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Search Engine Articles
Search Engine
Positioning - Do It Yourself!
By Dan Thies
Many do-it-yourself webmasters and online entrepreneurs have been led to believe
that search engine positionining is a black art, and that no mere amateur can
hope to compete with the "experts." If you are among them, you're missing out on
a great opportunity to drive free, targeted traffic to your website.
There are only three steps you need to take, if you want to quickly increase
your site's visibility in the search engines. The three steps are: positioning,
optimization, and link building. In this short tutorial, I'll explain what's
involved in each one, and show you just how easy it can be. If you can give me
even 10 minutes of your time today, you'll be well on your way to top rankings.
If there is one message I'd like to get across to you, it's "don't fear the
search engines." Not everything that you have been told about them is true! If
you would like to increase the amount of traffic flowing to your website,
without spending a dime, I urge you to read this article with an open mind.
Step 1: Keyword Research & Search Term Selection Let's start with a quick
definition: "Search terms" are the words and phrases that people type into
search engines. For example, if I go to Google.com and type in "pokemon cards,"
that's a search term.
To get traffic from search engines, you need to know what people are searching
for, and who you're competing against. This sounds very basic, but it's
important. Search term selection really boils down to finding a balance between
popularity, targeting, and competition.
Realtors, for example, might be tempted when they discover how many people
search for "real estate," and believe that this is a perfect set of keywords…
but they would be mistaken. That's a very popular search term, but unless you
sell real estate all over the world, it's not specific enough to reach your
target audience. Using popular terms that aren't relevant to your site is also
bad search engine positioning.
Some folks can come up with good, targeted search terms with nothing more than
common sense, but I prefer to do my homework. The best way to do this on your
own is with the Wordtracker service (http://www.wordtracker.com), which allows
you to find popular search terms, and investigate the competition.
If you aren't interested in doing it yourself, you can hire someone to do the
research for you, and get a report back that tells you which search terms are
the most popular, and which will be the easiest to compete for. I offer keyword
reports through one of my websites (http://www.seoresearchlabs.com), and you can
find any number of competing services by looking up "keyword research" on your
favorite search engine.
Step 2: Search Engine Optimization "Optimizing" simply means putting the
keywords you've selected onto your web pages in the right places, with the right
formatting. That's all it means. There's a great deal of misinformation about
this subject, so let me set the record straight: optimizing is the easiest part
of this process.
How easy is it? Well, I can tell you 90% of what you need to know in just a few
lines, and there's a good chance that you'll never need to learn the rest. Once
you see what you can accomplish, though, you'll probably want to learn more.
The first thing to understand is that you should only use 1-2 search terms to
optimize each page. Once you've selected a page to optimize, and the search
terms you're going to use, all you have to do is put those words in the right
places, and you're done.
Where the search terms go:
Your page's TITLE tag Your "keywords" and "description" META tags In a heading
tag (H1, H2, or H3) near the top of the page In the first paragraph of body
text, and repeated 1-2 more times on the page In the text of any links that
point to the page
That's 90% of search engine optimization right there. The most important of
these are #1, #3, and #4. Just try it, it works. I've got an entire website (www.insideoutmarketing.com)
that uses no META tags at all, and it gets traffic for hundreds of search terms.
Step 3: Link Building & Link Popularity "Link building" simply means getting
other websites to link to yours. If you aren't already working on this, you need
to start. Even if you don't care about search engines, those links will bring in
traffic on their own, and help you establish a credible reputation for your
website.
Link building is an important part of search engine positioning, because search
engines look at these links as a "vote" for your website, and they will boost
your rankings accordingly when other sites link to you.
There are three simple ways to improve your site's "link popularity," and drive
traffic at the same time:
Submit your site to the major directories. Yahoo charges $299 a year for
commercial sites, but there are several popular directories, including dmoz.org,
goguides.org, and joeant.com, that will list your site for free. Trade links
with related websites. You can help each other, and your visitors, by linking to
other good websites. Look for other sites that have resource directories, and
ask them to link to you. I like to look in the Open Directory (http://www.dmoz.org)
to find related sites.
If you'd like to learn more about link building, check out http://www.linkingmatters.com
and http://www.linking101.com
That's it! If you do these three simple things, your search engine rankings are
sure to improve. Just remember that there are no shortcuts, and it's never a
good idea to try to "trick" the search engines. The honest approach is easier,
and much better for you and your visitors.
I wish you success...
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Copyright © 2002 by Dan Thies. All rights reserved under U.S. and international
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