SEO:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to your website from search engines. An accurate optimization of your website is the foundation to generate traffic. In general there are two main types of SEO, Onpage and Offpage. Onpage SEO is the optimization of your Website itself whereas Offpage SEO is the process of attracting and building links to your homepage.
Onpage SEO:
"Remember to detect the right keyword combinations, containing of two or three words, due to the fact that wrong keywords may destroy all done SEO efforts!"
Optimization of the website titel:
The titel of your homepage need to contain your relevant keywords. In this context it is recommended to use each keyword not more than one time. The keyword intensity should be around 33 percent to reach a successful ranking. However, to be sure it might be helpful to check the intensity of the Top-Ten competition.
"The titel is the text between <titel>....</titel>
Optimization of the content:
The content is the written text on your homepage. In general it might be said that the more text a certain page contains, the more text is indext by the search engine. Nevertheless, the intensity of your keyword should not transcend 5 to 10 percent of your total word count.
Optimization of the captions:
In general it is not essential to use captions and you may skip this step. However, certain search engines consider captions as crucial and therefore it might be usefull to optimize them as well. In this case it is recommended to use a keyword intensity of about 20 percent.
The right domain name:
In order to gain a high ranking in search engines it is recommended to use a Top-Level-Domain. It is essential that your domain name contains of your relevant keywords, at least most of them!
"E. g. http://www.your-relevant-keywords.com"
Optimization of your file names:
You will find the file names directly after the domain name. Most search engines pay great attention on the file names and therefore it is recommended to add your keywords.
"E. g. ... .com/Your-Keywords"
Describtion of your pictures:
It is necessary to describe your pictures with a short text. This text should include your relevant keywords. However, it is recommended to use a keyword intensity of about 20 to 30 percent.
Text optimization of your outgoing links:
All of the links on your website to other pages should include your relevant keywords. It is recommendet that you link your website with pages with the same purpose.
Optimization of your META description:
The META description is the explanation of your homepage's purpose. Try to think of a meaningful text that include your most important keywords. The keyword intensity should be around 5 to 10 percent.
"Please find the META description in the html text under <meta name = "description" content="YOUR DESCRIPTION"
Optimization of your META keywords:
Try to use keyword that describe best your page's purpose. However, too many keywords may cause more harm than good and therefore an intensity of about 10 - 20 percent is recommended.
"Please find the META keywords in the html under <meta name = "keywords" content= "Your relevant keywords"
In addition,
- - > > your source code has to be valid! Therefore it might be helpful to check your code here: http://validator.w3.org/
- - > > do not use special characters like "?", "$", "%",... etc.
Offpage SEO:
Offpage SEO are strategies that are done off the page of a website to maximize it performance in the search engines for certain target keywords related to the page content.
These include:
Global link popularity:
It measures the amount of websites that are linked to your page. However, you need to know that the quantity is less important than the quality of the homepages link to your site.
"Search engines assume that if a website has many quality links it offers great content!"
Links from social networks:
In social networks the popularity of a certain website is defined by real people which signifies that their popularity is hart to manipulate. Out of this reason search engines trust popular websites and therefore you need to build a high amount of links in social networks to get a higher rank in search engines.
"Popular social networks are Del.icio.us, Facebook, Digg, Mister Wong"
Amount of visitors:
To check if a website is reliable, search engines may consult certain webservices to check the traffic of a website, Alexa.com, for instance. So, if a website has a high amount of visitors it probably offers a good content and is therefore higher ranked in seach engines.
Blogging:
In order to reach a high amount of visitors it is recommended to leave meaningful comments in popular blogs. However, do not try to spam every blog with senseless comments due to the fact that you will be kicked out and your post will be deleted!
Directory listing:
Try to submit your website in as many directories as possible in order to get quality backlinks!