The Building Blocks To Good Search Engine Optimisation
August 14, 2009 by Kev Sparks
Filed under SEO
Break it down into small bite size pieces, that is the key to understanding search engine optimisation and also do not be afraid of it, its actually very simple when you know how. Good SEO produces brilliant results, but what are the best SEO techniques?
For example many people get hung up on making sure their website is keyword rich and of course highly relevant to their chosen industry. This is called on page SEO.
Often overlooked during the whole search engine optimisation process and not particularly highly regarded by some but on page SEO can be the difference between fifth on Google to first, so give it some of your time.
Make sure you correctly add keywords to tags in images called ALT tags and also to the main meta tags within your web pages. Overlooking this may not damage your SEO campaign completely but will certainly not help. Be careful though because too many keywords on anyone page can be identified by search engines as Spam and could have a disastrous effect on your rankings.
Some black hat techniques like stuffing keywords into irrelevant areas are pushed by some so called ‘helpful’ SEO experts but this is definitely one tactic to avoid. Always attempt to add value to the reader.
There are also a few grey hat techniques that some people adopt like using white text on a website with a white background. The benefit being that the reader cannot see this text but the search engines think it is rich in content.
Grey hat techniques are not quite forbidden but they are time consuming and very low impact on your SEO ranking so I really would not bother if I was you. Just construct your website using your own value adding content and you will get better results.
One great SEO tactic and often overlooked by website owners that are promoting a product is a blog. Now this doesn’t mean to have to update it daily although that would help but weekly or even monthly posts would be considered good on page practice.
So what about off page SEO? Well this is the most important element in boosting your search engine placement and will take the most time so patience is a very useful trait to have during this point in the process.
Many sites, forums and blogs will all say the same thing – its all about the link juice, and they are right. Getting backlinks to your website is by far the number one most important part of all SEO and don’t let anyone else tell you different.
However don’t be a fool and start back linking to just about any old site. You must make sure the sites that link to you are appropriate and if possible highly relevant to your own site. That said, linking to competitors is not advised!
The golden rule when link building is not to opt for the bulk back linking systems and farms out there that offer multiple links to your site within days. Google will just see that you are trying to manipulate their algorithm and bin your site. It really is not worth it.
Structured link building is the most important part of the entire process but this is all undone if your website is not capturing the sale because your website and its content is not targeted or interesting enough. Use a sales funnel process and entice the visitor in. After all what is the point of SEO without sales etc!
SEO is actually not that difficult and when applied correctly can bring you many rewards, traffic and sales that you never use to have. SEO is all about the timely application of basic process, it certainly is not rocket science.
