SEO for Beginners

SEO for Beginners – Top Techniques

If you are just getting started with your online business, you need to know how to optimize your website for maximum exposure by the search engines. Search engine optimization or “SEO” is vital to getting visitors to your website. We explore top techniques, seo for beginners.

Top 10 SEO for Beginners Techniques

1. Domain Name

The domain name you choose for your site can be especially important in getting your site ranked higher in the search engine results. Your URL should match the products and services you offer on your site. For example, if you sell cameras, you will want to purchase a domain name that includes “cameras” in the URL. More than this, the file names of each page should match what each page offers in content. Using cameras as an example, the URL for your page on Waterloo Cameras for  a Digital Camera Product may be: “www.WaterlooCameras.com/digital-single-lens-camera”.

2. Keywords

The use of keywords on your site must match the content and there must be enough of them to achieve the best indexing by search engines. Quality over quantity does count, as most search engines will eventually blacklist sites that are overstuffed with keywords and lend little benefit to readers. Use keywords where they fit in naturally.

3. Latent Semantic Indexing

Related to keywords, latent semantic indexing or “LSI” uses words that are variations on keywords. Search engine crawlers are now programmed to recognize words that are associated with your keywords. Make sure your content is optimized with LSI for those cases in which internet users use similar wording to your keywords.

4. Backlinks

The more back links you have to your site, the better. Without backlinks, search engines will crawl your site less often. Take advantage of search engine crawlers that crawl other sites and follow the links to your pages. You can get back links by using a few different methods:

• Exchanging links with sites related to but not in competition to your own.
• Posting in forums that relate to your particular niche and having a link to your site in the signature line. Make sure that what you post has real relevance to the topics being discussed in the forum. Nobody appreciates spam and it will most likely be deleted, anyway.
• Leave comments on blogs that allow for back links. The same principle of relevance applies to blog comments as forum postings.
• Article marketing is a great way to get links to your site. When you write or have someone else write an article for you and get your article accepted to directories, you provide a service to other website owners. They can use your article as content on their site providing they leave your by-line that contains your site’s URL at the bottom of the article. Remember to submit articles regularly as the more they are used, the more they are seen as duplicate content. Fresh articles keep this from being an issue.

5. Site Navigation

Internal links are necessary. It is a good idea to include a text-based menu on every page that links to every major page. Make a site map that includes every major page and sub page. When indexing websites, search engines look for a site map. It makes it much easier for search engines to crawl your site.

6. Quality Content

The content on your website must match the keywords and description, but more than this, it must be well written and informative. The use of descriptions for products, articles for information and photos that match with the subject of the site are all recommended for good quality content. Keep your content fresh by rewriting the content of your pages and/or adding different content that relates to the same topic.

7. Headings and Subheadings

Use headings that contain keywords. Search engines look for these for assurance of content that matches your Meta tags. Headings are part of HTML formatting.

8. Site Title

As with your domain name, the site title contained in the title tags of the HTML is relevant to the search engines. The title of the site is what is seen at the top of the browser. A good rule of thumb is to match the title of each page with the content.

9. Meta Tags

Title, description, and keyword tags that are contained in the part of your HTML are called “meta tags”. This tells the search engines what is important about your site.

10. Learn from Search Engine Optimized Sites

Research the SEO techniques of sites that are ranking higher than your own. You can do this by reading their content and checking for backlinks by using such tools as Alexa. There is no harm in learning from others who are more successful as long as you do not use black hat techniques or copy content.

SEO for Beginners

These top techiques in seo for beginners are in no particular order as each one is invaluable for applying quality SEO to your website. If you are confused by any of the techniques discussed, you can research them further or even take an online course in SEO. With the above top 10 search engine optimization techniques, you can take your business from a low ranking page to the top of search engine results in just a matter of weeks.

Ladical Digital Marketing

Ladical Digital Marketing, located in Waterloo, has a number of SEO Products available, in order to improved your websites search engine results page or SERP.