SEO Strategies

Welcome to the SEO Strategies Lab, my goal is to help share free information on how to get your websites to rank #1.

Many newbies get discouraged and may not be aware of, or easily forget that SEO is a long term process with many constantly moving parts.

Search engines can be slow, Patience is a MUST!  Many people claim that they can get their website to the #1 spot for their chosen keyword in a matter of hours.

Don’t believe this.  These people are either choosing very very low competition keywords or are do actually hit the #1 spot BUT by the next day, their website is nowhere to be found in the top 100 search results. (a flash in the pan)

What you NEED to focus on is a long-term strategy.  Remember the Hare and the Turtle.  The Turtle won because he was slow and steady.

What Is SEO?

Define SEO:  Search Engine Optimization- the art of building and promoting a website so that it ranks high in search engines.

5 Things You Need To Rank Well

1.  Unique Quality Content

If you think you can get high rankings without high quality content think again.  Content is KING!  Learn this now.

2.  Keyword Rich Text
 

Don’t write articles with lots of fillers.  Use lots of facts, and many long tail keywords.  This will help your page rank high for lots of different keyword phrases, not just one.

3.  Links
 

Google loves websites with lots of quality links.  You should be actively exchanging links with other quality websites, and avoid getting involved with link farms.

4.  Search Engine Friendly Design
 

Nice and clean HTML or JavaScript is a must to rank well.  If you don’t know these languages, just use a “what you see is what you get website builder.”
 

5.  Regular Updates

You just can’t build a website and forget about it.  You need to constantly update it with great content, otherwise your website will be viewed as old and static.
 

Measuring SEO Success

Ranking
 

Obviously where you rank for your keyword is our ultimate measurement.  But there are many other measurements that we can monitor.  Many of these 4 below are a good indicator of whether or not our search engine rankings will rise in the future.

# Links
 

Keep an eye on the number of links you are building.  Search engines are slow to respond, so it takes time.

Time visitor spends on page
 

Using Google analytics you can monitor how long visitors spend on pages.  Search engines love this metric.

Number of pages viewed
 

Trying to get visitors to spend as much time as possible and view as many pages as possible is the best seo strategy.

New versus returned visitors
 

Obviously the more loyal your customers are, the better the website quality.
 

Best Free SEO Resources

Google Adwords Keyword Tool
 

This is probably the most used keyword tool today because it is free and because is provided by the #1 search engine in the world, which means the numbers you see are high quality.
 

Google Analytics

You must install this on your website and actually mine the data that you get from this.  Don’t just install it to check your number of visitors.  Use it to study all the metrics it provides so you gain more insight into the minds of your visitors.
 

SEO Quake

This is a Firefox plugin where you can see stats on your competitors website right in the search engine results screen.
 

Google Webmaster Tools

This allows you to submit site maps, check back links, and keyword rankings for your website.
 

RSS Submit

Many people forget that RSS feeds are a great way to get traffic and backlinks.  Use RSS submit to get both.

Summary

Your main SEO strategies should be slow and steady.  Remember, you want long-term high rankings.  Don’t be a flash in the pan.