How to Get Started With Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques

Step-by-step explanation of how to get started optimizing your web pages to be located and displayed by search engines.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Search engine optimization is actually a simple process, when you know the steps needed. The first step is to locate your target keyword or phrase. Determine the main topic of your page. For example, you website may focus on making money online, but each page may focus on different methods to make money. You will optimize each individual page for each type of money making idea. So, if one page focuses on AdSense, your keywords would be "AdSense", "Google AdSense", and "Make Money With AdSense", among a few others.
2. Now that you have determined your keywords/phrases, you will need to place these phrases strategically throughout your pages, starting with the title of your page (i.e. Make Money with Google AdSense). Many experts will stress the "Metatags" and filling these areas with your keywords, and, while it is can improve the SEO score, it is not the "make or break" component. So, if you have not yet mastered metatags, you can still improve your ratings with these techniques.
3. Now that you have a targeted title, you will need to place your keywords/phrases throughout the remainder of your page. The subtitle should include at least one keyword/phrase, as should the first paragraph (twice if possible), the closing paragraph, once in each paragraph of articles, links to other sites and sidebar menus.
4. SEO has a lot to do with "keyword density" (number of times keywords are displayed on pages), which you will accomplish with the steps above.
5. Backlinking is another great way to increase your ranking in search engines. Not only is it easy to do, it can provide great results. Backlinking is nothing more than having a link to your website listed on other websites. However, for the best results in improving your score, it is important that the link displayed is your actual url, not just a simple text link such as "click here for...". Also, the more popular the site where your link appears, the higher your results, so look for high ranking websites to display your links on.
6. Website directories are a great place to submit your website url to for backlinking. Domz.org is a very good directory to be listed in, and it's free to do so. Do a search to find other directories and submit your website url to as many as possible.
7. This is a broad overview of how to get started with SEO. After you have completed the above steps, you can begin to study metatags, and how to use them, as well as other SEO strategies. There are many great resources available online covering search engine optimization.