SEO – Self Help Search Engine Optimization

In order to get your site recognized by the main search engines and obtain a high page ranking, you need to be able to get your site noticed by engines like Yahoo and Google. While there are several more search engines out there, these are the big two that you want to get noticed, and ranked, by.

One way, a very big way, to get noticed is to create incoming links that are going to stand out to the search engines. How do you do that? See Smart Linking, but more about it later. You have to be honest with your links, you have to link to a relevant site, you have to use strong anchor text in your link to get noticed, and most importantly, IT HAS TO BE RELEVANT.

Today, search engines use spybots and cookies to bounce around the internet checking all of the information and links that are out there. A couple of years ago, search engines didn’t have that ability, so web masters could create links that were not truthful or relevant to the sites he or she were linking to. They used business directories like DMOZ and many others.

Now a web master has to be careful with his or her links. In order to create smart and effective links, a web master has to choose a site to link to that is relevant to his or her own site. If I have a site that sells ink for ball point pens, I would not want to try and link to a site that buys scrap metal. The bots and cookies would check the links, find out that they have no relevance to one another, and give me little or no credit towards my page rankings.

That is the key in smart web marketing: using smart incoming links. Another factor that makes links smart is anchor text. If I link to a site, the text that a person would click on to come to my site is called the anchor text.

For my pen ink site, I might want to link to the site that sells the ball point that goes in the tip of the pen. For my anchor text, I wouldn’t want to simply put “Click here”, I would put something like: “For the best ink to go with the best ball point, visit me.”

Why is that “smart incoming linking”? Because of the relevance and the anchor text. Search engines will recognize both of those factors and give my site a higher pager ranking because I am linking to a similar site. Not an identical product or service, but one that my product can help and vice-versa. One Canadian based web site Smart Linking (Canadian Text Links) has done it very well by allowing clients to choose the link and anchor they wish for a relatively affordable price.
Other factors that help make smart incoming links are linking to a site that is, itself, highly rated by the search engines and, getting your link on a webpage that has several relevant keywords in regards to your site.

While there are other ways to increase the power of your links, these are the foundation of creating smart incoming links and will help you on your way of achieving a higher page rank.

Google calls Sitemaps “an experiment in web crawling”. In general, you place a sitemap on to your web server. This helps the crawlers identify the pages you have and add it to the search index. And when you update your site map (after changing a page or adding new content), it also marks the pages you’ve changed and makes a note of what order to review it.

It’s a lot more systematic and efficient than random crawling, where there are no guarantees that the web crawlers will pick up on the most important pages. So even if it requires an additional step for web developers, it’s greater assurance that all the hard work you put into your content actually shows up in the searches.

Google Sitemaps was developed partly to resolve the problem encountered by big websites, wherein web crawlers would skip over some pages and fail to index some of the content. Considering the effect this can have on your search engine optimization efforts, that glitch can have a big impact on your ranking. And for websites that regularly change content (like product sites), you’d want your new stock to actually register—especially when you’re promoting a hot, trendy item.

So in short, to get your site into Google, you’ve got to make it easier for Google to find you—via their map. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. You just need to use a software tool to create a sitemap in Google’s chosen XML format, upload that to your site, and then send a URL notification to Google. And since you’re doing that anyway, make an HTML sitemap for the other search engines (Yahoo, MSN, etc.) and then include a link to it in an unobtrusive corner of your website. Many of those software tools can do that for you.

Is it expensive? Not really. For smaller sites (less than 500 pages) you can find several free Google Sitemap Generators. Look for those that allow you to restrict the directories that are being searched, and give instructions as to which files to index and which to avoid. This can be programmed through the filters and settings. For your convenience, you’ll also want one that lets you include PDF, .doc, .xls, and .zip documents.

Larger sites may require a trained webmaster, who can install a program on the site to help you index it and generate a sitemap. Of course, you can do it on your own (and again, you’ll find many XML sitemap tutorials and software on the Internet), but with 800 pages to handle you probably have other web administration worries to think about. It’s just easier to pass it on to a professional. Or at least, invest in a very efficient XML software that will take care of most of the details and has several tools and functions at its disposal.

Once you’ve chosen a program (or hired someone to set it up for you), you’ll have to create a Google account. They don’t charge for the service, and you’ll want to get features like tracking the status of your Sitemaps and reviewing the diagnostic information for your sites.

Now, you’re ready to conquer Google.

First, think about the theme of your site and write down the words you would use your self when searching for a similar site.  Now if the sites you expected came up then you have got a good list of keywords ready to build your site content around.

Do not make your content TOO keyword heavy though as this will result in a penalty from the search engines, there are lots of free tools available for you to check your keyword density and they will tell you what state your site is in regards the keyword situation.

Another good tip is to check your competitors who are getting good search results, view the source code on their page and make a note of their keywords, now have a look through that pages content to see what kind of keyword ratio they have.  Do not copy a competitors keyword and content per se, but use it to your advantage. A lot of websites tend to take their foot off the gas once they have a good search engine position. You need to put time into this constantly to stay ahead of the game.

Use Googles webmaster tools they are there to help you. Make sure your meta tags are correct, poor meta tags can affect you more than you think. Once you have good keyword density then you need to start building up traffic.