Making SEO Work For You

September 15, 2009 by Bethany
Filed under: Search Engine Optimization

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

Using SEO is a fantastic way to get your site jump started and ahead of the game, though there are a few mistakes that can be avoided so that you are not wasting your time on any methods that may be working against you. There are numerous experts out there constantly working on the newest SEO ideas that are cutting edge and advanced, so you have to keep in mind that the concepts in SEO are subject to change depending on the newest finds and discoveries to date.

With all of that being said, your first plan of action should be to research your keywords that you are using with a keyword research tool. These tools have large databases of keywords that will help you find the right keywords that will best benefits the searches for your site. You can then dedicate each page of your site to a primary keyword, while using secondary keywords sprinkled throughout your page’s content. Another good idea to remember while using these keywords throughout the pages of your site is that, though you may be loading the content full of great SEO keywords, your pages still need to be user friendly to draw the necessary traffic to your site and keep it there. Make sure that you can get to every single page of your site in an easy way so that when people are linked to your site searching for their specific product, then they will go directly to that page and not have to “re-search” once they get to your site. This error will significantly lower your traffic conversion rate since many people will become frustrated at having to look again for the product they are searching for when they have been linked to what should have been the appropriate page of your sight. Make sense?

From there, make sure that your site has a clear site map since search engines will prefer to index your site map page since that is what introduces the context of your site as a whole. Stemming from there, you can then seek to pump your site full of content that can be well accessed from your clear site map. If you are selling gardening tools, then you can create many articles and blogs on gardening and gardening tools, all the while sprinkling your content with SEO friendly keywords and keyword phrases. You can then add links from these articles back to the corresponding pages of your site.

After that, you can look to sites that are in your like topic and field, though not your competitors, and you can seek to exchange links with them in a fair way. This is a very important practice since it establishes your site as authoritative and current in its field, but you must watch for exchanging irrelevant links since this is not organic and can be picked up by Google. If Google disapproves of your link exchange practices, then you are looking at your site being potentially banned, and then you are back to square one. Yikes!

What you have to remember is that there are many SEO practices being implemented as we speak, but it is in your best interest to stay away from the black hat practices that may do you more harm then good. If you are using tried and true SEO principles, then you will be rewarded by seeing your site succeed organically and for the long run. And that is what we are all looking for!

Be Sociable, Share!