Hi, I am super new to SEO, I have read a lot of blogs, articles and ebooks on the subject however they are all specific areas of SEO. Can anyone recommend the where I should start; a few key areas would be great!
Here's my take on the main steps to SEO: 1) Optimize your site for your target audience, not for the search engines. 2) Do extensive research for your key words and phrases. What you may think are common search words and phrases may not be what your target audience use in their searches. Each page within your site should contain its own content and topic, therefore a different set of keywords and key phrases are essential for each page. 3) Incorporate your keywords into each page’s unique Title tag. 4) The old saying “content is king†still holds strong. Content plays two important roles: Providing your visitors with the information they seek and provides other website owners a reason to want to include a link to your site within their site. Write compelling content for your pages, incorporating your keywords and key phrases. 5) Importance of website architecture and navigation: A website’s architecture is the blueprint of your website. Architecture should be focused on the needs of your visitors, paying particular attention to content, usability, interaction design, information architecture and overall aestetics. Navigation is the process of moving from one page to another and should be obvious to your site’s visitors; allowing visitors to find what they are seeking quickly. Remember…people tend not to read a website. They scan for key words and headings. 6) Don’t allow extra junk to get in the way of the search engines. Extra junk meaning heavy non-html code, javascript, graphics and Flash. While some search engines are “learning†to read some Flash and perhaps javascript, for the most part it is code that cannot be read. Whenever possible, move javascript to an external file. Utilize alt tags for all your clickable images, creating a clear description of the image.
On page SEO is one of the best (and less costly) areas of SEO to start. Optimize your internal linking, page titles, urls, and page content.
The first thing to do is to have some content. Write about something you are interested in, as blogging takes a lot of your time. The second step is to modify your permalinks to domain.com/articletitle1.html The third step is to create a sitemap. And last but not least, get as many relevant links to your site as possible.
1) Focus on a different keyword phrase for each page 2) Unique titles on each page 3) Unique meta descriptions on each page (will impact your click through rate from search engines - not your ranking) 4) Unique H1 tags on each page 5) Use Alt and Title image and link tags effectively 6) Incorporate your keyword phrases in your content at the beginning, middle and end 7) Get your navigation as keyword frendly as possible 8) Make your URLS incorporate your keywords 9) Write great content on every page 10) Start promoting your site elsewhere
If your website has good content in the area/theme that you are involved, and it is well written with reference to proper onpage SEO techniques, it will do well. We have a google PR4 and to the best of my knowledge we dont have hardly any backlinks. [ www.thisworks.co.uk ] Admittedly, our site is several years old and the PR didnt materialise overnight, but it shows it can be done without huge amounts of backlinks, as some people believe. If your site is good enough, with quality content it'll get ranked.
Get a niche which you like. Pick up a reasonably difficult keyword ( nothing too large, nothing too small) and start working towards coming on the first page for that term. Read forums like these and SEO blogs for tips. I know that you did say that you had read them, but the more you read, the more you will be able to understand and connect things to each other.....
I think this section would be better for you. Keep reading alot of posts in this forum to reach the best information about SEO!
A big thanks to everyone who has posted a response, it has really given me a good idea of where to start! Thanks Nick
Spot on with this comment. Implement Organic SEO right from the design stage, with link structure, Friendly URLs, Quality Content, including Relevant Keywords, Unique Meta Tags for each page. Good Luck with your project.