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The end goal of SEO is
to attract more Internet
traffic to, and increase
business generated
through your website.
Search engine
optimization is a
process that takes time
and effort. Knowing some
of the best SEO
practices and those to
avoid will empower you
to make the most
effective use of your
time and allow you to
reap the rewards for the
time you've spent
optimizing your
website.
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Do's:
Customize Your Site!
Creating a site that is rich with custom, unique content is perhaps the
most important aspect of a successful SEO campaign. Industry portals
(i.e. real estate, mortgage, etc.) offer you a website with a library of
provided, professionally written content, but there's one problem: it's
not unique.
Here are some tips for
personalizing your website:
Be specific. The more specific you are, the higher your
chances of being ranked at the top of a consumer’s specific search.
For example, there are millions of sites out there that talk about
“real estate”. If your content is that generic, you’ll be competing
with millions of other sites and you probably won’t ever get in the
top rankings like you need to be. The more specific and relevant
your content is, the better your chances for getting a top ranking.
Publish your specialties.
Include information such as coverage area, company history, and
industry experience.
Write from the consumer’s point of
view. It never hurts to claim something generic like "Central
Florida Real Estate" as your expertise, but you also need to list
the particular neighborhoods you work in. A consumer wouldn’t search
for “central Florida real estate” on a search engine. They would use
terms like “Celebration golf course homes”. While including generic
content won’t hurt your rankings, be sure to include the specific
hooks that appeal to the specific searches you want to be identified
with.
Write multiple pages of content.
Search engines index more than just your home page. So you
should use multiple pages to talk about several popular topics or
several of your farm areas. You should add information about local
news, schools, and shopping for each of your neighborhoods or
developments. You’ll reap the rewards by climbing the ranks in
multiple keyword searches.
Update your content often.
Search engines record how often your site is updated so they know
how "fresh" your content is. Try setting aside just 30 minutes each
week to update your site. It's really easy to do and you'll be glad
you did when you see your site climbing the search engine ladder.
Use keywords and phrases often.
Use them throughout the site. Do not try to overuse specific
keywords. Search engines may think you are attempting to trick their
spiders into giving your site undue rank. As long as you use those
keywords naturally throughout the web page, search engine spiders
will see those important terms and rank your site based upon them.
Birds of a Feather Flock Together
When searching for websites to create links to, look for those that are
from credible, authoritative sources. For instance, an appraiser in
Arizona might link to the Arizona Board of Appraisal website, or to The
Appraisal Foundation website, or a real estate agent with a page that
focuses on local information for families searching for homes in a
particular city might create a link to the local school board or
newspaper websites.
Additionally, when acquiring links, add them to your site over time.
Search engines might be suspicious of a website with a sudden boost in
its total number of links, as that is one of the telltale signs of
participation in link farms, which should be avoided (see SEO DON'Ts).
Update Your Site Regularly
Statistically, sites that are updated frequently tend to experience
better search engine ranking than those that aren't. An update doesn't
necessarily mean completely rewriting a page, either. Take a page from
our library of pre-written content, make a few easy customizations to it
and presto.
Don’t get taken by less-than-reputable
advisors
While some search engine marketing companies provide extremely valuable
services, there are many companies out there making false promises.
Watch for impossible guarantees and spend your Internet marketing
dollars wisely. For more information on this topic, click here.
DON'T's
Irrelevant or Excessive Keywords/META
Tags
Loading a page with excessive keywords is referred to as "stuffing," and
can have severe consequences for a website, as search engines view the
practice as an attempt to skew their search results. Due to the complex
and secretive nature of search engine ranking algorithms, and the
frequency at which they're updated, knowing exactly how much is too much
is an impossibility. However, trial and error observations have given
the SEO community some insight into the effective use of keywords.
When selecting keywords for a web page, choose several key terms and
phrases that are relevant to the content of that page. For instance, if
you create a web page dealing with homes in San Francisco, your list of
keywords might be San Francisco homes, real estate, homes for sale,
homes in San Francisco, and San Francisco property listings. There are
also many online resources to help you acquire a list of solid keywords.
After selecting your keywords, use those same words and phrases
throughout the page content in a way that is natural and easy to read.
Search engines will recognize that the keywords are relevant to the page
content, which will provide the best SEO results.
Repeated Direct Submissions to Search
Engines
The rate at which search engine spiders crawl and index websites has
increased substantially over the last several years, almost negating the
need to directly submit websites to search engines. However, search
engines still provide direct submission as an option. If you choose to
submit your Website to a search engine, avoid doing so repeatedly. Once
a search engine has indexed a website, it will continue to do so at
regular intervals to check for updates. Submitting a website to a search
engine repeatedly can result in that search engine banning the website
from its index.
Link Farms and FFA (Free For All)
Exchanges
As discussed above, links play an important role in SEO. As a result,
many websites, programs, and paid services have been created for people
to acquire and share links. These are known by many names – link farms,
link exchanges, and FFA's to name a few. While they may seem innocuous
at first, link farms and exchanges of all forms can severely impact a
website's SERP ranking.
Link farms are notorious for supplying a host of non-related, irrelevant
links, none of which are from industry leaders or credible information
hubs. Search engine spiders consider links that point to and from a
website within the context of that site. Links that are not relevant to
the content of a website will provide little or no benefit, and may in
fact lower the site's ranking.
Spamming and 'Black Hat' Techniques
The saying "it's better to be safe than sorry" rings especially true in
the world of SEO. There are many tactics that have been employed by
website owners in attempt to gain better search placement, only to be
classified as "spamming" tactics by search engines. Such tricks include
creating a page in which the content is nothing but irrelevant keywords,
or hiding keywords within the text by setting font color to match the
background. Others have created well-optimized web pages, directly
submitted those pages to search engines, and then changed the page
content entirely in attempt to have the new page content display on
non-related searches. Search engines are wise to such tricks, and often
ban offenders from their search index. Remember, search engines make
money by providing accurate and relevant results. Anything that
compromises the integrity of the search results will be rooted out
quickly.
Need more information on optimization?
If so, we recommend you use:
Get advise on everything from search engine
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