SEO is such a hot topic these days. How do you get your web site within the first page or two of the search engines? How do you increase your Google page rank?

There are companies who dedicate themselves full time to doing SEO at a pretty penny. Something a lot of people can’t necessarily afford to pay for or spend the time on.

However, there are some simple things you can do when building your site that will help increase your chances of having good results.

Continue reading 10 SEO Techniques All Top Web Sites Should Use

Go get Google’s SEO Starters Guide

This collection of 50 must read web design for ROI, usability and SEO articles also embraces the philosophy behind designing websites for the ROI of it not the looks. It contains a few all time favorites from the early days of the web which still are true as well as mostly current cutting edge articles and resources.

Continue reading 50+ Must Read Web Design for ROI, Usability and SEO Articles

The Internet Marketer’s Handbook was compiled by Danny Dover and is the result of literally hundreds of hours of study and practice in internet marketing and search engine optimization techniques. The information below represents the web’s best resources and tools. All of the items listed below are available to the general public and most are free of charge. Enjoy!

Visit The Internet Marketing Handbook

As a web designer or developer building a site, it’s helpful to first scout similar websites (i.e. the competition) to help you make design and development decisions. Knowing what websites work and which ones tank can give you insights and inspiration on what design elements, website features, and website content is effective.

To help you in your analysis, here are 15 top-notch, free, and simple web tools to help you learn more about a particular website.

Continue reading 15 Tools for Monitoring a Website’s Popularity

http://web2.0awards.org/

A great opportunity to learn about some outstanding web sites and web tools. Be sure to check these sites out, you’ll learn so much about the latest web technologies.

This in-depth article should really help people who use WordPress as a blogging tool with their search engine optimization plan. This weekend I plan to review my blog and incorporate all of Lorelle’s suggestions. Even though there is a lot of information for WordPress users, this article is excellent for anyone who is building/promoting a web site.

I would like to thank Lorelle, she visits this site often, comments on posts, and offers advice and tips to students in this program. She is a great supporter of this class and her contributions are appreciated! Lorelle also reviewed this blog and posted links to her favorite articles.

Support and guidance from experts and members of industry is needed and greatly appreciated. Thank you!

wordpress, search engine optimization, promotion, advertising, marketing, web development

1. Use standards compliant, accessible XHTML or HTML code. Avoid using presentation tags/styling within the XHTML/HTML files. Presentation should be controlled with an external CSS file.

2. Concentrate on getting your site listed in the following search systems:

1. http://www.google.com
2. http://www.yahoo.com
3. http://www.askjeeves.com
4. http://www.dmoz.org
5. http://search.msn.com

You can learn more about getting listed at these sites @ Search Engine Watch’s article Major Search Engines and Directories.

3. Brainstorm for a list of keywords for your site before you start building the site and writing the content. Keywords are used by search engines to index your site. Keywords should be used in the title, pages names, content, headings, links, alt and title tags, and meta tags. Important keywords should be at the top of the page, in the title, and the heading tags. Keywords can also be bolded or italicized, or added to bulleted lists. Tools like Google’s AdWord’s Keyword Tool can be useful for brainstorming keywords for your site’s content. Look at your competition’s keywords, use singular and plural forms of the words and you may want to use obvious spelling mistakes in your keywords.

4. Get people to link to your site. When sites that are already indexed link to your site, your site will be spidered by the search engines and indexed as well. When someone links to your site ask them to use “keywords” in their links. Text links should be descriptive and contain keywords; avoid using links like “click here”. Search engines use the text in links for indexing, text links are very important. Comment in blogs, leaving your URL when requested.

5. Content is king when it comes to search engine placement. Focus on writing excellent content. A page that relies on images or Flash may not index well. If you are using images, use keywords in the alt tags to describe the image.

6. If you are building a site for a local business be sure to use geographic keywords to identify where your business is located For example, “bay area” “conta costa county”, “california”, “pleasant hill”, “east bay”, etc. are all keywords that I use for the web design class site.

7. If you are setting up a blog, use Technorati ta

You may also be interested in browsing highrankings.com forums. This is a forum devoted to search engine optimization. This is an active forum with wonderful advice and resources. While you’re there be sure to check out the rest of the high rankings site for even more useful articles, newsletters, and information.

You may also find the discussions at Search Engine Forums, SEO Chat, and Search Guild helpful.

You should see some common themes in all of the articles below:

1. Content is easy to read and rich with keywords.
2. Pages should use valid XHTML and CSS – Presentation and scripts should be in external files.
3. Make your pages accessible – use alt and title tags appropriately, don’t overuse images, avoid splash pages, use headings appropriately.
4. Page size should be small.

Using XHTML/CSS for an Effective SEO Campaign – While this article may seem “dated” (2003) it’s not. The article outlines good coding practices with XHTML and CSS and how these practices will help you with search engine placement.

High Accessibility Is Effective Search Engine Optimization – designing accessible sites not only benefits disabilites; search engines favor highly accessible web sites.

26 steps to 15k a Day – read, print, and paste on your monitor. These are easy to understand and follow steps to improve your site’s performance in search engines.

Top 5 Myths to Achieving High Search Engine Rankings -this page includes the top “myths” of search engine optimization, as well as, five steps for better search engine placement. This article provides information on researching keywords.

Getting To Done: SEO Made Easy – like the title says, easy search engine optimization tips

Search Engine Ranking Factors – a large list of the factors that can influence a web document’s rank at the major search engines (Yahoo!, MSN, Google & AskJeeves) for a particular term or phrase.

Search Engine Watch – articles, tips, forums, links and resources that pertain to search engines.

Keyword Suggestion Tool – unsure of what keywords to use in your titles, headings, and content? Try this keyword suggestion tool.

A few free sites that you should work to get listed in:

1. Open Directory Project – provides the “backbone” directory for many search engines like AOL.
2. Google – the most popular search engine.
3. MSN – Microsoft’s search engine.
4. Yahoo How to Suggest Your Site – says in a tiny voice “good luck”.
5. Search Engine Submission Tips – search engine submission, placement and marketing issues. It explains how search engines find and rank web pages, with an emphasis on what webmasters can do to improve their search engine rankings by properly submitting, using better page design, HTML meta tags, and other tips. This portion of search engine watch lists specifics about each search engine; it’s especially useful if you want to find out how to get listed with specific search engines.