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?
Before you start applying techniques to drive traffic to your site you need to research your keywords thoroughly and make sure your website has plenty of relevant content and keywords on it. This is called on page SEO.
Even though this part of the SEO process has minimal impact on your search engine ranking the keyword research is vitally important and should never be overlooked as this is what customers will use to find your site.
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.
Adding a blog to your website is highly recommended and new posts made to this blog can be emailed to customers past and present. This is not only a great SEO practice to increase your on page SEO and boost your rankings but it could land you some repeat business.
So what about off page SEO? For starters time is on your side and it has to be as many off page SEO techniques can take days, weeks or even months to work, so being patient is paramount for sure.
In fact many sites, forums and blogs will all say the same thing building loads of relevant back links to your site is by far the number one most important part of all SEO. More important that website structure, meta tags and even dare I say website content.
That said make sure you don’t backlink from sites that are deemed inappropriate. Aim for websites, blogs and directories that are relevant to your own website. Try to get links promoting your site added to these sites and make sure that you use your main keywords to describing your business or website.
So many people make the common mistake of joining these 4000 links in one day systems that are known as link farms, don’t do it as it will damage your SEO campaign. I would also avoid three way linking systems although some smaller less known ones are OK…for now.
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!
Try to enjoy search engine optimisation and don’t get too disheartened if you don’t get the immediate results you had hoped for – SEO does take time, a lot of time for that matter but it really is worth it and once your where you want to be you can ease off the pedal…well a little bit.
