Beginners Guide To Learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

I have decided to quickly write a tutorial to help potential search engine optimization consultants learn the basics of SEO.  This is a brief guide that does not go into detail about each step, as can go on and on.  Each step listed below can be broken down into pages and pages of articles that I do not have time to write.  A good resource to read such articles is SEO Articles by SEO Optimizers.  If you have questions please use the comments section below and I will gladly answer them.  I hope this beginner’s guide to SEO helps you learn a few new techniques that you may not have know about or otherwise thought about.

On Page Search Engine Optimization

• Title tag<title> Keyword </title>
• Meta description <meta name=”description”  content=” Keyword” />
• Meta description keywords <meta name=”keywords”  content=” Keyword” />
• Header tags  <h1>Keyword</h1>, <h2> Keyword </h2>, <h3> Keyword </h3>
• Images need keyword rich alt tags alt=”Keyword”
• Websites built In flash are not seo friendly
• Do not use duplicate content (copy and pasting other peoples content)
• Make sure content has keywords
• The older the website the more authority it has and the higher the rank
• Always make sure to register the domain for one year
• Create a sitemap www.xml-sitemaps.com
  • Submit to search engines (webmaster tools) (these will be xml sitemaps)
  • Add a page on your website with the other site maps
  • Sitemap is to let search engines spider know what pages to look for or are important.

Off Page Search Engine Optimization

• Link Building
  • Relevant to website links
  • Authoritative websites (high page ranks, popular) especially page rank above 5
  • One way links
  • More of the above links are better than any other
• Blogs
  • Comment on other blogs with keywords
  • Create rss feed using feedburner from google
  • Guest blog post (find blogs relevant to the industry your working on, contact and offer a free blog post in exchange for a link or author resource box [post by your name etc])
  • Build a company blog
    • WordPress.org
    • Google Blogger
    • Update blog weekly with post 400 words or more post
    • Put keywords in the title of the post
    • Post about special deals, promotions, new articles, twitter, social networking, post only about the company or industry the company is in)
  • Build landing page blogs
    • Register keyword rich domains (ex www.godaddy.com or www.comptoncarcleaners.infoor www.compton-car-cleaners.m e)
      • This will rank at the top of google for the keyword phrase  “Compton car cleaners”
      • Try to get .coms but if not try –‘s if not go for .info .org .net
      • Keywords in the url will rank in google
      • Post to articles with keywords related to the url
      • Make sure the title tags have the keywords of the url  and so should the post
      • Link to company website with keywords in the anchor text (which is keywords in a link not just the direct link)
      • Link to other websites like Wikipedia so it does not look like spam or self promotion
      • What this is
        • Purpose of this  is to get links through url , title tag, all to  a specific keyword. Al l to rank your website higher in the search engines.
• Articles and Press Releases
  • Write and submit articles and press releases (submission sites excel)
  • Try to submit to relevant sites to your industry
  • Add keywords in the title and the body of content
• Forums
  • Create profiles
  • Go to user control panel and add website url.
  • Check to see if there is a signature line, and if there is add one or two sentences about yourself if you want, and add keywords in it and then link it back to your website.
  • Related high ranked forums are better
  • Interact with other members, start threads, and answer questions
• Directory submission
  • Submit website to directories example; dmoz, look at submission site file.
• Social networking
  • Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube are the most popular right now
    • Create pages on all these for the company and try to gain followers etc.
  • Make sure you fill out the company profile till its complete, add picture, interact with the people, and try to update as much as possible, daily or weekly.
  • Social networking is really good right now so make sure you take lots of care to this.
  • Put special deals or promotions or add a link from yahoo news saying check out this article
• Sign up for these accounts:
  • Google:
    • Top right of google.com Settings>google acc ount settings>
    • Create accounts for google analytics, google places (for local search), feedburner for rss feed, blogger, googlecheckout and google base (if they sell products), webmaster tools (submit xml sitemap here) and youtube for the company, and maybe gmail.
  • Bing:
    • Webmaster central and submit xml sitemap here.
• Keyword research
  • Anchor text is keywords in a link not just the direct link
  • Use www.wordtracker.com or search google for keyword tools or check in forums.
  • Do not repeat keywords or use variations.
• How to edit websites
  • Get ftp access
  • Then get filezilla or equivalent
    • Host: www.yoursite.com
    • Username and password are given to you from website owner.
    • Port does not matter, (leave blank) USE 21 IF DOES NOT WORK.
    • ftp gets you the files (website pages)
  • Dreamweaver
    • Use to edit the ftp files.
    • Create .htaccesss
    • Add robots.txt
    • Add sitremap.xml for search engines

Once again, this is just a basic run down for a beginner SEO class of the techniques and tools to create an excellent on site and off site website to rank in the various search engines such as Google, yahoo, Bing, etc.  If you have any questions or want to add in please use the comments form below.  Enjoy SEO and ranking your website today!