SEO Basics – Optimizing For People

NOTE: This article was written and published over a year ago in EZINE ARTICLES. Someone brought the article back to my attention, and I found that what I had written back then, which is like a hundred years  in internet years, is still as true today as it was then! I hope it helps.
-The Author-

With all the buzz about web 2.0, and social media, sometimes it is easy to lose site of what is basic to the Internet and it’s function. Sometimes I just need a checklist for making sure that I have covered the basics! When it comes to search engine optimizing, the basics sometimes seem pretty complex, and there are a lot of opinions on what the basics are. I have set up some elementary steps to this, by looking at SEO from a human standpoint. After all, we are trying to reach people. Even in a web 2.0 world dominated by social media, you need something to be social with. The search engines are a tool for helping people to find information, so optimizing for people should equal optimizing for search engines. This is my basic list:

Basic On Site Optimization.

1. What will potential visitors type into the search box to try to find a site like yours? Determining this will help you to determine what main ideas to present. You may know what they should type in to the box, but is that what they will type? Try to think like someone who doesn’t know as much about your subject as you do, but wants to know more. Think about what that person would look for. Knowing what they will likely search for will provide you with a list of keywords. Choose the top ten of these words and phrases.

Use these keywords in your meta keyword tag, no more than ten though. Use them in your title tag, which I now see as being the most important meta information. Write a description for the meta description tag, also using your main key word in it. Meta tags have become less relevant, but not completely irrelevant. The description tag is very often what the engines use to describe the sites content when it is displayed in a search. The title tag information will be displayed in the browser.

2. Put your keywords on the page, where they would naturally occur. Don’t over do it though. Use them naturally. If you are writing about your subject these words should automatically appear in the text where they belong. The information that you present should be relevant. This is what your site is all about, providing interesting, informative, helpful information to your visitors. That is what people are looking for.

3. Put your keywords in bold type at least once. Really, one time is enough, just do it, it really helps.

4. Add a link to a relevant, authoritative site. Some SEO people don’t agree with that, but it will help. A link to an informative and authoritative .gov, .edu, or .org site that has related information does several things. It brings your site to life. A site with no links is dead! It shows that you are serious about providing information to your visitors.

5. Link internally from one page to another on your site. Try to make it easy for your visitors to get back to your home page, or any other page, from any page on your site.

One of the things you may have noticed is that every feature here is for the benefit of the visitors. Internal links help them navigate. Off site links are to provide them with more information. Key words and keyword meta descriptions, and title tags, are there so that the search engines can learn what your site is about, so that they can give good search results to your visitors. Your domain name is the address that your visitors use to find you. Since the search engines are serving information for visitors, and your site is optimized for visitors, the search engines will reward you with better placement and more visitors.

Basic Off Site SEO.

What we are talking about is the old custom of hospitality. Where I live, it is not just a custom, it is a lifestyle. A code we live by. The same should be true on the world wide web. Don’t break that code by buying links for the sake of page rank. That is like buying votes, or influence peddling. It tells a lie to the search engines, that your site is more important than it is, and therefore causes them to serve the user bad results. Just don’t do it, and don’t deal with an SEO firm that does it. It is really bad manners, and it can get you banned from the major search engines.

In place of that diabolical tactic, there is a tried and true way to accomplish something even better.

If you have done the on site optimizing well, you are on your way, but not finished. There are things you should do off site that will help to get your site noticed by the search engines and potential visitors.

1. Write articles for blogs and ezines on your area of expertise, or have someone write your articles for you. Then publish these, with your url in the authors bio and resource boxes, embedded, on an e magazine. This will give you a link back to your site from a well placed site. Some sites use the nofollow tag, so you may not get page rank help from such sites, but you are getting links where the readers will find you and link to your site. Other publishers will use your article, and your link will be on their site as well. More people will see the article on their site, and provide more links. You are not only gaining page rank and increasing back links, but also good advertisement and exposure all for the cost of the domain, the hosting, and your efforts. The more of these you do, the more exposure and links you will get. You are providing a meaningful service to your visitors. Search engines love it, so do visitors to your site.

2. Build a blog, and write for it regularly. Link it to your site. Other people will discover it and link to it and your site as well. This is a great way to increase your Internet presence, and to help others.

3. Go to forums and post your answers to peoples questions. Places like “Yahoo Answers,” will give you an opportunity to help other people, and help yourself by becoming established as an expert in your field.

This Is what I consider to be basic SEO. There are many other factors, but this is what seems to work for me. There is really only one basic rule, and that is to make your site people friendly! Everything else seems to fall in place.