Home Business Wins

Building internet content, whether it be a website, blog or article, is much like building a house. The decorations are nice, but what you really need is a solid foundation.

So what goes into the foundation of your internet content? First, you need to know who you’re trying to attract (your target market) and what you’re trying to accomplish (inform, educate, sell, etc.). You also need to identify your “targeted keywords” which are at the heart and soul of SEO, or search engine optimization.

SEO is a pretty complicated subject and targeted keywords are just one part of the puzzle. I would like to share some insights I have gathered about SEO in the hopes it will give you a more solid foundation for your house, or internet content.

 SEO Defined

What is SEO?SEO is a strategy to achieve higher rankings on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.

The goal of SEO is to optimize your site for search engines, so that it brings targeted traffic to your site. Targeted traffic means people who are actually looking for your products or services. Targeted traffic is much more likely to increase conversion, namely turn visits into sales or encourage repeat visits.

Targeted Keywords are at the Core of SEO

To be really good at SEO you need to identify your “targeted keywords”. This means keywords that your target market would be looking for. Pick words you personally would use if you were looking for a page about your topic. Also use keyphrases instead of just words on their own.

There are two advantages to doing this. First, you will have less competition with “targeted keywords” vs. using broader keywords. Second, you are more likely to convert to sales, because you’re attracting people who are looking for what you have to offer.

For instance, say you are promoting a network marketing training program. If you use the keyword “network marketing” you will have tremendous competition. If you are more targeted with your keywords and use “network marketing training”, you will not only have less competition but will have a higher conversion rate because you are attracting people who are looking for what you have to offer.

Another important tip is to not spam the search engines. If you cheat by adding in tons of keywords that don’t pertain to your page, then you will make the search engines angry, and the visitors who come to your site will be equally annoyed.

Keyword Research Tools

There are a number of tools you can use for keyword research. Some are free and others you will have to pay for. Below are some free tools you can get started with.

· Google Adwords Keyword Tool: Good basic research tool

· Key Word Discovery

· Wordtracker

· Good Keywords: Free software to help analyze keywords.

· Alexa: Information on sites and trends, including rankings for any website

What Are Search Engines Looking For?

There are two main factors that search engines use to determine how a page ranks in a search:

1. Keyword relevancy
2. Page importance or link popularity

When you do a search, the search engine gives you relevant pages that contain the keywords in your search.

Second, the search engines consider the importance of the page. And page importance is based on the number and the quality of external links pointing to a page.We’ll explore this further when we discuss off-page optimization (below). This leads us to the next step, which is identifying the two main types of SEO.

Two Types of SEO

Off-page SEO and On-page SEOThere are two main categories of SEO: on-page and off-page. On-page refers to the actual code and content of your web pages. Off-page refers to factors that affect the ranking of your web pages that aren’t determined by the actual code of your web pages. We’ll look at both.

1. On-Page SEO

On-page SEO has to do with the words you use, the way you link to and from your pages, how you organize your website etc.

Let’s talk about the words you use first. Every web page has a number of ‘hotspots’ or points that are considered especially important by search engines. These include:

Title tags – The text that appears between the HTML title tages, e.g. <title>YOUR KEYPHRASES HERE</title>

Meta tags - The text that appears between the tags, e.g. <meta name="description" content=" YOUR PAGE DISCRIPTION HERE " />

<meta name="keywords" content="YOUR KEYWORDS HERE" />

Headings - The text that appears between your heading tags, particularly your first heading i.e. <h1>YOUR KEYWORD RICH HEADLINE HERE</h1>

Page content - The actual text on your WebPages, or page copy. The secret of SEO copywriting is to make your page content keyword rich while ensuring it is written in plain English and without overusing the keywords.

(Note: If you want more help with this, then do a google search for the terms and HTML tutorials, e.g. search for “meta tags HTML tutorial”).

For SEO, the text within all these areas should contain the targeted keywords for which you want your site to rank. However, don’t spam the search engines by overusing keywords, or by using keywords that aren’t relevant to your page.

You also want to focus on how you organize your website. You want to organize the categories of your website based on your targeted keywords. That will allow the search engines to recognize your website’s theme and rank it high for your target market.

SEO and Website DesignFinally, look at the design of your website. There are some design elements that can have a negative impact on SEO. For instance, search engines find Flash files and Java code hard to read. Search engines can also have a hard time moving between frames on a page (a frame is a way to split the page into different parts or windows). So websites that rely heavily on these design elements may not rank very high with search engines.

Above all, keep this in mind. While SEO is important, focus on your content first. It's hard to write your best content when trying to optimize for SEO at the same time. Focus on creating useful content that will be a genuine benefit for your target market. Once you have done that, then you can go back over the article as a second step and apply some SEO techniques.

2. Off-Page SEO

SEO and inbound linksOff-page optimization refers to factors that are largely outside the control of the individual webmaster. The most important of these are inbound links (also known as external links or back links), which are links on different websites that point to your website.

Think of an inbound link as a positive review of your site. After all, someone else has gone to the bother of linking to your site, so they must have found something of value on your site. The more external links pointing at your site, the more important it is perceived by the search engines and the higher it is likely to rank.

But the search engines don’t just look at the number of external links pointing to your site, they also look at the quality of these links. There are several factors that go into determining the quality of an inbound link. For instance, search engines give greater weight to links coming from an "authority site" that has good rankings.

The search engines also analyze whether the inbound link is a “reciprocal link” or a one-way link. A reciprocal link is when you put a link to someone’s website with the understanding that they do the same for you. Google likes one-way links and isn’t too crazy about reciprocal links. Why? Because people have been using inbound links to try and fool Google. By now, you should realize that it just doesn't pay to try and fool Google. They will catch on and you can be punished!

One great example to illustrate this idea of external links is Google PankRank which counts the number of links pointing to one page from other sites, as well as the importance of the pages that link to your page. You can find Google’s own explanation of PageRank here: http://www.google.com/technology/

So how do you get quality inbound links?

There are several ways, and we'll discuss a few.

1. Social media

As you know, there are tons of social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, etc. These are all sites where people can form a community to share information.

If you use social media properly, it can really help your rankings because links coming from social media pages are powerful. Remember that your goal with social media is to build relationships, provide valuable information, support others, etc. It is not to flaunt your products or services in people's faces.

Google is keeping a sharp eye on how people use social media. For example, Google is looking at whether you are actually being social on these sites, vs. using them just as a way to get inbound links to your website. Don’t set up an empty profile and start spamming, because Google will catch on.

2. Comment on Other People's Content

Another way to create inbound links is to comment on other people's content. For instance, provide feedback or comments on someone's blog or article. A couple of key points to keep in mind are as follows. First, don't just comment for the sake of commenting. Make sure you have something worthwhile to contribute to the discussion. Second, as far as SEO goes, it helps if you comment on sites that themselves have high ratings.

3. Article Marketing

SEO and Article MarketingAnother great way to get quality inbound links is through article marketing, or creating content and submitting your articles to various sites. There are some helpful tips on effective article marketing..

First, submit your articles to high quality sites. Some of the top ones are EzineArticles, ArticlesBase, ArticleDashboard, GoArticles, and IdeaMarketers. In particular, EzineArticles offers great training on how to succeed with articles.

Second, when you're writing your articles, do keyword research first and write your article with the keywords in mind. Here's a great tip. Go to EzineArticles and find articles in your subject area that are getting high page views. Then go to that article, right click on your mouse, and scroll down to "view page source" and then look for <met name = "keyword". You'll be able to see the keywords they are using.

Third, you'll want to "spin" your article when you submit it to different sites. In other words, make some changes to the article so the search engines don't regard it as duplicate content. Basically, you take one article and create many unique articles from the same one. Some people use software to do the article spinning, but you have to be careful because they can make a mess of your articles. You can also use article submission services that will submit your articles to different sites for you.

Conclusion

SEO takes time. Education is key because if you do SEO wrong, you can annoy Google and run the risk of having your site lowered in rankings or even banned from the search engines.

Like everything else Internet-related, SEO is constantly evolving. So stay up to date on SEO trends and techniques. Here are some resources to help you do just that.

SEO Resources

Here is a great video that explains three key things to do for SEO: 1) good content; 2) external links; and 3) title tags and meta tags. It features an MSNBC interview with Stephanie Lettler, SVP of Network Solutions.

The top 25 blogs about SEO – this site has a dailyblog tip you can sign up for, and this page of the site lists the top 25 blogs about SEO. You’ll find other great information about SEO as well.

SEO Networker – has a free training program about SEO with 7 videos

Hub by Peter Hogan of SEO Scotland.

Dr. Ralph Wilson is a respected internet marketing expert with some good tips on SEO

free SEO tip of the day that you can receive in your email each day

SEO tips for bloggers

Link Diagnosis gives you the whole picture about your backlinks or those of a competitor.