Business Marketing and Technology

If you never try any other SEO methods, at LEAST put these to use.

Most of us don’t have the time to implement every Search Engine Optimization technique we come across, and that is where this list comes in.  These are the most effective SEO methods for todays search engine algorithms.   Implementing these SEO techniques alone will do wonders for your website - you’ll wonder why you didn’t do them sooner.

1. Put your keywords in your <title> tag. Make sure each page has a relevent and unique title, emphasizing the keywords that are on that page.  The title is what comes up larger on a page of search results, so make it count.

2. Get your keywords in your inbound links.   If another page is pointing at you, whatever text is part of that link goes to your credit in the eyes of the search engines.  If your blogger friend has a link to your website on his, it probably says ‘check out Joe’s business.’  Tryto get him to put ‘auto mechanic’ or ‘car repair’ as the link, or at least ‘Joe’s Auto Repair’ - your business name.

3.  Have Unique Content and Update Often.  Add something to the Internet.  Become a resource for potential clients and those in your industry.  If you get more page views and clicks through a search engine, the search engine will value your site higher.  As a side benefit, you are seen as an expert in the community, which never hurts business. 

4.  Put your Keywords in your Filenames.  Instead of titling your Auto Repair Services page ‘arserv.html’ or another shorthand title, use long, descriptive filenames like ‘car-auto-repair-services.html.’  This is a great technique that is easy to implement and yields great results.

5. Submit your XML Sitemap to Google.  It can be a pain to create this formatted index of pages for your site, but it works very well for getting Google to crawl your site sooner, and find more of your pages.

6. Get Backlinks, Especially from Good Sites.  This can be tricky to do, but search engines like sites that are linked to by other good sites.  One way to implement this is to become an expert advisor on a frequented forum, where you solve problems and answer questions for newbies in your field of expertise.  You can put a link to your company in your posting signature.  You can even have an employee do this on their downtime.  Search engines also value links from .edu and .gov sites more, so if you have connections, use them!

7. Keep your Keyword Density Between 3-7%.  When you’re writing all that great, unique content, make sure to seed your keywords and phrases in there so that they comprise 3-7% of the text on a page.  Any more, and you look like you’re keyword stuffing (whether you’re trying to or not), any less, and the page doesn’t seem relevant.

8. Use your Keywords in your Headings. Many times a section heading can be too specific for a search engine, so always make sure to fill your <h1> and <h2> tags with important keywords.  Don’t leave them out or treat them as ‘implied’ - that’s the worst thing you can do.

Hope these help you get that much closer to the coveted #1 spot for your keywords.  If you’d like to talk more about implementing these for your business, let me know by emailing me: tony@vanivo.com and we can take a look at it together.

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Tony Kau is co-founder of Portland web design and Internet marketing company Vanivo.  For service inquiries, you can contact him directly at tony -at- vanivo.com.

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Tony Kau internet marketing, keywords, Search Engine Optimization, seo, web design, website