Hello, I'm sure this is a very common question. I'm sure there has been a thread created somewhere on Digital Point - however, I see in numerous posts how SEO changes day by day, so I figured I'd post this, for a current viewpoint. I just created my website, and I need to get traffic to it . I am a beginner, so I need to know the initial basics: 1. Setting up keywords (meta tags?) 2. Submitting to search engines? 3. Open directories? What exactly are they? Do they work? 4. Back links? What are they? Do they work, and how do I get started? These are some of the general questions that I know some of you are experts with. Any information is greatly appreciated - I love this forum!!!
I'm a Fender guy myself, but I'll still help you. Keywords in meta tags aren't as important as they used to be. You can put them in there, but make sure you have a Meta Description tag in your code with a good site description, incorporating your keywords that you're going after. Don't worry about submitting to the search engines, once you start building some backlinks, the engines will index your site while your sleeping. Look in the Directory section of DP and get to the Solicitations & Announcements section. Plenty of people here offer free link submissions to their directories. Submit to as many of these each day as you can. I personally stay away from the paid directories, but that's just me. This will help you start building backlinks. Comment on people's blogs that are related to your sites content. They generally allow you to post your link in the comment area, but when you do this, create a text link (anchor text) with the keywords your targeting, and have those keywords link to your site. Not all blog comment sections will let you do this but the code you'll want to use is <a href="http://www.MYCOOL SITE.com">Anchor Keywords Here</a> Write some 500 word articles about your site's content and submit them to some of the free article sites, and include the same links back to your site. These are just a few ideas to get you started. Lots of the people here at DP are very good at this stuff, so just keep browsing around and you'll continue to learn new tricks. Good luck.