Gone are the days when all that you had to do was build a website and sit back and watch the visitors come, in this ever expanding and competing world that we call the Internet, only the strongest shall survive. While it is always a good idea to incorporate several varieties of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, there are those that will give much better results than others.

By Guest Writer Kate Jae

SEO can mean the difference between a visitor easily finding your site and not having any visitors at all. That is because SEO plays a vital role in how your site can be found in search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. If you have good SEO strategies, it can have you competing for a highly sought after place within the search engines, but without any SEO strategies at all, you will just be one of billions of websites that are lost somewhere in the Internet.

Content is, and Probably Always Will Be King

There is probably nothing that the search engines like more than good, quality content. This is mainly because the search engines want to give the users the best and most relative results. So if you are an aspiring webmaster, then you should know that you probably are not going to get too far without a site that is full of many pages of quality content. If you are trying to rank for a certain “keyword” or “phrase” then having it sparingly used across your site can dramatically help to improve your results, (this is referred to as keyword density). Your keyword in the domain of the site, in the title of your site, and in the title of your articles, will also make a big difference in how you are ranked by the search engines.

Relevant Backlinks Will Help you to Rise to the Top

Relevant backlinks from other sites will tell the search engines that you are indeed worthy of being listed in their search engines. Backlinks are when one site will “link” to another site. Tried and tested methods of backlinking can be achieved through articles, commenting on blogs, or by trading links with other webmasters.

Article links are attained through the use of article directories such as Ezine Articles, Go Articles, and Article Base, to name a few. By writing an article on your website topic and submitting it to article directories, you will have successfully received a link from the article directory to your site.

Not only will you receive a link from the article directory, but you will also have the potential to attract visitors directly from the article directory. Blog commenting is a quick and easy way to get backlinks from other sites as well. Some people will completely abuse (spam) this way of receiving great and relevant backlinks by just blatantly writing comments that have absolutely nothing to do with the website. If you are planning on using blog commenting as a way to get some quality backlinks then make sure that you leave a valuable comment. Comments like “thanks” or “nice site” will sometimes not get approved by website owners, so try to leave something that shows that you have actually taken an interest in the site.

Trading backlinks with other website owners is another great way of getting backlinks that will help your search engine results. These links are better than blog commenting links because they will actually be coming from the body of the site, and therefore receive a good amount of “link juice” and authority. Ways in which you can get this type of a backlink is usually by contacting the website owner personally. Sometimes the owners may be happy with just doing a trade with you, otherwise you may have to use a service that will cost you some money.

Some people also buy links from other sites. The search engines frown upon this, and might penalize your for doing so if they find out. A link from a site or article that is of no relevance to what you are writing about is a dead giveaway.

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Top 10 tips for search engine optimization (by Pandia)

1. Identify the main keyword phrases readers will use when searching for your kind of content (using, for instance, Wordtracker).
2. Include main search phrase in title field (the text appearing in the window bar of your browser).
3. Include main search phrase in the main headline.
4. Include main search phrase in first paragraph of text.
5. Include relevant keywords in image alt tags.
6. Link to other articles and posts on your own site or sites using relevant keyword phrases.
7. Get links from other sites where the link text itself includes important keyword phrases, and make sure there is variation between the different inbound links.
8. Remember that you can get others to link to your site voluntarily by providing useful and interesting content. Promote your articles and blog post using, for instance, social media like Facebook and Twitter.
9. Write content for other relevant blogs and web sites in return for inbound links.
10. Promote your site by publishing screencasts, videos, slideshows on sites like YouTube and Slideshare.

Pandia Search Engine Marketing 101

Kate Jae is a mother, wife, pet owner and web developer. She currently lives in San Bernardino, CA with her husband Joseph, her two daughters, Leenah (9) and Madison (3), and a bearded dragon named Spike. When not taking care of her family, Jae works for a local web design firm where she manages five employees’ projects. Beyond this, she volunteers her skills to local non-profit organizations to help them cut costs. Jae’s favorite past times are playing with her daughters and bubble baths.

photo credit: garryknight