After reading the latest and greatest posts and news from the technology world today, it just occurred to me that most information about SEO is either too complex or too simple to do anyone any good. Why? Generally, most SEO information that is ‘out there’ on the Internets (a.k.a. – “series of tubes“) is enough to answer some general questions but not enough to be instructional.
Think about SEO like a race. The goal of SEO is to be ahead of your competitors in the search engine results page (SERPs). The most important aspect to understand when assessing your site’s search engine optimization strategy is who are you racing against and what are they driving. (I’m not a fan of engine talk and Nascar, but it makes a good analogy.) First place is first place. It doesn’t matter if you win by 2 feet or 2 miles.
In other words, if your competition is walking, you should jog. If they are jogging, ride a bike. If they are on a bike, use a motorcycle, etc. You only have to beat your competitors. This is vital! You only have to use enough effort to beat those in your ‘neighborhood’. Effort = time = money. Don’t use every trick in the book because it is usually not necessary to get to the top in your neighborhood. Stop looking at your site long enough to understand your competition. Know how they perform.
First things first – optimize the title tag using relevant, researched keywords. SEO 101 – Most people get someone to build their website and then they start looking for their site in Google. Most of the time, it’s not there. Why? Usually, no one has taken the time to optimize the title tags. If you never learn one other thing about SEO – understand this! If you do not optimize title tags, you will not rank well. Period. I have had phenomenal success with some sites simply by updating title tags. It’s the first step. Sometimes it is enough – it just depends on your competition. The title tag of your site should contain your most important keywords and should be no more than 60 characters in length. Also, change the title tag of each page in your website.
Some people would argue with me (many do!) but the second thing any website needs is inbound links. Other sites need to link to yours. And let me point out that “other sites” does NOT mean “any other site”. Start with a respected directory such as joeant or BOTW. If you have an extra $299 lying around (and your competition has already done so), get a link from the Yahoo directory.
There are many complexities that make SEO more and more difficult. Obviously, the better the competition, the better you must be. If you’re trying to sell viagra, you’ll have to do much more than change title tags. But most sites only need a little tweaking to make them perform well. To use the car analogy one more time – don’t spend tons of money buying a new car or replacing your engine when all you need is a tuneup. If you are in a niche field, optimize your title tags and see what a difference it makes!
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