Basic SEO Tutorial

[intelliot]

Here's a good outline for those new to the SEO scene.

Jacob Schlottke
2004-07-06

Starting out, the two biggest keys to success in the search engines (Yahoo, Google, MSN, etc.) are content and incoming links. People argue about which plays the largest role, but I just suggest doing your best at both.

Content

You should focus on having articles, tips, and other suggestions about your products.

Ask your customers for testimonials (a quick, easy way to get testimonials is to offer a discount on their next order from your company... This may seem unprofessional, however, someone who doesn't like your company won't write a testimonial, no matter what you offer them)

Indepthly describe your products- using keywords that will help maximize your page rank. (Digitalpoint has some excellent tools, one includes a search term finder: http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

You should try to create a couple other related websites that offer information on your products. (If you are selling baseball equipment, create a site that talks about proper baseball techniques; batting, pitching, youth baseball, etc. and create another site that discusses how to choose your gear, what prices are right.

Bring your competition into some articles. Discuss why your price is better, why you offer better service than them, and how you plan on creating a better buying experience for them.

Linking

Now you have content, your site looks great... But...Where is the traffic? I suggest holding off on submitting your site to the search engines until you have atleast 4-5 really good incoming links. Sites that have a pagerank http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords (click the backlinks tab once you've signed up for a free account) This will show you the sites that are currently linking, your sites page rank, and other useful things.

Add your URL to signature files in; your emails, your forum posts, anything else you use a signature file for!

Go to google.com and yahoo.com and run a search for related words to you product. (i.e. "baseball equipment" + "add url") this will find websites that allow you to submit your link to them.. They are generally free submission directories that can help increase your PR.

Don't join linking farms... You'll find they are more harm than good.

About the Author:
Jacob is the manager of a small SEO firm in Minneapolis Minnesota. He also runs several small companies that sell products online.

http://seo.pcdestiny.com

[cvrk3]

Hello
thanks for the informative angle. more such tips are welcome.

cvrk

[tntcheats]

High quality content draws links towards it. You shouldn't forget to exchange links either though.

You should also be careful with your link in Forums. Some forums have high PR and will show up higher in search engines because they have your link on them. And you don't want people searching for your website design company name and seeing you asking newbie questions from a forum way back when, or asking a complex question now.

[schlottke]

Nice post Glad I did a search to see who posted this article, nice site!

[clasione]

Originally Posted by tntcheats

High quality content draws links towards it. You shouldn't forget to exchange links either though.

You should also be careful with your link in Forums. Some forums have high PR and will show up higher in search engines because they have your link on them. And you don't want people searching for your website design company name and seeing you asking newbie questions from a forum way back when, or asking a complex question now.

that's actually a very good point.....

People don't think about it too much - but that exact thing happens often....

[seobook]

Originally Posted by tntcheats

High quality content draws links towards it.

when inside the marketing field it is hard to get links based on content quality until after you have established brand. in my sites outside of the marketing field link getting was much easier though.

Originally Posted by tntcheats

You should also be careful with your link in Forums. Some forums have high PR and will show up higher in search engines because they have your link on them. And you don't want people searching for your website design company name and seeing you asking newbie questions from a forum way back when, or asking a complex question now.

I really doubt asking complex questions is going to hurt you much. I mean you are not worth much to the client unless you know what you are doing, and you don't do that without asking questions.

As far as simple questions for sig links it is usually just as easy to answer an unaswered question.

[DaMoUsYs]

great thanks for the tips

[Anonymous]

Nice.

[lifeoncampus]

You should also be careful with your link in Forums. Some forums have high PR and will show up higher in search engines because they have your link on them. And you don't want people searching for your website design company name and seeing you asking newbie questions from a forum way back when, or asking a complex question now.

So does that mean I should change my sig? I noticed my rank moved down in google recently. I'm not sure why, but I know http://www.ratemyprofessors.com is VERY high in google, but they don't have much content on the main page. Why's that? I do know they have 1000's of people linking to their site.

How do sites get so big? It seems they've been big forever. Do small guys like me have a chance?

[Anonymous]

anchor text is the main reason they are showing up well.. take for example the search, "visiondirect" on google. The #1 site (above visiondirect.com) doesnt have the exact phrase anywhere on the site- its all in the links.