There have literally been billions of articles written on search engine optimization. Why do we need another one?

For one, part of the beauty of the Internet is the collaboration of minds. In talking about search engine optimization, I may help you grasp an idea that you have never been able to before with the other articles- not because the other articles aren’t well written or thought through, but because everyone communicates and learns in different ways.

Secondly, and somewhat selfishly, blogging about popular subjects like search engine optimization that relate to your target audience happens to increase your search engine optimization.

Which relates to our first point:

“Fresh” Content is King

Google and Yahoo and the other search engines love to read, and they are great at it. So great, in fact, that they can read the equivalent of millions of books a night and have the book reports ready for their teacher the next morning.

Who is their teacher? You are. And their grade depends upon how relevant their book reports are to your questions.

So you ask:

“Where can I find the best pizza in Los Angeles?”

A search engine might answer:

“Let me think… I read about a thousand books about that very subject last night, but these it looks like lots of places are saying that Abbot’s Pizza Company is the best overall. Here’s my research…  “

In order to get the best grade possible, they have become really good are realizing when a book is just a large collection of garbage, or when it has meaningful, unique, and relevant content.

As you can imagine, well written blogs are like heaven to search engines. Not only do they have rich, original content, but they also tend to link to other sites that have rich, original content on the same subject.

What does all this mean for you? If you want search engines to like your site (and who doesn’t?) give them some good reading material on your specific subject.

Don’t miss this point! Writing about just ANYTHING won’t get you very far. You need to realize what your target is and aim for it. Otherwise your rantings are just a discombobulated (had to use that word) mess to the search engines, and they won’t mention you very often to their teacher.

Been a while since you have updated your pages? Search engines notice that too, and they will easily get bored. Keeping content fresh is of vital importance in keeping your search engine rank.

Label Label Label!

So you have great, fresh content. Now what?

Now you need to tell the search engines what your content is about. You do this in several ways:

Page Titles -

Each page on your site should have a uniquely targeted page title. According to SitePoint, this is the most important step in SEO, although I tend to disagree (as is obvious by the fact that I list this item as #2). What good is a well titled book without any pages? You might entice someone to pick up the book, but then there is nothing to read!

Keep your titles targeted and to the point (no longer than 60 characters) and be sure to use unique key words (relevant to the page, of course!).

Headers -

Search Engines also categorize your information based on the headers you give your content (<h1>, <h2>, etc). The lower the number after the h, the more important the search engine thinks that title is. This is one of the ways search engines decide what your content is about.

Metadata -

Although metadata does not usually effect page rank in a search engine, it does effect what people will see when your page is listed in a search engine, thus potentially generating more clicks. The <meta description> is most often used by Google.

Links Galore

Going back to our book analogy, search engines are rather choosy about the books they read. In fact, they don’t like to read a book unless someone they respect recommends it to them. The more they respect the person recommending the book, the more likely they are to read it quickly, and the more importance they will place on what it says. If, for instance, their worst enemy recommends a book, they will not be very likely to rate it well.

Getting other pages to link to you site is crucial, but also keep in mind that HOW they link to you is important. Simply linking the word “here” to your site is a nice gesture, but means a lot less to a search engine than linking the words “10 awesome Photoshop Techniques” to your site. The link text tells search engines what you site is about before it even goes there, and it also tells the search engine that other people are reading your content, and it might be worth their time.

In essence, other sites that link to you are like votes. The more votes you have, the more likely search engines are to rate you higher. The more sites that link to you using link text that is relevant to your targeted keywords, the more likely you are to rank highly when those keywords are typed into a search engine.

Beware!

Search engines have enemies, too. They are called spammers, and if you get a spammer linking to your website, that could be a quick death to your search engine optimization efforts. Avoid advertisements that promise to boost your website ranking for cheap cash. It is most likely a spammer, and will hurt you more than help you.

There are 3 tips for you. Got more tips that have worked for you? Post a comment and let me know.