SEO is not rocket science, it just requires some serious research and work. In an ideal world, a website would be built around core SEO principles from the start...unfortunately this is not always the case! Sometimes we have to redesign elements of the site so that it performs at its best. Here are the key steps in optimising your site:
*Research your keywords, and write lots of content around these keywords. All search engines love content, so the more the better. DO NOT cut and paste from other sources, as this will get your site tagged as duplicate content. Update this content frequently, as again this will impact favourably on your search engine rankings.
*Make sure that all your HTML tags are utilised fully. Title tags and alt tags are very important. Too often I come across sites that have not used their tags fully, and they wonder why they are not receiving good rankings!
*Add a privacy policy, contact page, and a good sitemap page to your site. All of these add to the trust factor with the search engines. A good sitemap shows the search engine how to crawl your site correctly, and will help identify any problems within the sites' structure. .
*Submit your site to all of the major search engines. Some companies will tell you that this is not neccessary; they are correct in that eventually the search engines will find your site. Submitting your site, however, will just speed the process along.
*Submit your site to lots of good quality web directories. Start with the big directories, such as Google, Yahoo, and Dmoz. There are literally thousands of other directories out there that can be useful to you.
*Find places that you would like to be linked from, contact the webmasters, and exchange links. This is the most time consuming part of any SEO campaign, but also the one that can produce the best results.
*Implement a good analytics tool and use the data to enhance your marketing thrust. Google analytics is a great, free, tool for doing this.
*As an ongoing process, write good articles about your industry, and submit them to article sites. This will provide a link to your site, and if the article is reprinted, will result in more visitors to your site.
These are the general guidelines for successful SEO, but I also recommend using a PPC campaign, especially with Google. It will take you a while to get this right, but when you do, will result in great results for you.
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