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SEO Basics (search engine optimization basics)
For anyone with an online business, or even if you just have a personal page you want people to see, the ULTIMATE goal is to get on page one of Google. This is the holy grail of the internet, as according to Alexa.com, Google is the number 1 most visited site online, which is actually quite obvious as most of us go there when looking for anything online.
The question is, how do we do that? How do we reach page one on google for our website niche? The answer is simple, SEO!!
Now, there is a LOT of rumours about how on-and-off page SEO actually works, as this is information that Google does not share with the public. Rumour has it that their employees working with the ranking of websites actually have to sign a legal document stating that this is very private information that cannot be shared with anyone, not even with family or friends. This makes our job a bit more difficult…
SEO Basics
There are a million sites out there that claim to know the secrets of SEO and how Google rank their pages, truth is, NOBODY knows for sure. So how can I write on the Basics of SEO if nobody really knows these secrets? Well, many online marketers have tried and tested various techniques and strategies to improve their rankings, and what better place to find out than from actual sites on page one, right at the top in the first slot! See below, using the search term “computer games” as an example:
BASIC SEO
If you are fairly new to this, the ads displayed in the pink/purple box are people that actually pay for those slots, the same as with the ads you normally see on the right-hand side (normally says “Ads” in the top corner). The ads in these boxes can be displayed on the first page by anyone, but it can be extremely pricey, especially the ones in the purple boxes! These are placed through Google Adwords, and you will pay a certain amount for every person that clicks on your ad.
So… What we want is this free, organic traffic as listed in the example above. This is done with SEO, and will give you the highest, most valuable traffic for your site. Plus it doesn’t cost a single cent, just hours of work to perfect your site… which is well worth the effort!
Now what is Google looking for exactly? How do these pages get on page one? There has been a lot of research done on this topic and these pages on page one to try and figure it out. Here are some of the main things every website or blog owner must look at:
Title Tags
This can also be viewed in the example, the headline saying “Computer Games – Play Here!” that will be listed by Google and other search engines. Apart from this, you will see it at the top of the page as seen below:
This is the most important part of SEO on that specific page, and should tell the visitor in short, exactly what can be found on the page when clicking on the link. It also tells Google spiders/robots what this specific page is all about. Make sure to use rich keywords that describes the content of the page.
Meta Tags and Descriptions
If you do not know what this is, it can also be seen in the example above. This is the description under the Title tag, in this case “Hundreds of computer games to download…”. The Title and Meta tags are said to be the first things a spider or robot reads when visiting your site, so use as many keywords as possible, but keep the description below 160 characters as it can affect you negatively from an SEO aspect if it is too long, or too short for that matter. If you do not have an on-page SEO tool, you can add these Meta Tags manually via your HTML editor by using the following codes within your Header tags:
<head>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”SEO Basics, Affiliate Marketing, Search Engine Optimization” />
<meta name=”description” content=”The most important things to consider for SEO for your Affliate Marketing Website or Blog” />
</head>
In the keywords section you can add as many as you can think of, seperating them with a comma. Longer keywords, or rather keyphrases work better as there is less competition for them and increases your chances to get high rankings for that specific phrase.
Note how in the description part I specify SEO and Affiliate Marketing which are the 2 keywords I want the spiders to see, but keep it so that people can also understand what the site is about when finding it on a search engine.
Content and Keywords
What is also extremely important is what you write on your webpage or blog, when it comes to Affiliate Marketing in particular, there is a saying that you should absolutely live by; “CONTENT IS KING!”
This is very important as search engine spiders/robots visit your page regularly to try and pick up texts that are relevant to your Title Tag, or words that are repeated. For example, in this specific post you are reading now the letters “SEO” are used a lot, therefore the chances that a search engine spider will pick up this specific word are very good. Before posting anything on your website or blog, write down some keywords or keyphrases that are relevant to your site, and use them as much as possible in your post. Do not overdo it though, but at least have a keyword density of 2-5%.
Pictures, photos and videos are always good for SEO, but search engine spiders cannot read these or see what is on the picture or video. Make sure to repeat anything you have written in the picture, or said in your video, in your post to ensure they pick up this important info.
Videos are also said to make a huge difference in SEO, so if you have a webcam or video camera, experiment a bit and see if you can make a good 3 minute or so video for your site.
Links
These come in two parts. The first is to use links within your own webpage/blog that directs to other pages in your site, making it easier for these robots/spiders to spot your other pages. For example, if you move your mouse over this “Affiliate Marketing” it will show at the bottom left corner where it will direct you, this is very useful for creating a kind of web for the spiders, makes sense huh? These robots do not pick up all your pages with a single visit, it can take months in some cases, but doing this internal linking speeds up the process quite a bit.
The next part is what is called backlinking. This is where you get in contact with the people on page one or two in google relevant to your specific niche, and ask them to add a link to your page on their site. The more popular that site is, the better for yours. Just always be careful not to backlink to banned or untrusted sites as this can affect your SEO negatively!
Social Networking
Social Networks are HUGE in our days and age, and Facebook in particular has been rated the #2 most visited site on the web by Alexa.com, this alone should show you not only how important this can be for your business and traffic if you advertise properly, but gives you so many opportunities to post quality backlinks to your site. Creating your own Facebook group is always a good idea, as it is great advertising for your site.
For the SEO part hereof though, make sure you add a “Tweet This” or “Share on Facebook” option to your site posts, as this will give people the opportunity to share it on their private pages, giving you an added backlink and more unique visitors.
These are really just the basics, we will go a bit more into detailed SEO strategies in future posts, but this should help you get started on the right track if you are still new to this. Note that if you do not have a blog or webpage, you can get a free blog at Blogger.com which is simple to use and run by Google. This is a great place to start.
