Search Engine Optimization Complete guide

Search engine optimization works on the principle of satisfying search engine algorithms. Search engines used advanced mathematical equations to analyze and sort websites and blogs. Websites/blogs that correspond to those equations (algorithms) with highest relevancy get top spots in search results. The algorithms are somewhat decoded through various tests by search engine optimizers; however, there is no magic formula to find out how SEO works.

   Search engine optimization (SEO) is formatting your blog/site for search engines to easily read and understand your content. SEO is used to make your blog/site rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for certain keywords. If you aren’t on the first page for your keywords, it’s likely you won’t receive that much organic search engine traffic. Thus, the real goal of Search Engine Optimization is not to get high positions in search engines for your pages. It is to get more visitors to your website. SEO is like poker, it takes a few minutes to learn but a few years to master.

    If you own blogs/websites, whether for your business or personal use, you need to somehow attract traffic. Otherwise, owing a website is only just your personal endeavor or achievement. Websites need traffic – No doubt about that. Whether you share info or sell products, you need visitors to read or buy yours. No traffic equals no visitor No visitor equals no goals reached. Your visitors can come from many origins – From online and/or off line advertising, buzz or word of mouth, or the search engine. While the first two involve extraordinary content and a certain amount of investment, the last one need extra special care to optimize it?

Keyword Rich Domain: While choosing a domain keep in mind about your blog/site’s main keyword. It’s always better to have the main keyword for your blog/site in the domain part. A major search engine like Google, Yahoo and MSN offers more priority to those websites that has been hosted on the base of their main keyword. You will receive considerable amount of response form all the major search engines if your URL is main keyword based. But do not go for a keyword stuffed domain. This may bring you negative impact in terms of search engine response.

Use keywords on your blog/site: Using keywords on your blog/site is one of the most important elements of any blogs/ web sites. Keywords should not only be used in the titles and headlines, but they should also be in the actual body of the text. An important aspect of SEO is to learn keyword research.

Title Tag: This is another important On-Page factor that can offer you good search engine visibility if used wisely. This is an element that is absolutely under your control as a Webmaster. You need to use keywords for the title tag cleverly by selecting them. Be sure that these are the part on your web page that will be read by the visitors as well as by the search engines. Do not stuff keywords with the title tag. It will make you look Spammy on the job.

Meta tags: These are descriptions on a blog and web page that are not seen by most visitors except when looking at the page source code in their browser. While the keyword and description metatags used to be the primary way that search engines indexed sites, which is no longer the case. However, you shouldn’t ignore them entirely, as it is still worthwhile to include them as a part of your page description. For optimal SEO, your Meta description and keyword tags should be no more than 150 characters each.

Optimize your images: Make sure all your images have alternative tags. Search engines cannot determine what is in your images. Alt tags tell the search engines what is in the image. Make sure your file names say what is in the picture. Separate the words with dashes so that search engines can read your file names. For example, if you have a picture of a dog being trained name the file dog-being-trained.jpg.

Keyword density: Keyword density refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears on a web page. Rather than trying to focus on the number of times a keyword appears in the content of your page, aim for a more natural density by keeping your keyword phrases in mind as you write the copy for your page. Optimally, keyword density should be between 2% – 7%. There are a number of keyword density checkers available online to assist you with determining the keyword density of a page.

Robots.txt: This little file can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on how you configure it. Make sure you understand how the robots.txt file works before making any changes to it. Properly configuring your robots.txt file can have a dramatic effect on search engine optimization. Make sure you block Google's crawler from indexing pages that are irrelevant, automatically generated, or don't have enough content to justify being crawled.

Inbound links: Reciprocal link exchange (you link to my site and I’ll link to yours) used to be a great way to attract the attention of search engines to your blog/site. Now, search engines pay attention only to the quality and popularity of the site providing you with an inbound link that is not a reciprocal link. One of the best ways to get quality inbound links back to your site is to submit articles to high traffic article directories and submit press releases to paid press release services.

Track your blog/Site's Analytics: Use an analytics program like the free Google Analytics to check your daily blog/site performance. By using this invaluable marketing tool, you can further enhance your site by seeing who is visiting, and what they are looking for. In turn, tweak your site according to those results to make it more helpful to both people and search engines.

Advertisements: To maximize your SEO efforts, you should spend some time making sure that code required by certain advertisements to work properly, like Google AdSense for example, should be blocked from being crawled by Google's crawler. Blocking crawler access to these blocks of code will reduce the number of outbound links on your site, which will have a beneficial effect on your ranking position. Simply put a no follow Meta tag on the page with the outbound affiliate links and you should be good to go.

Social Activity: Being active on a social network, such as posting daily on a Facebook Page or Twitter account of which is pointing back and/or embedded on your website, is a positive measure toward linking your band name and website to that network. These social network accounts, in turn, will begin to rank for your business name on search engines.

Bookmarking: Unlike the days of SEO's past, bookmarking your own websites or running "rings" of bookmarks for your own sites is now a dead practice that no longer works, nor does it provide any benefit. Now, search engines look to see how many people all over the country (or the world) are doing this FOR you.

Getting Indexed by Search Engines: While submitting your site to a thousand search engines with the click of a mouse sounds attractive, it most likely is not. Use diligence when submitting your site to search engines, and know their behaviors.

• Website Submission
  Services that advertise "We'll submit your site to 1,000 search engines" are more hurtful than helpful. Search engines prefer to "find" content on their own. It's highly recommended to simply submit an XML sitemap of your site (this is explained below), and to begin bookmarking and building links to it. They'll find your site in the short-run, and you'll be appearing in results.

·         Site maps: There are sitemaps that help a visitor navigate a site, and sitemaps that are expressly designed for the search engines. The two are not the same. To enhance your site, submit an xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer. Use XML Sitemaps to build search engine-friendly sitemaps on your blog/sites. It is great to have a complete and up-to-date sitemap; spiders love it, no matter if it is a plain old HTML sitemap or the special Google sitemap format.

 Pinging your blog/Site: Pinging your blog/site was another old practice seen throughout the 2000s. Today, it's technically not necessary, as search engines are able to instantly cache websites and blogs; if not naturally, than through sitemaps and backlinks

  Below is a keyword checklist to ensure that you follow the basic top tips to optimize your pages correctly including existing, main pages and secondary ones so to present them to the search engines in an acceptable manner, generally accepted search engine algorithm rules.

   Before you start Decide on your goals for your SEO effort Brainstorm a list of potential keywords Use keyword research tools (link to KW article) to narrow down the keyword list Choose 1-5 keywords per page, Optimize tags and headings.

Keyword in title tag: the title tag must be short (6 or 7 words at most) and the keyword must be near the beginning.

 Keyword in URL: Get your primary keyword as close to the beginning of the URL as possible.

 Keyword in Meta tags: It makes sense that you should include all of your keywords in the keyword Meta tag. Do not include any words that don’t appear in the body of your text.

Keyword in ALT tags: Include your keyword at least once in the Alt tag of any images. Ensure that the text is relevant to the image and gives some information.

Description tag: Use the metatag to write the description of your site. Besides the fact that metatags still rock on Bing and Yahoo!, the metatag has one more advantage – it sometimes pops in the description of your site in search results. (40-140 characters long)

Edit content: Keyword density in document 3-7 % for major keywords is best, 1-2 for minor. Keyword density of over 10% is suspicious and looks more like keyword stuffing, than a naturally written text. Keyword in H1 and H2 headings more weight is given to keywords that appear within H1 tags, then H2 tags and so on. Keyword in the beginning of document the closer you can get your keywords to the beginning of your page content the better. Try to include your primary keyword within the first sentence or two and also within the last paragraph. Unique content having more content (relevant content, which is different from the content on other sites both in wording and topics) is a real boost for your site’s rankings. (300-500 words per page)

Optimize links: Anchor text of inbound links: it is best if you have a keyword in the anchor text but even if you don’t, it is still OK.Origin of inbound links besides the anchor text, it is important if the site that links to you is a reputable one or not. Generally sites with greater Google PR are considered reputable. Links from similar sites having links from similar sites is very, very useful. It indicates that the competition is voting for you and you are popular within your topical community Number of back links. Generally the better, but the reputation of the sites that link to you is more important than their number. Also important is their anchor text, is there a keyword in it, how old are they, etc.

Other factors: Site accessibility: another fundamental issue, which that is often neglected. If the site (or separate pages) is inaccessible because of broken links, 404 errors, password-protected areas and other similar reasons, then the site simply can’t be indexed."If you don't know where you are, you'll never know where you're going." These tools are vital for anyone in SEO, because they allow you to maintain a website and check the status of your site's health, both on search engines and in terms of usability.