Step One contains basic, though compulsory, information before you jump in feet first to making adjustments within your website and any online marketing campaign. Good thing this is being released in conjunction with Step Two so your not hanging out for some hands on!
Why is it that so many people have trouble with optimizing their own website? Well, as my Unique Selling Proposition (USP) states "What works for one! May not work for another! SEO is not created equal" pretty much well sums it up. For those that want to take the time to learn how to optimize their own website, then there are many facets that need to be taken into consideration. Each will be discussed in detail throughout the series of articles, so keep your eyes peeled for future releases. Your first very important lesson begins now. Information!
Notice the heading of this article? Search Engine Optimization Basics. Optimization is only one part of a complete Online Marketing campaign. If you can handle parts of your own optimization, then it will save you money, but if you can't achieve the desired goals, outsource it and do it fast before you lose more time. It is no longer that you just want an SEO firm nowadays, as you actually should be chasing a Search Engine Marketeer (SEM) to handle your your complete online solutions. A complete Internet marketing campaign makes up, but not limited too:
# Website optimization for performance within
the search engines
# Writing page copy that sells
# Paid search engine promotion
# Free Internet promotion
# Paid Internet promotion
# Affiliate campaigns
# Articles, newsletters and online promotions
# Email campaigns
# and much more...
SEO is a great start in the right direction and unfortunately the stopping point for many website owners. What you must always keep in mind is this, "To make money, you must spend money" and we all know that is true in many aspects. To make money in the stock market, we don't save our pennies then invest. We borrow, invest and make more on what we owe to pay the capital plus interest and make a profit, continue reinvesting the capital and so on. You do it everyday with your business and the same goes with any online marketing solution. Return On Investment (ROI) is what its all about. No point having the highest rankings possible, if your website is unprofessional for your market, unnavigable or just not user friendly and visitors leave as soon as they land upon the pages. A bright colourful website with stars, bubbles and things that move with your mouse is fine for a children's or fun niche website, but not suitable for a corporate site, and vice versa.
Now be aware, most of what I say will be focused towards businesses and websites that create money for an end result. However, the information contained in this article and all future steps, is applicable to all websites great and small. The limiting factor is generally the cost. Well, the great thing is that I'm going to show you through this series of articles that you can reduce the cost of your online marketing if you aren't afraid of a little work and sitting on your hands and waiting. You can have relevant traffic on your site in no time if your willing to listen, learn and stop listening too those unprofessional sorts that claim quick fixes, because there is no such thing on the Internet.
Unfortunately, due to the vastness and accessibility of the Internet, there are more unprofessional scams than there are legitimate businesses in the marketing and optimization industry. You may hear from people that they used "x" technique to get a really great ranking! Don't be fooled into the myths. What they haven't told you is that downside. The engines automatically find spammers and penalise their sites, and for major infringements, ban them permanently. Did they forget to mention that huh. Wonder why? Everything's legal, until you get caught! You will get caught, trust me. It might take a month, two or longer, but it'll happen. A competitor will find your trick and report you to the search engines or the search engines will discover you automatically. Stop now and please take notice of the following illegal, unethical techniques:
# Doorpages (gateway pages and a few other
names)
# Cloaking
# Shadow Domains
# Redirects
# Hidden text
# Tiny Text
# Purchased email lists
# and lots more unethical techniques
You will find many sites that are not very legitimate, though some very convincing people market it well and basically convince you that what they are doing is right. One thing that annoys me with SEO, that comes back to those unprofessional types, is they jag ranking for their own site, so decide to open a website and sell SEO. Nothing good can happen from that, so beware. Remember my USP, it is accurate. My last point on this matter is this! Please read the information for yourself straight from the search engines. Atleast this way, you have it from them and when you aspire to outsource work or turn to an SEO Forum for advice, you will turn to the correct one's only. When an SEO informs you they will use cloaking, redirects, shadow domains or doorpages, you can tell them to kindly bugger off. At this point they will most likely try even harder to bring you around, but stand firm and remember that phrase, "Bugger Off". Reading Google's guidelines is generally enough as most other engines adopt the same or similar guidelines:
Guidelines:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
SEO Info:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
Facts & Fiction:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html
Many website owners think that because they have a website, they are past the required steps to achieve rankings. General feedback I see is, 'but the site was professionally designed', or 'I optimized my Meta Information", and 'I've stuffed keywords into the pages', so they are beyond SEO. If that's what you think, then you may as well stop reading now. Many still have the opinion of "Build it and they will come!" Interesting, though not even close to the truth with the competitive nature of the Internet today. The Internet as a whole is becoming more and more competitive, and as such, targeting the correct terms, regional locations and target market are the most important of all aspects of any successful SEO campaign.
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So you've read the forums, scouted some SEO sites and either you're; #1 all confused or; #2 think this isn't too hard. Honestly, its not hard for the professionals to achieve high rankings, though it can be quite daunting and frustrating for many who don't live and breath the search engines. You read that correctly. I know that personally I spend atleast 30 - 40 hours monthly reading about current news, participating in forums and always updating my own knowledge. On top of that, I then have my clients sites to work on. The saying, "I know a little about a lot and a lot about a little" is something you should keep in mind when attempting your own SEO or online marketing campaign. What you read that worked for "x" site, most likely won't work for your site the same. The biggest point about SEO is "Every Website Is Unique & Must Be Optimized Uniquely."
Now you most likely think these rankings just happen? Change this, do that, submit here and there and poof...the magic wand works and my website ranks highly! Don't we all wish. The fact is, most websites will take atleast (3) three months to provide stable rankings. The really funny thing is, is that (3) three months is only for the non-competitive terms. You know, those terms that very few are actually targeting. When I say very few, I mean a 1,000 or less directly targeting a phrase in the <title> tag (more on that later in the series).
Three (3) months you say? Long time! Ha, that's nothing yet. Lets talk about mildly competitive and then we span out to 6 months and more; and highly competitive, don't even bother looking at under 12 months as a minimum for worthy results. If you think you're going to achieve these miracle rankings sooner, then good luck and enjoy. Now, lets apply some commonsense here, if your site is established and only needs a little jumper in one or two areas, then the results will be reflected within maybe two weeks to a month for all the engines to adopt the change. Major changes and new sites will most certainly take (3) three months minimum to stabilize. You may see changes within a month, but they will fluctuate and move constantly as the search engines analyse the new content.
One of the biggest myths that get around and especially from these fraud email marketing campaigners who try and stuff traffic down your throat. You know what? Who cares if you have 20,000 visitors monthly if only (5) five of them are converting to sales. Why not have 500 visitors monthly that actually want to be there looking at your site products, services and information and converting (50) fifty of them into monthly sales. Much better ratio huh? That's what SEO and SEM is all about. Putting people who are looking for your niche upon your relevant pages and drive those sales up.
This is the big one. Everything I tell you within these articles, you could construed and manipulate into some form of spam and over stuff your site thinking more is better. Well, I want to make it clear now, DON'T DO IT. If you think you're the first bright spark to come up with the idea, guess what? Many before have done it, tried it and the search engines built it into their algorithm to deter against it. Don't get caught out with what you see others doing. It is the #1 mistake made by most site owners. There is no miracle method or quick fix, just compliancy to the search engines and your site will do well.
If your website is still in the design stages when you're reading this article, then you are at the best stage to implement your SEO throughout your site. Unfortunately for most who's sites are already launched, you're going to discover errors that now travel all through your website. More work for you, though worthy results are the end result. You really need to apply commonsense with optimizing your website and always keep these few things in mind when you have brilliant thoughts and tricks:
# If you're thinking about tricking the engines,
then you have lost before you started
# Don't do anything to your website solely for the search engines,
EVER
# If your users can't see it, don't put it there
# Only include relevant content that describes your products,
services or information
# Make pages for users, not for search engines.
# Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check
rankings, etc
# Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition
Gold
# Don't attempt to deceive the engines, its been done and the
battle lost already
My Favourite Google Quote: A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
Says it all doesn't it. Experience plus Knowledge is the key to just about most things. Marketing your website online is no different. So don't feel bad if you don't succeed as you wish. Nobody expects you to automatically know everything about how to get your website ranking highly. Hell, 99% of web designers wouldn't have a clue as it is a separate entity from design. They are not supposed too and most likely don't care because they don't specialise within it. Experience, honesty, integrity and trust is everything in this area of expertise.
Learn from quality articles, ask questions and discuss information in the forums and then proceed with your next step. Doing the job right the first time, is a job worth doing. The best part is, is that with the information I am going to give you, who really cares if it all falls down and you just can't achieve those rankings yourself. If you do an excellent job with the little pieces of the puzzle you have done, this can make the process much cheaper when you have to bring in a professional. You will see how in future articles.
I think you will find these coming articles very handy and hopefully practical in utilising the knowledge I give you, insert a little commonsense and mix together to apply to your website and achieve those high stable rankings that we all want. Ranking for your domain name, business name and phrases that aren't even searched just don't cut the grade at all. I get sick of people telling me they rank #1 for "super beans fight froot loops in south africa and the green ones won", that sort of rubbish. You want rankings? Right! Well, lets get into the next step and start achieving those targeted rankings to deliver only relevant traffic to your site.
This article may be reproduced in whole or part providing all relevant compliments are acknowledged to the author Anthony Parsons. A return link may be made for partial entries returning to this document or when used in whole, a link to our SEO homepage at http://seo.anthonyparsons.com is required.
