20 SEO Fundamental Techniques
Search Engine Optimization is an enormous topic and one of the most effective tools that can bring a prospective customer to your website. It can be a very time consuming process and can have disastrous results if not done correctly.
Before you begin to develop your own strategy and implementation plan to optimize your website for improved rankings in the major search engines you need to be sure you consider these 20 SEO fundamental techniques that will improve your rankings.
1. Make sure your site is fully operational and all your content is in place before you have it submitted.
2. Be sure to submit the domain or URL in the correct format ( http://www.mydomain.com – some directories accept it without http:// )
3. Do NOT submit domains that redirect to another site under any circumstance. This is an attempt to deceive a search engine and could get you removed.
4. Create a website for users, NOT for search engines. Do NOT present different content to search engines that you display to your users.
5. Select the most relevant category for your site when submitting. Don’t make the mistake of selecting the category too fast without checking if there would be a more relevant category.
6. The links should ideally be optimized for the keywords that you want your site to target. Search engines utilize keywords or key phrases to identify web pages which are relevant to these terms.
7. Take the time to research your keywords. It may not be worth your time and money to target words where the competition is established and overwhelming.
8. Your title text for each page should be clearly defined with relevant keywords.
9. Don’t use generic terms to optimize your website. It is important that you select keywords which are not overused and aptly describe (in a few words) what the site is about.
10. Select words or phrases that target a niche segment. Create a list of relevant keywords which do not attract too much competition in your niche segment.
11. Check for broken links, correct HTML and avoid hidden text or hidden links.
12. Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Search Engine’s crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.
13. Include the email address of your site domain NOT a free account like Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail.
14. Using relevant keywords in your title text and anchor text can improve your search engine placement.
15. Don’t repeat keywords to the point that your text becomes incoherent. It’s more important to make sure your message is understood by users than it is to stuff your keywords into as many sentences as possible.
16. Don’t create multiple pages, sub domains, or domains with duplicate content. Provide unique, relevant and fresh content to your users with good grammar, correct spelling, and sentence structure.
17. Do NOT submit sites that install viruses, trojans, or other malware.
18. Submit your site to premier search engines and in the top directory such as the Open Directory Project, Yahoo!, Google
19. Double check your information submitting your site to directories. Once your site has been accepted, it may be extremely difficult to change any of the information that is submitted.
20. Be patient and continue to research what your competition is doing online, what keywords they have targeted and what campaigns they are running so you can evaluate and make intelligent decisions.
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