Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of making websites perform better in the search engines. There is no magic to it -- it's all about understanding how search engines read web pages and what factors they take into consideration when deciding how to rank a page for a given search query. When done correctly, search engine optimization also improves websites for use by humans, as will be explained below.
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Write excellent content
The importance of quality writing in SEO
Quality content (meaning excellent articles) are the heart and soul of search engine optimization, because the only thing that Google and other search engines truly respect is text. Specifically, text to which other websites have linked, as we will see below. So put your money and/or energy into writing or obtaining excellent articles. Search engines have remarkably sophisticated ways of determining just how good an article is - you would be surprised at just how good they are at this.
Keyword density
The role of keyword density in search engine optimization
The articles should feature several instances of the keyword or keywords that you are targeting. Don't overdo it, as this makes the article cheaper and annoying, and is also considered spam by search engines. The real secret is not so much about mentioning the keyword lots of times, as much as making the article focused on that keyword. Therefore, stay on topic and don't stray.
Latent semantic indexing
Latent semantic indexing: a subtle but vital aspect of SEO
Latent semantic indexing
There is no need to worry about the deep technicalities of latent semantic indexing. Let it suffice that search engines will be more impressed with your articles if you use words that are synonyms of (or otherwise related to) the keywords you are targeting. In other words, if your keyword is "lenses", is your article about camera lenses, or is it about contact lenses to correct vision? Search engines care a lot about the distinction, because they want to direct uses to what they are looking for. You're either looking for contact lenses or you are looking for photographic lenses -- the two options are mutually exclusive. By analyzing the words you use in addition to "lenses", search engines can correctly infer what your page is really about.
So for example, if in addition to "lenses" you also keep mentioning "eyes" and "tears," then it's a pretty good bet that your page is about contact lenses. Conversely, if the keyword "lenses" is combined with words like "camera" or "camcorder", the search engines will decide that your page is about photographic lenses.
It's also a question of sheer quality: an article about lenses will be pretty poor if it just harps on about lenses and never mentions anything else and that is related to them.
Use the h1 tag
The h1 tag still plays a huge role in SEO
The h1 tag is very powerful ammunition in SEO. Put your keywords in the h1 tag and leave all the fluff out. Other things being equal, it is still true that search engines massively prefer pages with an h1 tag to those that don't.
Put your keywords in the meta-tags (but don't overdo it)
Meta-tags in SEO
Meta-tags still play a role in SEO. The ones that you should care about are the "content" and "description" meta-tags. Here is the secret: if you make them identical, it gives you an edge with the search engines. This is field-tested knowledge.
Put your keywords in the URL
Keywords in the URL of webpages helps in SEO
The URL should include the keywords that you are targeting. This plays a huge role in search engine optimization. For an adequate example, look at the URL of this page :)
As with everything else, leave fluff words out and keep the URL highly focused on the keywords you are interested in.
Use keywords in the names of directories
Directory structure in SEO
Your web site should have a hierarchical structure. Every article should be placed in a directory (folder) that itself sits in the root directory. These sub-directories should be named with keywords that are broadly relevant to every article they contain.
For example, if you have an article about cherries, an article about peaches and one about apricots, they should all be placed in a directory called "fruit". This is what is meant by "hierarchical" structure. Naming sub-directories with keywords plays a big role in SEO.
Keywords in domain name
Choose a domain name that uses keywords
This is actually a tricky decision to make, because if you are in it for the long haul and want to make a classy, "branded" website, a cool and memorable domain name is actually preferable to keywords. A branded domain name will not help you with SEO, but it will take you further in terms of brand quality. This is why Google called itself "Google" rather than "TheBestSearchEngine."
That said, if you want to go all-out on SEO, pick a domain name that includes your keywords. This will save you a lot of time and effort in the initial stages of launching your website and its SEO campaign.
When writing your articles, make sure that your keywords appear in bold type, italics and underlined (but never more than one of these at the same time). Make sure that you use a variety of synonyms, as well as the singular and plural forms of your keywords.
Remember that writing quality articles is absolutely the main priority, so do not write crappy copy for the sake of stuffing keywords in. This will kill your website and stopped being effective 10 years ago.
Flash is bad for SEO!
Flash is bad for search engine optimization
Flash is bad for SEO for the simple reason that search engines are not able to read it. In other words, any text that is displayed with Flash is not real text, but just an image that search engines cannot read as text.
Well, that was true until recently, but there has been a recent development that allows search engines to make *some* sense of Flash after all.
However, I still think that Flash should be unceremoniously ditched for good, partly because although search engines can make some sense of it these days, it's still not a smart choice. After all, we are talking about search engine OPTIMIZATION, right? That means that everything needs to be absolutely top-notch and hunky-dory. So forget that Flash exists. Just bin it.
Additionally, Flash is absolutely irritating and alienating for users, especially when the homepage has a tedious, self-indulgent intro. If you really think that people are interested in watching your intro -- no matter how slick and well-made -- you need to do some serious learning as a matter of urgency, because that is NOT how the Internet works, especially these days.
To put it simply, people visit websites because they are after something very specific. They need something and they need it yesterday. Does it sound like they can be bothered to sit through your self-indulgent flash intro? I cannot tell you how many websites I have completely aborted when the intro was taking too long to load. And I'm a patient guy. You have been warned!
This might seem like a slight digression from SEO to the topic of website usability, but it is actually absolutely relevant to search engine optimisation, because people will not link to your website if they do not find it useful -- or if they do not visit it at all because they could not bear to watch your Flash intro.
Instead, I would highly recommend that you go with the Google philosophy: simple, uncluttered - an oasis of value and peace.
Frames are bad for SEO!
Avoid frames like the plague
Frames are disastrous - they are even worse than Flash. They are the biggest enemy of search engine optimisation, because they completely destroy the fundamental unit of web browsing: the static webpage. You will notice that on a Web site that uses frames, the only URL that is displayed is the root domain, regardless of which page you are on. The consequences of this are very simple and absolutely disastrous: neither Google nor any other search engine will be able to index any of your pages, vanifying the whole point of having lots of articles and quality content.
Frames also make the user experience absolutely obnoxious, because they make navigation difficult or impossible, and do not allow the user to use the "back" button to go back to where they started in a logical fashion. Frames are a mess and have absolutely no role in the creation of websites. Avoid them at all costs.
Use a high content-to-code ratio
The readable text (content) should outweigh the code
Your content pages (articles) should have the highest possible content-to-code ratio. What this means is very simple: when you view a page's source code, the content-related text should occupy more characters than those that compose the code. The words that make up your articles are the "signal", whereas the characters that compose the code (e.g. HTML) are the "noise". The higher this ratio, the more valuable search engines will think the page is.
This is partly why Craigslist does so well in the search engines -- its code is incredibly lean and simple, which means that if your Craigslist post is at least 200 words long, the content-to-code ratio will be excellent. This is why Craigslist posts do so well on Google despite the fact that they are only a few days old and with no PageRank whatsoever, and also why Craigslist is so useful in SEO.
If you want to see an example of a webpage with a high content-to-code ratio, go to Craigslist and pick any post that is longer than 300 words. Look at the page's source code, and make sure you scroll down so that you can take a look at the entire page. You will notice that the words that compose the readable text (that is, the ad itself) occupy much more space than everything else. This is what is meant by a high content-to-code ratio, and is one of the reasons for which craigslist has kicked every other classifieds website into the ground (although admittedly first-mover advantage played a massive role here).
Put the menu on the right-hand side
Putting the menu on the right-hand side helps in SEO
This is related to the content-to-code ratio issue: you should put the menu on the right-hand side, leaving the left-hand side of the page for the content (the article). If you look at the source code of a page that is set up like this, you will see that the content will be at the very top of the page, while all the code that makes up the menu is directly below the main content. In other words, if you put the menu on the left, the "signal" (article) will be at the top of the page and will be read first by the search engine spiders, while the "noise" (menu, AdSense code and other junk) will be read last. This trick can help web pages a lot in terms of search engine performance.
Use a reputable web host
A good web host helps with SEO
Using a reputable web host for your blog or website is crucial. You've got to make sure that its service is reliable and that your blog or website is virtually never off-line due to web server issues. By all accounts, GoDaddy is a totally awesome web host, with the best quality and lowest prices out there. They also have absolutely incredible customer service, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Put outbound links to high-quality websites in your content
High-quality outbounds links help A LOT in SEO
High-quality outbound links on a web page help to boost that page's search engine ranking -- this has been experimentally determined. It is not at all surprising: Google and other search engines want to take users to web pages that are USEFUL. A page of content is unlikely to be all that useful if it does not have any links to other related high-quality external websites. A page of content that has no links to external websites is very likely to be spam - and Google knows it.
Not linking to external websites in an effort to keep visitors on your website DOES NOT WORK. Internet users are extremely fickle and all they have to do is hit the back button or shut down the browser altogether if they want to leave your website. If you do not put high-quality outbound links in your content, you are a value-taker and you will be justifiably kicked into the ground by better websites that do link externally.
But here's the good news: people don't really click on links that much anyway, so if you use high-quality outbound links, you will do a lot better in the search engines, but will pay virtually no price in terms of users leaving. Users WILL leave, but only because they were going to anyway, not because of the links. This is therefore a win-win situation.
Use a unique IP address
Having a unique IP address is vital in SEO
Use a unique IP address. This means that there is an unequivocal one-to-one match between a specific IP address and your website's domain. This is important, because if you share an IP address with other websites, if one of those websites gets penalised by Google for spam behaviour, your website will also take a hit. Additionally, Google and other search engines simply take you more seriously if you have a dedicated IP address.
Having a dedicated IP address will only cost you an extra few bucks a month and it is well worth it. For example, on GoDaddy having a dedicated IP address only costs an extra three dollars a month. The value you get in return for those extra three dollars is absolutely huge.
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