Search Engine Optimization

[oldCultures]

Hi,
How can I do SEO myself? How does it work?

Does any one know where can I get email lists for e-mail advertising?

Thanks!

[roban]

SEO yourself? Start doing some Googling.

E-mail lists can be bought or culled from web sites. If you are thinking of using them to market, you might want to have another thought. They are not targeted to any particular market and you will be joining the legion of the damned and it's not a very good way of marketing.

I'm not trying to be rude but if you are interested in becoming an e-mail spammer I think you are in the wrong forum. There are places in which they congregate and share their nefarious information.

[oldCultures]

HI Roban,

Thanks for your thoughts.
I read in one of this forum sessions that someone was advising other to do SEO himself, that way he could save some money. That is why I asked, how is that done?

Secondly, if there is something that we DO NOT want to become is an email spammer, NOT AT ALL!
We just started on the e-commerce, selling decorative art pieces (Replicas of originals) on ebay, yahoo and amazon, also created a list in froogle. Since our budget is very limited, but still we need to do advertising, we want to send our catalogs, and newsletters to potential customers. Among them will be museum stores, decoration stores, organizations, corporations etc

Now, any ideas about low cost online marketing in my field?

Once again, thank you for your comments.

[roban]

I recall your site from earlier posts and I think you have a good product.

As for self-SEO I'll shoot myself in the foot here because that's what I do for a living.

1. get links from relevant sites
2. research your key words using a free service such as Overture Keyword Selector Tool.
3. Do a Google search for 'organic seo' and start reading.

[hoobs]

add unique content regularly.
add high quality links on a regular basis
avoid quick fixes as they usually spell trouble
then try forums such as webmasterworld and serchenginewatch

mike

[roban]

I'll add Cre8asite forums to that list.

[WDA]

I have a question for you guys regarding adding high quality links to your site. How do you get them? Is this something you purchase or are you going around and emailing sites asking them to link to you? This is my main problem, we have a nice site and relatively new still (only 1 year), but I have very few links into our site and find myself overly cautious on who I want linked to me. What should I do?

[stymiee]

Before you write one line of code:

• Do keyword research to determine what keywords you want to target

While constructing your website you should do the following:

• Use markup to indicate the content of your site
  
  • Optimize your <title> tags on each page to contain 1 - 3 keywords
  • Create unique Meta Tags for each page
  • Use header tags appropriately (H1 > H2 > H3)
  • Use <strong> and <em> tags if appropriate
• Optimize your URLs
  
  • Use Search Engine Friendly URLs (for dynamic sites)
  • Use keywords in your domain (http://www.keyword1.com/)
  • Use keywords in your URL (http://www.example.com/keyword2/keyword3.html)
  • Use dashes instead of underscores to separate words in your URLs (keyword2-keyword3.html)
• Optimize your content
  
  • Use keywords liberally yet appropriately throughout each page
  • Have unique content
  • Have quality content
• Use search engine friendly design
  
  • Create a human sitemap
  • Do not use inaccessible site navigation (JavaScript menus)
  • Minimized outbound links
  • Kept your pages under 100K in size
• Design the navigational structure of the site to channel PR to main pages (especially the homepage)
• Create a page that encourages webmasters to link to your site
  
  • Provide them the relevant HTML to create their link to you
  • Provide them with any images you may want them to use (although text links are better)
• Make sure your website is complete before launching it

Immediately after launching your site you should do the following:

• Submit your site to all major search engines
  
  • Google (Use a Google SiteMap)
  • Yahoo (Use the page list option)
  • MSN
  • Ask (Finds your site via incomming links)
• Submit your site to all free directories
  
  • DMOZ (also powers Google Directory)
  • JoeAnt
• Submit your site to relevant directories
  
  • Find more at ISEDB
• Begin a link building campaign (attempting to get keywords in the link anchor text)
  
  • Put a link to your website in your forum signatures
  • Reply to relevant blog posts (Don't spam please)
  • Submit articles to relevant websites

If you will pay to promote your website:

• Submit your site to pay directories
  
  • Yahoo
  • GoGuides
• Purchase text links from high PR (Pagerank) sites related to your site

Finally, as part of an ongoing strategy:

• Continually update your website will quality, unique content
• Continually seek free links preferably from sites in your genre

Do NOT do the following:

• Make an all Flash website (without an HTML alternative)
• Use JavaScript for navigation
• Spam other websites for incomming links
• Launch your site before it is done
• Use duplicate content
  
  • Point several domains to one site without using a 301 redirect
• Use markup inappropiately
  
  • Style <H>eader tags to look like regular text
  • Hide content using 'display: hidden' (for the sake of hiding text)
• Use other "black hat" techniques (unless you accept the risk - Banning)
  
  • Doorway/Landing pages
  • Cloaking
  • Hidden text
  • Keyword stuffing

Additional Tips:

• Usable and accessible sites tend to be search engine friendly by their very nature
• Be patient! High rankings don't happen overnight
• Don't obsess with any one search engine. They are all worth your attention.

In other words you have SEO in mind before you start your website. And only submit once you have a complete website.

[Corey Bryant]

Search Engine Optimization for Site Owners and Small Businesses might help some. Keep in mind that usually you get what you pay for and with something like this, it might be better to pay someone.

The rules change all the time. You can also submit your sitemap to Yahoo as well. MSn is supposed to be coming on board soon. Sitemaps.org will help you create a sitemap for submission.

[The Old Sarge]

I have a question for you guys regarding adding high quality links to your site. How do you get them? Is this something you purchase or are you going around and emailing sites asking them to link to you? This is my main problem, we have a nice site and relatively new still (only 1 year), but I have very few links into our site and find myself overly cautious on who I want linked to me. What should I do?

In a word, yes. We ask for them. Sometimes, the other sites ask us. There are some good link exchange programs out there and there are some programs to stay away from, IMO.

My advice is to stay away from purchased links. PPC is a good way to get a foot in the door, but buying links on other sites can get real expensive real quick and from our experience they do not produce customers.

Find sites that are relevant to your's or your product. Look for well designed sites with attractive layout and decent traffic. Make sure their link pages (where your link shows on their site) are spiderable, i.e. not hidden from the SEs, and that the links are easy to find, access and follow.

If you want a link to what I consider a very good link exchange site, PM me.

[The Old Sarge]

Doing your own SEO can be very effective. However, it takes time and effort. Most of all it takes patience.

[The Old Sarge]

... and Stymiee's advice is very good. ... and said a lot better than I could have.

[john238]

You will need to do some research on SEO. There are many good SEO forums. I wouldn't do email advertising unless you know the list is definately doubleoptin lists.

Also email marketing has nothing related really to SEO.

[affearner]

I also suggest you do the following:

Other than updating your site content regularly, try to write articles with links directing to your homepage or to any deeper page in your site. The article you submitted may be voted or rated by your friends. This will surely create free traffic to your site.

You can also do blogging -- NOT MIRROR SITES. Blog about your site's products and services. Include contents or features or posts that are 100% unique from whatever you have written in your site. Add links that will point to your main web site. Afterwhich you can do SOCIAL BOOKMARKING to increase backlinks and drive traffic to your main site.

Hope that will help.

[Jenita]

hi,

You can do SEO yourself but it will take a long time. Here are some SEO tips,


Insert keywords within the title tag so that search engine robots will know what your page is about. The title tag is located right at the top of your document within the head tags. Inserting a keyword or key phrase will greatly improve your chances of bringing targeted traffic to your site.

Make sure that the title tag contains text which a human can relate to. The text within the title tag is what shows up in a search result. Treat it like a headline.

2. Use the same keywords as anchor text to link to the page from different pages on your site. This is especially useful if your site contains many pages. The more keywords that link to a specific page the better.

3. Make sure that the text within the title tag is also within the body of the page. It is unwise to have keywords in the title tag which are not contained within the body of the page.

Adding the exact same text for your h1 tag will tell the reader who clicks on your page from a search engine result that they have clicked on the correct link and have arrived at the page where they intended to visit. Robots like this too because now there is a relation between the title of your page and the headline.

Also, sprinkle your keywords throughout your article. The most important keywords can be bolded or colored in red. A good place to do this is once or twice in the body at the top of your article and in the sub-headings.