adobe reader click here). So Google thinks the page is about “click here”. This shows the importance of the anchor text used in links!
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:05 am
On the first part, images aren’t indexed, I was wondering about using nofollow tags on those links. Would this preserve PR? Also on the second part. I am just getting into longer chains of keywords. I believe they are called long tails. Do you think that using then in the directory structure to a page like: domain.com/keyword-phrase-longer/ would be the best option?
July 3rd, 2009 at 4:20 am
Search engine optimization isn’t rocket science but it can be difficult for some. I really enjoyed this post!
July 4th, 2009 at 2:04 am
SEO is difficult for those who have no experience at it. The good news is that there’s so much information available out there…most can pick it up with a bit of reading. The availability of outsourcing companies for SEO is quite useful.
July 6th, 2009 at 6:50 am
good blog
July 6th, 2009 at 8:19 am
great blog! really like the design too.
July 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
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July 6th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Appreciate the seo tips. Very good and informative and looking forward to implementing them. Thanks.
July 6th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
The post is very helpful. You have really great tips for beginners and veterans of seo. thanks so much.
July 8th, 2009 at 2:59 am
it is great to say this absolutely right,
July 9th, 2009 at 11:15 am
thanks for
July 9th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
SEO – thing which drive me crazy… A logical analysis should I say.. heheh
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July 9th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
it is great
July 9th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Thankss for that
July 9th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Great article, some really interesting points!
July 15th, 2009 at 1:11 am
The problem is that it has become so competitive that its hard to try and get anything done unless sinking down to less than idea methods for trying to drive traffic to your website. It’s not just good content and a quality product that drives traffic anymore.
cheers,
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July 26th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Very good article, SEO isn’t rocket science it is all about hard work and research a lot of effort has to be put down to see results. Placement of keywords also matters and it is recommended that you place keywords in the first sentence of an article and possibly the end.
July 30th, 2009 at 6:51 am
true!.. it’s not rocket science.. just time consuming
July 30th, 2009 at 8:04 am
ha, good job it isn’t rocket science.. or that’s me done for! :D nice site
August 4th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Quality content will bring credible links from authoritative sources. Always keep the end-user in mind and the long term success of your clients.
August 9th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
SEO is now becoming an important ingredient for a online business success especially nowadays. You are definitely right with your post of having a proper Title tag of your page as it will help search engine to easily find your site…
The proper title/alt tage is definately a must.. basic standard in on-page SEO.. but keep in mind that focus is going more to relevant content than simple on-page SEO factors or inbound links..
August 16th, 2009 at 5:49 am
As a newbie in SEO I found your article to be very illuminating. I find my SEO a daily daunting task but now the information you have written will make my days a little easier. Thank you
August 16th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
You are right search engine optimisation is not rocket science, and l a work for an seo company
August 17th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Do all these commenters know that the links are nofollow?
September 13th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
It is true that SEO is not rocket Science, however it can be very time consuming building those links to your site.
November 13th, 2009 at 7:49 am
You made some valid points, although I do not agree with everything you stated.
First, you are absolutely correct is saying that sites should be built and optimized for the human visitor. I cold not agree more, and this may be the most important “general rule” for SEO there is.
Too often people will try to out smart the search engines, and in the end they just hurt themselves. You can’t trick the search engines or game the system. If you do, you’ll fail.
I do take exception about your comments regarding reciprocal linking. The days of reciprocal linking are over, and have been for some time now. And for the same reason you mentioned for meta tags. Too many people tried to game the system, and in the end were not doing what was best for the human visitor.
Today (Nov. 2009) the focus should be on high quality one-way links. And by high quality I mean from authority sites. Squidoo, Hub Pages, YouTube in some cases, or other sites considered high quaity by both the human visitors and the search engines.
The bottom line is, search engine optimization should not be difficult. When in doubt, do what’s best for the human vistor. Don’t do what you think the search engines want, because the search engines are always refining their approach, trying to find what’s best for the human visitor for relevance.
November 19th, 2009 at 1:25 am
Wow Impressive!
Your blog is very informative. However, it is pretty hard task but your post and experience serve and teach me how to handle and make it more simple and manageable.
Thanks for the tips… Best regards.
November 19th, 2009 at 1:27 am
Nice to be visiting your blog again, it has been months for me. Well this article that i’ve been waited for so long. I need this article to complete my assignment in the college, and it has same topic with your article. Thanks, great share.
November 19th, 2009 at 3:45 am
SEO is a long term campaign. Thank you for this
November 19th, 2009 at 3:48 am
Alot of SEO articles from here: http://www.clicktrue.biz/blog/
maybe that can help you familiarizing SEO and other aspects of Search Engine marketing
November 19th, 2009 at 4:01 am
It takes a long process. Even though we would not be able to trace the development of each, it still runs through the phases until later we can enjoy technology advances.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Thanks for the tips. SEO is definitely something that is built up over time.
November 21st, 2009 at 5:08 am
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November 22nd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
You are right about this article, you just have to have the desire to want to learn search engine optimization and have a lot of patience to learn the process
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November 23rd, 2009 at 8:17 am
Yes its only wasting tons of time in front of the screen.
But is it worth in the end ?
November 27th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Hi,
With regards to the images being not searchable, you can make them searchable by using Alt tags, have used them for my Spoof Card website as well and it increased the number of (key) words on my website.
Good luck!
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I think it’s kind of funny how there are so many responses to this article (most of which are purely SEO purposes), but I won’t be a hypocrite as I am doing this too.
I think that google should change the way SEO is done because to me it doesn’t make sense that someone can boost his or her own webpage by simply posting pointless comments to .edu and .gov sites. Page ranking should be based on the quality of the website and business, not links. Just my opinion.
Thanks.
December 27th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Good thorough information, always a pleasure to find info that is useful, will be very happy to see more from you in the future
December 28th, 2009 at 12:13 am
A very helpful article. Thanks.
January 5th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Some additional tips for the beginners:
- TITLE tag should not be longer than 65 symbols
- DESCRIPTION tag — no longer than 150 symbols
- Use Bold for increase the weight of your keywords inside the page content
- No more than 100 links inside a page
- Use H1, H2 and H3 for your titles
January 21st, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Thank you so much for this powerful and understandable article to make sense of SEO.
You are absolutely right way too many people and companies promise the sun, moon and stars in regard to SEO …of course along with a hefty fee.
Thankfully I didn’t have that kind of money to invest and was forced to use my writing skills, which has served me best.
Your valuable insights are most appreciated.
Sincerely,
Paul F Davis
http://www.PaulFDavis.com – worldwide speaker, minister and rescue relief worker heading to Haiti
January 28th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Great bonus tips!
thanks!
January 29th, 2010 at 5:02 am
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January 29th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
I think that reciprocal links are not so good any more. They don’t work as they did before, you’ll not achieve good result with reciprocal links, even if they are from site about your topic.
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January 29th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
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January 31st, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Not rocket science, who are you kidding, l cannot get my head round it all
January 31st, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Thanks for your sharing.
February 1st, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I am trying optimisation myself
February 1st, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Honestly, the SEO marketing game has been plagued with many black-hat methods. Unfortunately, I don’t see a way of ever stopping that. Backlinks are still very important within SEO and I think “nofollow” has helped with quality control in regards to this. In example, all of the replies’ “website” links will not be given weight to in the eyes of google, but yahoo/msn will still follow the links.
February 2nd, 2010 at 4:05 am
Nice blog.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:04 am
They dont ignore meta tags, they ignore just the meta keyword.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:50 am
Nice work
February 4th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
great tips!
February 4th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
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February 6th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
When ever i try much harder it goes all wrong from me and i get no top 10 ranking in google but i do good with other search engine there is something behind google top 10 ranking..
February 6th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Its very good and valuable information about SEO, I am also SEO and its very informative for me, Regards.
February 7th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
The match this search engine does make the easier penguna, google currently still plays an important role according to the bloggers is still a place of learning about seo techniques, while the frame and yahoo is still much that needs to be learned. Perhaps the most important from a search engine is precision accuracy in entering a keyword with the results
February 8th, 2010 at 3:17 am
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February 9th, 2010 at 4:55 am
good one
February 9th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Amazing article man!
February 11th, 2010 at 4:50 am
It is slow but sure process. And indeed it is not that slow at all. We can’t remember how Internet penetrated our life for the first time.
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February 11th, 2010 at 8:26 am
Yes SEO is not rocket science indeed! I had little tech knowledge but I learnt it all myself and I know a lot of SEO now.
People really know SEO! No wonder there are so many comments here on this edu site!
February 12th, 2010 at 6:03 am
ok i agree with you what if two sites place same keyword. how search engine find better of two.
February 12th, 2010 at 9:51 am
very well done article.. I appreciate the effort. thanks
February 12th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
It may not be rocket science, but it can be tricky.
February 12th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Thank you for this blog posting. Fascinating.
February 12th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
I concur with your findings and conclusions.
February 13th, 2010 at 6:10 am
good
February 14th, 2010 at 7:24 am
SEO is a fun topic cuz it inspires creation and encourages interest and learning.
February 14th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
SEO certainly is not rocket science and can be learned to a monkey, as long as you follow the basic guidelines and don’t try to over do things.
Good article
February 18th, 2010 at 5:32 am
I agree with your content statement. But do not underestimate the importance of quality backlinks.
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:30 am
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March 7th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
There is no easy way in every little thing but it’s just only a matter of understanding the basic of seo to ready yourself for more complex thing.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:54 am
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March 8th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
SEo isnt rocketscience, thats for sure.I tell you what it is ; pure hard work and common sense.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Most people think there is magic and secrets in seo but they are wrong.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
nice blog and many good points here.
March 8th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
I Lile you guys and what hase been said and written in the blog and in the posts.
I agree with the fact that no one can get better ranking if no content or backlinks are made by the standing point of being a white hat.
I mean that being always honesty brings results, and in any business.
We all new that we need backlinks to rank, and we all know that we could make 1000 links in a week. But they are just tricks and not real stuff. MAny time easy ways are longer payback in future time.
Thanks for sharing this nice infortmations.
Pasquale
March 9th, 2010 at 2:02 am
nice informative blog
March 9th, 2010 at 8:33 am
its better to develop content rich page in place of images because if your webpage is content rich and well optimized than it can get good ranking in the search engine.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Your bonus tips helped big time, i was really not giving much stress on these things earlier, now that I got some good results, will continue to act on your advice.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Lots of great info there.keep it coming.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:54 am
great points!.. nice blog too, keep up the good work!
March 12th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Very helpful information. I hope to read something on the new Google caffeine algorithm, and how to use SEO methods to be successful.
March 12th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
I wonder, if your post SEO is still up-to-date for 2010, or it has changed since 2007 you posted this article.
Any way it was worth to read it, thanks.
March 14th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Ya Thats not really the rocket science. I agrees
March 14th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Yes you are true SEO is not one instant output. We have to analyze everything and have to implement the best strategy on SEO for get better results.
March 14th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Sometimes I feel SEO is incredibly easy, but other times I truly feel it is Rocket Science. The problem is there are so many theories out there and once you think you have a choke hold on it, Google changes their algo. I’d love to be a Fly on the Wall in their (Googles) “change” meetings.
March 15th, 2010 at 7:45 am
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March 15th, 2010 at 7:46 am
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March 15th, 2010 at 11:23 am
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March 15th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
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March 16th, 2010 at 7:39 am
Excellent article. You raise points and argue them very well.
Thanks
March 16th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
I agree, yet you do need the requisite knowledge and experience to do it well.
March 16th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Great info there. keep it posting.
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