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1. Stop Stabbing in the Dark -
Keyword Intelligence
Start 2008 with some intelligent keyword analysis. Find out what your
potential customers are searching for and create your keyword hit list.
Don't under estimate the value of long tail too - searchers are getting
smarter and relying on longer keyword phrases to filter out irrelevant
results.
2. Master Your Meta Data
Once you've got your keyword hit list, it's time to get your Meta data right
(the code optimization at the foundation of good SEO). When reviewing your
code, focus on the Meta elements that matter - "titles" and "descriptions"
are where you get your real ranking value. So commit early to reviewing all
your key web page's Meta tags - and avoid the usual pitfalls of keyword
competition between your pages or even worse - duplicate tags across pages.
3. Liven up Your Link Building
Yes, confusion and controversy has reigned supreme in the link discussion
over 2007, but one thing still remains - your links still drive your
ranking. So in 2008, seek some serious link love.
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Fee based links - there's still a
range of important links that come at a cost which provide valuable link
"juice" (e.g. Directories such as Yahoo!'s Directory). Whether we like
it or not, they charge a fee for the process of reviewing submitted
sites - and this scrutiny ensures the value of the listings and links.
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Free links - there are many ways to
get free relevant links back to your site, they just take time and
perseverance. Whether you contact site owners directly, create
affiliations with relevant industry groups, or create and post articles
on other sites - they're all valuable additions to your SEO plan.
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Earned links - there's nothing
better than earned links. If you provide unique information or resources
on your website that others find useful or relevant, then the links will
come. This sort of content not only helps from the purpose of drawing in
relevant links, but also helps establish your business as a serious
operator in the industry. Good examples of this content includes
glossaries, whitepapers, industry reports etc.
4. Commit to Creating Content
Top ranking is driven by fresh quality content. Whether you choose to create
the content on your site, or elsewhere with a link back - regularly created
relevant content keeps the search engine spiders crawling your website.
To start with, take your keyword hit list and give all your existing content
the once over. If you've got low keyword density (i.e. not many of your hit
list keywords are in your web page text), it's time to do some fresh copy
writing.
Once you've covered off the web page copy essentials, commit the rest of the
year to creating new content on your website. Even a couple of keyword rich
new pages per month will make a significant difference to smaller websites -
and there's no easier way to do this than with a blog (see: Embrace social
SEO below)
5. Understand Your SEO Successes with Analytics
I'm amazed at how many people are still measuring their success with
primitive hit counters or even worse, no analytics at all. Considering the
range of free services out there - if you're not using a half decent website
analytics service, then 2008 is the year to change! And more importantly -
understand the proper measures of your success.
Successful SEO isn't always going to equal more sales, so make sure to track
the right metrics such as rankings on your keyword hit list, and organic
traffic from search engines (yes most analytics services will show you this
metric).
6. Get Serious about Site Structure & Sitemaps
When was the last time you looked at your website structure? Website
elements such as URLs and navigation between pages can play a major role in
your SEO success. So use start of 2008 as a chance to review these site
structure elements to ensure they are reinforcing your SEO goals. (i.e. do
your URLs include relevant keywords, is there strong linkage between your
web pages, and is your Sitemap up to date - assuming you have one).
7. Get Social with Web 2.0 SEO
The last item on the SEO checklist for 2008 is the social web. It's one of
the greatest tools for SEO and as it generally costs no more than a bit of
your time on regular basis - it is a must if you're serious about your
rankings. There's a lot of social media to get lost in, so to focus your
initial strategies, get started with the following:
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Set-up your own blog: It's a simple
way to create new keyword rich and relevant content for your website and
relatively simple to integrate.
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Social bookmark all your content:
many social bookmark services (i.e. del.icio.us) get crawled by the
search engines and will provide some useful links back to your site.
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Engage in the Industry Conversations:
Make it a weekly ritual to visit your favorite industry blogs. Then on a
regular basis actually contribute to the conversations by adding
relevant useful comments. Engaging commenting not only builds your
profile, but can also provide valuable links back to your website.
Okay, so this is not the definitive list of
SEO strategies (that would be a much longer article), but as 2008 draws
rapidly closer, if you commit to at least all of the above on a regular
basis in 2008 - then you're sure to get much closer to your ranking goals.
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