SEO (search engine optimization) is making your website so that it is more likely to show up in organic search results on the various search engines. The reason webmasters want their site to show up in these searches is because organic search results means free traffic. If you take Google as an example, when you search something on Google you will get a results page. It is made up of free and paid results, those results on the right-hand side and sometimes on top are paid for every time somebody clicks on them. But the ten results that run down the centre of the page are free and Google makes no money from them.
Obviously everybody wants free traffic as opposed to paying for it. But nothing is for free and showing up for free results takes a lot of effort and time to both build content pages and work on the SEO of your site. There are two main types of SEO, on page and off page.
On page SEO
On page SEO is what you can do on each page of your website to make it rank higher. There are a number of ways to do this:
1) Keyword density: keyword density is the percentage number of times a keyword you want to rank well for shows up on a page. While nobody knows what the ideal keyword density is, it should be natural. Generally try to make each page just to target a particular keyword. If you find you are not mentioning that keyword in your content much then try to drop it in every now and then.
2) Meta tags: you will notice at the top of your browser this page's name will be shown this comes from the title meta tag. The description tag is used to tell the engines more about your page and can be used in snippets which are the lines of descriptive text that show up bellow the link to a page in a search engine result. The keyword tag is less relevant as it is not noticed much by search engines but it is still vital to fill out all these tags. Make sure to use keywords you want to rank high for in these tags but don't over optimize.
3) The name of the page: or the URL of the page is key to its rankings. You may notice that some pages are called something like this 12345abcde after the base URL when you type the page name into your browser. While that page might be about on page SEO factors and could be called that. It is important for the search engines to tell them what the page is about, and for the user so they can remember the page's name and type it in if they want to go back to it.
There are tons of other on page SEO factors but those three are the most important.
Off page SEO are the different factors that can influence the ranking of a page that is not actually contained on the page itself.
The major off page factor is backlinks. These are the number of and the quality of links pointing to a web page. the more high quality links a website gets the higher PageRank they have. PageRank is one of the most important of Google's 200 ranking factors.
There are again plenty of influences on a page's ranking from outside influences. But backlinks are by far the most important factor. Another one to think about before you buy a domain name is whether it has been used as a spam domain in the past as this can harm the rankings of all your pages.
Content is the key
While there are a number of ways that you can make your content show up higher in the search engines, the important thing is that you have high quality content. That is the primary concern of a search engine when they are ranking a page. Writing good content means that it is well researched, well written and there is plenty of it. With most of my pages I try to have at least 1,500 words of content that I have written. Ten free way to build backlinks
Backlinks are links from one page to another. They are vital to a website's search engine ranking because they pass PageRank one of Google's most important ranking factors. Webmasters are always trying to get high quality backlinks to their site so they can get more free traffic both directly from people following the link and also the boost in search engine rankings. The best way to build free backlinks is to add value to another site that allows you to give backlinks to yourself. Here are my ten free backlink building ideas that will drive tons of PageRank and traffic to your site:
1) Write great content: content is the reason you will get most of your backlinks. When people are impressed by what you write on your website they will be happy to link to you. There are a number of ways you can write better content. Research your page using a keywords tool before you write it. By knowing what people are searching you know what content they want, it will also give you more ideas on what to write and increase the length of all your pages. At times you may experience a struggle to keep writing, it is called writer's block. When this happens simply take a break and come back with more ideas and passion for your website.
2) Article marketing: writing and submitting articles to the countless number of article directories is a great way to build backlinks. These directories allow you to add a link to your site in the author bio that is on every page.
3) Ghost write for blogs: people who run blogs are always trying to update it with fresh and original content. Sometimes this is hard and this is where you can capitalise. Find a high PageRank blog that is related to your site and offer to write a post for them. Make sure to emphasize that it would be totally original and use your website as an example of your excellent content. All you want in return is a backlink at the bottom of the post. This is a great way for new website that doesn't have much authority to get backlinks from the big players in their industry.
4) Video marketing: very like article marketing, it is simply making informative videos and submitting them to the various video directories like YouTube leaving a backlink at the start of your description.
5) Comment on blogs: leaving an insightful comment regularly on a blog will show you to be an active participator in your industry. You will start to build up many backlinks as well as people who are interested in you.
6) Free directory submissions: there are loads of directories out there waiting for you to submit your site. Submit your website to the top fifty free directories with a good description and you will soon have a wealth of valuable and easy to get backlinks.
7) A bit of controversy: being controversial is a great way to get talked about. So writing a scathing or against the tide blog post or page on your site will get talked about on forums and blogs around the world. Remember not to be too controversial or you could get in trouble.
8) Write an eBook: writing and giving an eBook o with backlinks to your website is a great way to build a reputation as an expert in your field which will get you linked to.
9) Make it easy: by providing a link to us box, great content and simple URLs, you are making it easier for a webmaster to link to you. The easier you make something the more likely somebody is to do it.
10) Review products: reviewing products that you used to make your website or to build up a knowledge of your field is contributing greatly to other websites. If you put the effort into the review you will often be allowed to add a link to your site.
There are loads of ways other than these ten to build backlinks but the key to all of them is that you are adding value to the websites and the internet in general. Just persevere with your backlink building and you will soon rise to the top of the search engines.
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