New marketers will find that they are required to do many things on the cheap until they have had some success and their budgets swell. Seo is one of the many tasks you may have to do yourself, and on the cheap. That’s okay. Much of basic SEO doesn’t require money, but it will require some time and effort. Applying SEO will pay big in benefits!
Start with on page or on site SEO:
Choose your domain name with SEO in mind. Your domain name is a big factor in your SEO tactics. This tells the world and the search engines what your site is about and what if offers. Get the word out.
Next consider the names of your pages. Each page, including the home page, should have it’s own keyword-rich title. Welcome and home will do little for your website. Tell the spiders and your visitors what your page is about by including SEO in the form of keywords in your titles.
Compose meta tags with care. Some of the smaller search engines and many of the directories will rely on your meta description for your website. Even smaller amounts of traffic focused and interested in what you have to offer could be lucrative. Lots of visitors is great, only, if they want what you have. Take the little extra time it takes to add meta tags to your SEO tactics.
How you set up navigation can also impact SEO strategies. Navigation should always be easily understood by visitors, and easy for the search engines to follow. Linking the pages of your site to one another will help both your visitors and the spiders get around, and will help with backlinks. Adding sitemaps, both a human read html and a spider read Google sitemap is of importanceto seo strategies.
To make your content compatible with SEO, be sure it includes a high percentage of original tightly focused niche content. Update pages occasionally and add new content pages on a regular basis. The more content your website has, the more attention you are likely to get both from search engines and new and returning visitors.
Avoid using frames on your site as they are difficult for the spiders and hamper SEO efforts. Flash gives spiders trouble too, and unless you target a very young audience is better left out. Flash increases load time, and on the internet people are impatient to get to what your site offers.
SEO strategies for off page:
Submitting to search engines is not necessary and could even slow down your SEO program. Get links instead. Links will get your site spidered for starters and then bring traffic. There are different types of links, and different ways to go about getting them.
Reciprocal links carry less weight in SEO, but can be a valuable part of your SEO effort, and easier to begin with. This is true especially until you have developed some ranking with the search engines. Tread carefully as you go about getting reciprocal links. The wrong approach could cost you in the long run.
Always look at sites before you agree to an exchange of links. Page rank is less important than the potential a site may have. Consider whether the site provides value to it’s visitors, and if it will provide value for yours. Is the site related to yours in some way that would make it an asset? Don’t link to sites that are totally unrelated to yours, that have scraped content, that list hundreds of unrelated links on the same page, or that use black hat SEO methods such as keyword stuffing or hidden text.
Submitting articles to article directories, ezines, and single sites that invite content is a very good SEO strategy and a favored way to get lots of one way links to your website. The author box at the bottom of your article is a valuable SEO resource that can bring links to your site wherever you want them directed.
Online directories are another resource for one way links. Most will not allow you to direct links anywhere but your index page, but still this is a valued SEO resource which in most cases is free and will not require a link back from your site. Some directories require either payment or a link back. These can be put on the back burner until you are ready, or you can pay a fee if you feel the value is worth the cost.
The use of a blog to further your SEO efforts can be done easily. Blogger is free and it’s quick and easy to set up. Blog and ping can be a good thing if it is not overdone.
Creating a viral report and offering it as a give-away from your website can be done for free or for a very low cost. People are looking for information in any niche there is an interest in and this is a tried and true SEO tactic that has been used for a very long time. This can have long lasting SEO benefits if you create a popular product and allow it to be passed around. You can add links back to your website, to your newsletter, and even add a few affiliate links for extra revenue. Use moderation though, and don’t make it a pitch fest!
SEO is a huge topic. These are some of the basics for on page and off page optimization. Get started with these and once you get in the swing of things you will begin to see newly evolving ways, and ways to tweak old methods that will further your ongoing SEO program.
Source by Illa Maden
