Steps

1. Research the keywords. Decide what search queries you want to show up for. Do some research on how many people are actually searching for your site. Many times it is best to consult a “natural search engine optimization” professional during this process. There are several tools available from Google, Overture, and third party software developers that can make the keyword research process easier.
3. Think outside of the box. Don’t just focus on your main keywords. The first thing to realize when targeting keywords is that it is not all about ranking for the most popular keyword. The most successful search engine marketing and optimization campaigns target the most relevant keywords. For example, if you are a realtor in a particular area, don’t just optimize your site for “real estate.” Optimize your site for dentist, florist, movie theaters, etc. You would be amazed how many unique visitors will come through to your site when “outside of the box” thinking occurs.
4. Focus on the end user. If you spend too much time trying to please the Search Engine Spiders, you may forget about the end user. Think about what your target market needs to accomplish their goals, and then put it on your site so that they can find it. The phrase “content is king” was born about 6 years ago, and it still holds true today. If you want to be relevant for specific keywords, than you need superior or at least highly competitive content. Write about 225-300 words of copy for each keyword and plant it on your site each day. Grow, grow, and grow. On average, one can target between 3-5 like keyword phrases per page. Make it as natural as possible and the Search Engines will reward you with a first-page ranking.
5. Make sure that all the pages of the site have custom titles and descriptions. If your site is using the same tags for all the pages, you are not helping search engines figure out the subject or relevance of your individual pages. Regarding Meta Tags, there are 2 very important fields:
   • Title Tag – arguably the most important SEO tag for any website. Google supports approx. 60 characters in the title, while Yahoo allows for up to 110 characters in the title. It is important to target the most critical keywords in the Title. Every page should have a unique Title.
   • META Description Tag – also very important for every page on the site. Some engines do display the description defined, while others do not. All search engines do read the description tag, and do utilize the content found within in the ranking process. A good rule of thumb is to create descriptions that do not exceed 200-250 characters. The META keyword Tag is essentially useless in today’s SEO market, but is oftentimes good to utilize as a placeholder for the keywords targeted.
6. Keep the structure, navigation and URL structure of your site simple enough for search engines to follow. Remember that search engines cannot parse your navigation if it’s using flash or javascript. So try to stay close to standard HTML when it comes to Navigation. URLs with dynamic parameters (?, &, SIDs) usually do not perform when it comes to search engine rankings.
7. Create a site map that tells people where everything is on your site. You will get about a 1% click through rate to your site map. However, it will do wonders for those who know what site maps do, and the Search Engines will like it as well.
8. Build up your popularity. So now you have determined the right keywords on the right pages, you’ve created all of the necessary content, and you’ve optimized all of the content to the best of your capabilities. Congratulations – you’re now in the top 80th percentile (from an optimization standpoint) of the websites listed for the keywords you’re trying to target. So how do you get a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd page listing? The answer is quite simple: You have to be the most popular, too. That’s right, it’s a popularity contest. In other words, how many other websites know you (link to you), and how popular are they? This is typically referred to as link popularity, or called PageRank by Google. The more sites that link to your site the better, and the more popular the site linking to you the more value you will receive for your link popularity. The best types of “link building” are directory registration, text link advertising, and press release distribution. Try to offer valuable information or tools so that other people are motivated to link to your site. Well-linked sites (that don’t use spamming) do better in search engines.

Tips

• Search engine algorithms assess the relevance of your page to any particular keyword by the content on your pages. For instance if you are selling “widgety widgets” on your site and you do not mention “widgety widgets” on your page text, search engines have very little to work with. Also make sure that you are not spamming search engines by using the same keyword over and over.
• Although not as important as they used to be, reciprocal links do still matter with Google. Reciprocate with similar websites and include keywords near the links on your site.
• If you want to optimize well for your city, state etc., make sure to sprinkle geographic search terms throughout. Include it in text as well as set apart. Search engines do not know where you are unless you tell them.
• Bold and italics can make your keywords stand out more with the search engines.
• Interior links within your site will improve SEO; Sitemaps are a great way to generate internal links and make your website better too!
• Correct broken links, search engines do not like dead ends.
• If you have over 30 keywords that mean business to you, then you might want to hire a Professional Search Engine Copywriting firm or outsource it to freelancers.
• Anyone who can go to google and type in “keyword research” will find very many tools that mixed with common sense should suffice quite well.
• Now when digging deeper to understand the traffic patterns of certain keywords use Wordtracker’s GTrends Tool. You can get an idea on the amount of competition on Google compared to the amount of searches. Now these numbers are far from accurate, But if you can kind of step back and take a broader look at things, don’t worry so much about the numbers but compare the trends since it shows the past history. See if its steady traffic, traffic that is going extinct, or traffic just starting to peak. By using this tool, you can many times find some golden opportunities.
• It really comes down to just using common sense. Just sit down and think, “What would other people search to find this? What would I search for to find this?” Try phrases in your keyword research tool to get new ideas and find the higher trafficked most targeted phrases. DO NOT look at the numbers spat back out at you by these programs as accurate numbers, they rarely are. You can still use these tools to get ideas on new keywords, search patterns of users, and many other things, that mixed with the information of trends in that area, can really help you.

Warnings

• If you are going to use freelancers, beware of duplicate content. Always make sure to check the content that you get by searching for the content on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
• Never have hyperlinks like “click here”, hyperlinks should always be keywords, long hyperlinks with multiple keywords are even better.
• Don’t hide content.
• Don’t create duplicate websites.
• Remember that if you use black-hat SEO techniques, you run the risk of getting penalized by the search engines and having your web site permanently removed from their index.
• Use decent search engine sites not little ones like Ask and that!!:P

Sources and Citations

• Keyword Research 101
• Keyword Discovery
• Link Building 101 :: The Key to Successful Link Building
• SEO Software

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Improve Search Engine Ranking. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Steps

1. Readers first, then keywords. In the previous years, SEOs follow this trend: “keywords first, then content”. Now that Google has become more sophisticated, and integrated more complex numerical linguistic methods into its algorithm, webmasters found out that it ain’t just the keywords that matter, but the related terms that revolve around your content. That means you can’t just repeat the word, “cheap cars for sale” twenty times in your paragraphs. It needs more substance (and related words) t han that. It’s almost like writing for your readers alone, and not the search engines. But of course, it’ll be Google and the others who will determine your rankings.
2. Diversify Anchor Text Links As Aaron Wall pointed out, there has to be some variations in the text when one creates those blue-highlighted anchor tex t links. The links on a page are what the search engine spiders follow in determining your website structure. Most likely, the text used in the links are being considered in figuring out what a page is all about. You may also set some keyphrases in bold letters. That tells the spiders which terms you’re trying to emphasize, just don’t overdo it.
3. Take note of word count Although it’s been a classic rule that “readers online do not read”, it simply doesn’t mean that one has to deprive the online users of good, meaty content. Stick to at least 250 words a page. SEOs know that writing down for an appropriate length of text means being more able to include more related terms for the target keywords.
4. Social Bookmarking If the content is real good (i.e. controversial, substantial, significant to a great part of the crowd), then it’s best to digg it, make people reddit, and tag people at delicious. News items are great at Netscape.com.
5. Social Networking Share your blog announcements, latest promos, or any significant tidbit of a fact at your bulletin and Group posts at MySpace, and any other social networks you find helpful in bringing traffic to your site. Just a tip: Make it short and sweet in your bulletin posts since a bulletin is supposed to be quick.
6. Content Submissions Good quality traffic from reputable websites like ezinearticles, goarticles, and isnare will help out in traffic and visibility. It might hurt your rankings though, because these sites are deemed “authorities” or of great value by Google.
7. Blogging does a good job at sharing and syndicating content. If you have a website, and a separate blog (checkout: Link Building with your Blog), it’ll ease out the load in gaining visitors.

Tips

• A SEO-friendly content is no longer the restrictive, robotical-sounding content it used to be. Search engines, in their aim to continuously refine search are catering more to the online readers, the social aspect of the World Wide Web. Content comes out to be more human-centered, and ready for consumption.

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to SEO Your Website. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

I can’t begin to exclaim how important it is for your website to receive inbound links. These links could ultimately be life or death to your website.

Inbound links? What are they exactly?

Inbound links are links that come from other websites directly to your website. The more websites you have linking to your website, the higher your search engine ranking, which means more traffic. Ultimately the importance of inbound links lies in pushing your site up the search engine rankings, but they also have a deeper purpose. Visitors from other websites that click through to your website  will most likely do so because they are interested in what you have to offer – which means you would have achieved getting interested prospects on your site with minimal effort or money.

Are all inbound links to my website effective?

While inbound links are highly beneficial and integral to the growth of your website, there are certain links that are “Evil!” Search engines like Google want to see legitimate and relevant websites linking to yours. While having links from an irrelevant site is not at all detrimental, having paid links from a link farm can be.
A link farm is a website that asks you to pay for links. Usually these linking websites have unconventional and unethical ways of getting search engine rankings and Google especially has become wise to this. A while back these link farm websites where very successful, but now Google actually discredits your website heavily if you are involved with a link farm.

What is an online directory?

A directory is a website that lists thousands of websites under relevant categories. This helps visitors browsing the site to find what they are looking for a lot quicker. Listing your website on a directory site can help your search engine ranking and drive visitors to your site.
There are hundreds, or perhaps thousands of free online directories which allow you to list your site. Some will ask you to include a reciprocal link (a link back to their website), others will just give you a one way link (better than those requiring reciprocal links) and others will ask you to pay to have your website listed in their directory. While the paid directories are usually of a high quality and will usually ensure a better ranking for you, there are some that are just a waste of money.
My opinion is that you should never give up the opportunity to have your website listed in a directory, but if possible always try a list it in a directory that is more relevant to your website and industry.

How do I find online directories?

Well how do you find anything? Simply Google “free website directory” or something similar and you will be met with search results that will keep you busy for quite some time.

Some other good ideas to get inbound links…

Why not consider linking to, and receiving links from people in your industry who are in another country. They will most likely not really be your competitions since the demographics of your target markets will differ. If you are selling your good internationally this may not work for you, but for most of us it is a great idea.

Start a blog.

Writing about what you know best should come naturally to you – you are unconsciously doing it every day by promoting your business, why not just put it into words? Blogs also get indexed and raked by search engines very quickly and are a great way to get visitors. People that read your blog will start to admire you for being an expert in your field and are much more likely to contact you when they need your product or services.

Write articles.

Articles are filled with rich key words relating to a certain topic. When you write an article in your area of expertise and submit it to a top article directory, the amount of quality traffic you can attract is mind blowing! Although writing articles generally takes a bit more time and concentration than writing a blog entry for example, the results are well worth it.

Does all this really work?

Well I can personally say that it does! Freedom Studios does not use any conventional methods of advertising. All of our prospects and ultimately clients come via our website or via word of mouth referrals. Most prospects either find us via search engines or through relevant sites linking to ours.
Getting all the inbound links has not been a quick process, but it sure has been well worth it. Why don’t you give it a try? You never know, you may be pleasantly surprised.

This might sound a little “out there” but I think there is a serious misconception among the general public & small businesses.

For years people have been playing around with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editors and claim that they are web designers – sorry to break it to you, but they are NOT web designers, they are novices. I can personally recall occasions where potential clients have grumbled about the amount I have quoted them. Their response is often: “But my 16 year old nephew can put together a site for a fraction of that cost – why should I pay so much to you?” Or “I have quotes from other companies that are charging half of what you are – if you lower your quote we’ll give you the business.” In the beginning I found comments like these rather intimidating and I would try and accommodate these new clients even if it meant slashing my prices beyond it being worth my while. Mistakes I will not readily make again.

What I discovered is that clients that are not willing to pay you adequately for your services are usually the ones that will have the least amount of respect for you as well. These clients will probably expect you to leap through hoops of fire and give you completely unreasonable deadlines. They don’t respect your time and will most times make you change things over and over again.

The professional web design process is a lot more involved than most people realize. Again I say PROFESSIONAL web design process. The steps to designing a website that works great, looks great and attracts a great amount of traffic is both time consuming and skill intensive. From obtaining a proper brief to conceptualizing and designing an accurate visual proof – there is just something different about the way a professional works. Obviously the result achieved when the project is completed speaks volumes in itself, but most don’t understand the processes in between.

A professional web designer has to understand the principles that make up a great website. These include: aesthetics, content, structure, usability, relevance, technology & optimization.

Aesthetics:
There is nothing worse than a website that just looks bad. A poorly designed website is off-putting and reflects negatively on the company it represents. It gives the appearance that the company is unprofessional and the content contained within the site cannot be taken seriously. However a well designed website gives you the feeling that you are dealing with a professional & credible company who knows what they are talking about.

Content:
Granted having a great looking site does a lot for your business image, but if the shell is empty visitors will leave fast and probably never return. Your website content should be relevant to your industry sector and relevant to what you say you’re all about. Your content may be relevant, but id it is poorly written or has countless spelling errors, again the impression created is poor. Content should be well written, aimed at web users who are not interested in long winded stories, but who are looking for headlines and condensed paragraphs. Users want to find relevant information quickly and easily – the more you make them work to find information, the faster you will lose them.

Structure:
A website with no structure just seems to fall apart at the seams! A good structure affects your appearance, navigation, sitemap, and usability. Professional web designers don’t rely on WYSIWYG editors to put a website together, but rather have the ability to hand code every element involved in building a great site. Having complete control over the code helps one to ensure that the structure of the backend code stays intact and that it is clean. A good structure will ensure that there is a certain uniformity in the way a website looks & works.

Usability:
A sure way to lose visitors quickly is to have a site that is not user-friendly. If your navigation is hidden or so unconventional that users are unable to get to pages easily, they will leave and not return. Naming of your pages and titles of your links should also be as common as possible. It does feel good to get creative and break the mould sometimes, but people feel comfortable with what they know – they have a certain sense of security in knowing what to expect. For example: A much wider audience will respond to a button called “About Us” than would respond to “Get the low down.” The latter may seem more creative or informal, but will prove to be a lot less effective. Another important aspect to ensure is that your website works across browser platforms – a professional web designer always has this in the back of their mind, amateurs probably don’t even understand what this means.

Relevance:
Why has a visitor come to your site? How have they found you? Most would have come via a search engine after looking for something specific. If your website content is not relevant to what the user searched for, they will simply get irritated and leave your site immediately. There are a lot of tricksters on the internet and experienced users have become wise to their ploys. One of these being attracting visitors under false pretense or directing users to their website using keywords not relevant to their site’s content. If you have quality content that is relevant and well structured, you are almost guaranteed to keep visitors on your website longer and have a greater chance of them bookmarking your site for future reference. They may even be inclined to share your site with their friends.

Technology:
Today the web is alive with technology! It is a nice touch to harness some of this and incorporate it into your website. Professional web designers should have their fingers on the pulse and have a good understanding of all of the latest technology offerings. If there is a better way to do something, it should be done. Especially if it assists in aiding usability and simplicity. Amateurs will most likely be ignorant to new technologies and if they have some form of understanding, will most likely not be able to implement it correctly.

Optimization:
This is the last point, but is one of the most important. Optimization is a key factor in your website getting found by search engines, which in turn drives free traffic to your site on a daily basis. I have dealt with companies that have spent vast amounts of money promoting their website, but have missed huge quantities of free traffic simply because their website was poorly optimized. A professional designer will always develop a site that is optimized for search engines. They will understand what is needed by large search engines like Google, Yahoo & MSN, but also what is needed by the lesser search meta search engines. I can use our own website as an example of this: http://www.freedomstudios.co.za relies completely on web traffic to generate new business. Freedom Studios spends absolutely no money on conventional advertising and constantly attracts quality clients who find us via search engines or directories.
Some of our clients also enjoy top rankings in Google simply because their sites are correctly optimized, relevant and have a lot of quality content.

An amateur may charge you a lot less to create a website, but the potential loss for your business is unimaginable. While hiring a professional web designer may be a slightly higher initial investment, your returns will most likely be worth a whole lot more.

The web seems to be filled with a large collection of sites that truly inspire and Logo of the Day does just that.

Jacob Cass has teamed up with Jeff Fisher to judge and provide comments on different logos that are submitted directly from the LOTD website.

Apart from getting your logo’s judged it is also a fantastic place to see what other designers are getting up to. A place to find inspiration and a place to comment on the inspiration of others.

The LOTD website is clean and simple, but it features a really neat rating system which activates at the simple drag of the mouse. Comments are posted instantly and logos link back to the website of their respective owner / creator.

Everything I have received from Jacob Cass has been solid gold and LOTD is just another one of those nuggets.

Give a little and get a whole lot in return!

Selfishness has a bit of a destructiveness way about it. It causes us to focus inward, clouding our vision and eventually causing an implosion. SPLAT!

I decided to give a little!

We are all faced with busy lives, daily stresses and struggling to pay the bills. Our lives automatically push us into a place where we are continually thinking about our problems and the issues that we need to deal with. It becomes so easy to become self-centered, even though it is more than likely unintentional.

To break free from the mold of self, we need to adjust our focus to that of an outward one. It is only when we focus outward that we see that our problems are rather small or sometimes insignificant.

My time is incredibly valuable to me. I run a time based business. A creative solutions firm, specializing in web design, website development, hosting, graphic design, flash development, animation and email marketing campaigns. Time wasted is costly! Not only is it costly financially but wasted time causes pressure in other areas of life as well.

So I’m a busy person – “Big deal, get over it!”

I decided to take a little time and give something back. I created a directory for all of the South African Website Design Companies and am offering free listing to web design companies across South Africa. It feels great to do something for the greater good of others. The directory is going to help us all!

How do I feel? GREAT!
I actually feel like I have had a bit of a rush – I like :^)