How To Create and Implement a Basic SEO Plan
By Gabriele CramerKnebel
The reason why the words SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are found so often on the
internet is that this aspect of building your website⁄blog or your business is so important.
Without correct SEO techniques and implementation, your site will be lost among the hundreds
of millions of other sites out there. I always compare it to having an ad in the yellow pages,
only there are no page numbers and the ad is not alphabetized or categorized.
So how do the search engines find a site, and how do you get your website onto pages
one or two of the search engine results pages?
Firstly, SEO is not difficult, but it does involve following a set of rules. Google has
a wealth of information for webmasters, and in light of the February 2011 Google Panda
algorithm change, it is a good idea to read that information and abide by their rules.
Many websites suffered because of the algorithm change. Their webmasters thought they
could do it their way, and have been penalized for using underhanded tactics, and rightly so.
How SEO Works
SEO is fundamentally the way to get your website, product or service found when someone
enters a relevant search term into a browser. This is either a one-word search "keyword"
or a number of words "long-tail keyword" or keyword phrase.
SEO and keyword research go hand in hand, the trick is to use a number of these
keywords, the correct amount of times when you write your headers, article body and links
to other sites, and when you post pictures and videos. All these component parts of your
site should contain these little "hooks" that a search engine's web crawlers, called bots
or spiders can find.
Keyword Research
Keyword research should take time. If you are just building a one-time website, you can
use Google's free keyword tool, or if you intend to build a number of websites, it's a
good idea to invest in some software, such as Market Samurai or KeywordSpy. The technique
is the same whatever you choose to use, and we are assuming here that you have chosen to
build a niche website. You will have a considerably harder time if you have chosen to
build a site about an enormous, general subject such as shoes or cars.
If you go to Google keyword tool you will put in a word relevant to your product or
service and a list of choices will come back.You should sort them by monthly searches with
the highest at the top.
The numbers at the top of the list are generally huge, and not the keywords you should
aim for. Somewhere on that list you will see decreasing numbers for different related
words, and these are the ones you should aim for. It depends who you talk to, but searches
within the 30,000 down to 3,000-search range are good.
You can then go ahead and make your choices and build some articles and links around
those words.
Long-Tail Keywords
The same applies here, but with phrases you are going to have to be a little more
creative, especially when writing articles around these phrases. Some of them are going to
be difficult, as an example, 2900 people searched for the phrase (or long-tail keyword)
"kids make money online". That's not an impossible phrase to weave into an article, but in
a 500-word article, you will have to use that phrase at least 3-5 times and in links and
the heading of your article.
Site Content
Google's bots "read" your articles and look for your keywords, that way it knows where
to put you in its index. You can't use the keyword too often, or you will be penalized for
"keyword spamming". This is where the optimization comes in. As a rule of thumb, use your
keywords at 1% density throughout your article, in the header and in any links. If you
make a video or post a picture, use the keyword again as titles. Of course, the object of
writing articles is to help and inform the reader about your product, so it has to be
coherent - not simply written to please search engine bots!
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