Basic SEO Tips

2008-11-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

As we all know making a website does not guarantee instant traffic and success.
There are many methods to marketing a website tin order to acquire traffic.

One must think how does a user find my website?
Here are some following ways:

- Word of Mouth
- Repeat Visitors
- Advertisements
- Search Engines
- Referral Links
- etc

One major source of traffic for websites happen to be Search Engines; this may not apply to all websites but for most it is very common. That's why many webmasters focus on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) when carrying out a marketing plan for their website. With SEO webmasters hope to improve traffic from search engines by earning a high ranking and targeting specific keywords. In order to achieve such results a website must be search engine friendly and meet other criteria, where SEO then comes into play.

Here is a list of some basic SEO pointers and guidelines:

Make sure your title tag has some descriptive keywords but don't overload it
Make sure to use key words through out your body content especially within header tags, bold tags, strong tags
Create unique content
Use descriptive alt tags for images
Use descriptive title tags for links
Submit to Quality Trusted Search Engines yourself
Submit to dmoz.org, many search engine index it's directory
Create a sitemap of your site to submit to search engines
Use meta tags (avoid keyword stuffing)
Link Building: Get other sites to link to your site
Create a robots.txt file

here are some references:

Google-Friendly Practices:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/b...c.py?topic=8522
Yahoo Content Quality Guidelines:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/ba../basics18.html
Website SEO score tool:
http://www.websitegrader.com/

Those where just a few basic pointers that cover the basic aspects of SEO and if followed can definitely help attain a search engine friendly website. There are also practices to avoid when trying to optimize your site. Some of these practices may be known as unfair or black-hat technique.

For example:

Hidden text
Doorway Pages
Unwarranted Redirecting
Non-relevant link exchanges
Key word spamming

These methods are basically sneaky workarounds to try and get a high ranking fast.
Using these methods on your pages will negatively affect your site’s ranking.
Avoid these methods, I will eventually go into more depth about the practices to avoid.

Remember be patient and do not over obsess with search engine rankings.
Reminds me of a quote: “He that can have Patience, can have what he will” - Benjamin Franklin

Good luck and happy Search Engine Optimizing!

Welcome

2008-11-11T14:59:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our Web Design Blog which will consist of general web design knowledge: anything from photoshop to css to server side scripting and or marketing techniques. I hope people will find this blog useful and contribute by commenting also spreading the word ;)

Notice my blog design, I installed this new template GraffitiArt. I hope its attractive.
Here are some links to visit:
Affordable Web Design
Web Design Forum

Web Designers Portal

Basic SEO Tips

Welcome