Search Engine Optimization

This goes out to Suhail, thanks for the stay at your place! I’ll try to explain the rules of search engine optimization as effective and short as possible.

First thing to know: search engine optimization consists of two parts, both judged at this time about 50:50. The easiest way to optimize your homepage for search engines is the internal optimization. It’s all just about what and how you offer. The second part is relevant if you’re challenging on high competitive keywords (sex, tourism, financial…and others). Let’s call it the external search engine optimization.

First part: internal search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization §1: Think about what you have to offer. Think about what your customers might search. Do a research on keywords and synonyms e.g. on Ouverture keyword tool.

Search engine optimization §2: Define 1-6 Keywords for every single page of your homepage. No page must have the same keywords as another. Main keyword should appear on most pages. Think about your main product. Use synonyms for to get the maximum in relevant visitors. Keep the directory structure as flat as possible. Best: all in root.

Search engine optimization §3: Use the keywords defined in $2 in the following parts of your homepage, first is most important: a) file names (separated by dashes, maximum 3) b) Page titles c) headings (best: beginning of page, but also within the page h1 -> h2 etc.) d) link names within the main navigation e) The content itsself (see §4) f) meta keywords g) meta descripition (use some filling words like and, in, we, not only etc) h) picture alt tags i) picture file names

Search engine optimization §4: Any of the keywords defined for the single page should have an appearance of 2-5% of the total word count of the page. Keywords belonging together should also appear together. Text length should be between 300 and 2000 words, depending on keyword count and cempetitiveness. Take 500 words as a well proven average.

Search engine optimization §5: Always present search engines exactly the same content as real human visitors. Avoid redirects (especially Meta refresh), don’t use frames. Try to keep the techniques as low-end as possible. Avoid dynamic URLs wherever possible. Avoid duplicate content. Never use JS / graphic / Flash for Navigation and search-engine-relevant content. Redirect permanent 301 is allowed.

Part 2: extrernal Search engine optimization:

Search engine optimization §6: Get links from other high-PR-homepages. Try to get deeplinks to your homepage. Linktext should contain the keywords for that specific linked page of yours. Links from pages optimized for the same keywords as your page count most. Stay away from pages containing more than 10 external links, without providing real content.

Search engine optimization §7: Let your link popularity grow constantly and not too fast. Avoid “no follow”- link pages and link farms. Keep an eye on the quality of linking pages. Try to cooperate with as many different types of link partners as possible (blogs, private/commercial pages, link lists with PR-heritage, boards)

Search engine optimization §8: Monitor all your incoming links, e.g. with yahoo site explorer.

Search engine optimization §9: Be patient. Good search engine optimization is a matter of months and years, not days or weeks. Monitor your positions for relevant keywords eg with advanced monitor for search engines or advanced web ranking. Rember: Google updates the public PR of your homepage only about every 100 days. Use Google Toolbar to check that.

So that was search engine optimization in a nutshell. Do it, and you’ll be on top of the list.