Before Google, when you build a new website, you needed to do a lot of marketing outside of your domain, so people will notice its existence. Ironically, those were the days when internet advertising wasn’t a proven method. You’d buy a banner here and there, spam a few friends, and hope for the best. There was a direct correlation between your time spent promoting your website, to the number of unique visitors arriving at your URL. To anyone who has ever built a Geocities site back in the day, you know exactly what I mean. Remember relying on those “rings”, hoping to get new visitors?
Then Google came along, with the beautifully written PageRank algorithm. In the beginning, it just worked. We all took the search results for granted. Then a few months later, some people started questioning the logic of how things were done. Why does my shrine for Snoop Dogg rank lower than my friends? Who determines what site shows up on top for “Nike Shoes”? If there is a system, the geeks and the opportunists were determined to out-smart it.
Like almost all things in life, there was the white hat, and the black hat. Black hat Search Engine experts seek flaws in the system, and abused it. Meta tags were flooded with unrelated keywords, sites were littered with invisible text, etc. Meanwhile the white hat SEO guys looked at how the search engine robot crawls the sites, and started optimizing the way sites are created.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to learn under a SEO expert, and from that day on building websites have been a methodical process. It’s an amazing feeling seeing your site rank among the first page for certain keywords, and seeing the traffic increase as a result. So here’s a quick summary for you bloggers out there, and people making basic websites.
- Prepare your structure
Before you begin drafting the content, it’s very important for the content to be viewed favorably by the search engines. Prepare you blog or site with the necessary structure.- Pick your keywords, 2-3 per page. The keywords that sum up your page.
- Title, structured KW1, KW2 – site title.
- Meta data, despite the ongoing argument on whether Google looks at this at all, it doesn’t hurt. Look at popular websites on how they do their Meta tags. Meta-Descrip is what shows up on Google search results, so make it look good.
- H1 tags are important, use them.
- Use Plug-ins, tags.
There are many SEO plugins for blogs, such as AllInOneSEO that really makes life easier. Then install WordPress Stats or similar statistical apps to track the results of your efforts. Tag your entries, they’re links. Links are good. - Create content, useful content for your readers. Pick keywords that are a good balance of “What sums up your entry”, and “What people will be searching for”. After all you want your post to be read. Try to use keywords throughout your post that are popular search keywords. Keep in mind some keywords are more competitive than others, so pick your battles.
- Back links are one thing you cannot control too much. Each link to your site is similar to a vote of importance. However, if you have other sites, don’t forget to link to your own site. No cross linking though, that’s a big no-no for Google.
- Use free tools such as Google’s Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics to check the progress of your SEO work.
That’s it for now. Feed your site with good content, and you’d be surprised by your rise in the engines. If you build it, with proper SEO, they will come. More later, time for me to put some SEO touches to this entry.
