SEO Basics

As with all information on the Internet, there is a lot of good advice out there but there is also a lot of bad. SEO advice is no exception. I have read too many times that websites can be designed to be fully optimized for the search engines. The problem with this statement is that things are constantly changing so it is impossible to perform a one-time optimization. One slight algorithm change and your effective SEO is suddenly useless. So you must be very wary of who you accept SEO advice from and you must constantly stay up-to-date if you are doing any of it yourself.

One way to ensure people abandon your website is by having images that are too large and take too long to load. As far as your images go, anything greater than 72 pixel resolution is unnecessary and will require too much time to load. An image file that is too large can be cumbersome on a broadband connection, imagine how slow it would be on dial-up.
Pictures improve the image of your website and they look good to the search engines too. You should use relevant images on your site whenever possible, as long as you use them in such a way that they load quickly and efficiently.

To make your website more appealing to look at it is important to have images. If you name your images and use proper alt text then the search engines will be able to find your images. When your images show up in the search engines that gives you another avenue of traffic.
Images, if used strategically, can make your website look better to your human visitors and to the search engines.

A really easy way to make your website look better to the search engines is by updating your old posts. Maybe you posted something a while back that someone sent you a correction to. Go back to that original post and put an amendment at the bottom and hit save.
This will show the search engines that even your old posts get freshened up once in a while.

Even if you think you know about the keywords that your customers use to find companies like yours, always, always do the keyword research! We've had several customers lately who came to us with their keyword lists and insisted that they already know how customers find them. Then, we did the research and found many more valuable, and higher traffic producing terms. So, always start with a clean slate and always, always do the keyword research!

One way to start building links and increasing your site's popularity is to get serious about your linking campaign.  An important aspect that many people neglect is keeping a database of linking information.  You'll want to keep track of things like general directories to submit to, themed directories, link partnerships to explore, and the biggie – PR or public relations.  This can include anything from press releases to quotes displayed on a webpage with a link back to your website.  This type of information will prove to be invaluable while you are stru Read more »