SEO, or search engine optimization is the process one undertakes to make his/her website property rank well for a set of keywords in the search engines.   SEO is not difficult to learn, but it takes time and patience to implement.  A successful SEO campaign will result in a website ranking on the first page for multiple keywords.  A high ranking results in more traffic; the more traffic to the site, the more potential for revenue generation (same concept as a retail store in a busy intersection).

If you own a website that sells something, you can hire an SEO consultant, but this can run you over $1,000 a month.  It’s best to learn SEO yourself because it’s a valuable skill to have that you can put to use for future projects.

You start your SEO journey by identifying your business’ primary KEYWORDS.  These are the words and phrases people type into the Google (I’ll use Google as an example from this point on) search box.  Supplement this with secondary keywords.   For this, use keyword research tools like Google’s keyword research tool, Wordtracker, and Traffic Travis.  Just type in your primary keyword, and these tools will spit out related keywords that you can pick and choose.

Once you have your list of keywords, you seed them into your website.  For best results, compartmentalize your site for each “family” of keywords; i.e., each individual page should focus on only  2-3 related keywords.  Make sure not to over do it, because your content will sound odd and Google may penalize your site for “keyword stuffing.”   Experts claim that you shouldn’t exceed a certain keyword “density”; i.e., five instances of your keyword for every 1,000 words, but I think a  better idea is to write naturally.  If you’re a good writer, you’ll know if you are using the keyword too often.

Put your main keyword in the page’s Title tags, and also encase them in <h1> and/or <h2> tags.   To drive it home, include your main keyword in the page’s URL.  For example, let’s say I want to make a website on search engine optimization.  I determined that one of my primary keywords is “learn SEO” and another one is “search engine optimization techniques.”  I include these keywords in the Title tag (Google usually displays the contents of the Title tags in the search results page), and start the page off by placing the keywords in <h1> tags  and <h2> tags, which makes it appear like this:

Learn SEO

Increase your website’s Google ranking using these search engine optimization techniques

[content of the web page follows, with 2-3 keywords seeded in]

I then give this page the URL www.mysite.com/learn-seo.htm

Use this approach for all your pages, and you’ve done a lot of SEO for your site already.  If you are in a small niche, it’s possible that using this technique alone can result in your site being in the Google Top Five sites for your keyword.

Lately, webmaster’s believe that having assurance elements on your site gives it ranking points, as it makes your site look more legitimate.  This includes an About, Contact, Policy, Disclaimer, and similar pages.  You’ll also want to link out to authority sites in your niche.

The above technique is referred to on site SEO.  The other side of SEO is where most of the work is done, and that is off site SEO.   There are many facets to off site SEO, but it all boils down to this:

The more sites that link to your site, the better.

And, the more of these sites that are related to yours and have a high PageRank (not junk sites or directories), the better.

Off site factors carry much more weight than on-site factors when it comes to high Google ranking, and for good reason:   if a site is willing to send its visitor away to your site, it must think highly of your site.   A link to your site is therefore an internet “vote” for your site, and the more votes you have, the higher Google will rank your site.

There are many ways to build up your incoming links; some obvious, and some not so obvious; some free and some paid.  If you can build up several thousand incoming links to your sites, the majority being high quality, you will get high rankings in Google.  The best part about it is that most of these links will last a long time.

There are many resources for learning SEO.  The ones I recommend are Axandra’s IBP and Traffic Secrets 2.0.  Kim Roach also has some great ideas.   My guide, Fast Track Internet Marketing is also a good choice, written in the H2MIW style– it delivers the meat and potatoes of SEO to get you going right away.   Just to reiterate, the holy grail of SEO is getting as many incoming links to your site.   The possibilities are limited only by your imagination and creativity.