How To – Free Search Engine Optimization Tips – SEO – Get Visitors!
Being new to the world of blogging, I’ve been stressing about how to get visitors. What good is having a site that I spend time and effort on if no one knows it exists? Of course, there are many ways to include word of mouth, comment on other blogs, newsletters, etc., but the way this article will focus on is called search engine optimization (or SEO). SEO is a big deal, and many companies pay their web designers big bucks to make their site stand out!
So what is search engine optimization? SEO is a method, or really an art, of discovering the inner workings of search engines (such as Google or Yahoo!) so that we can understand what exactly to do with our site so that it appears on the top of search engines. .
For example, let’s say we go to Google and search for “SEO.” Google returns, as of today, 248 MILLION SEO results. Number one on the list for me is Wikipedia.org, followed shortly by many companies that offer search engine optimization services. These sites have spent countless dollars for programmers to optimize their site to achieve those rankings. But why waste your money when you can find plenty of sites online, like mine, that offer tips on how to do it yourself. So where do we start?
Before I begin, I should point out that visitors will not land on your site overnight. I have been up and running for about 2 weeks now and see around 4-5 visitors per day. In the last few days, I have started trying to get my site out there, but I wait at least a month or more before I start to see any real results. I should also point out that don’t give up. The number one reason that failing sites go downhill is because authors start to give up, which leads to fewer updates and eventually a complete disappearing act.
Web design– You want to thoroughly check your site for misspellings, code issues, or any other minor errors. You want your meta tags to be clean, with the right keywords for your site. Don’t flood your keywords with irrelevant words to try to build traffic. Search engines used to fall for that, but now they are much smarter.
study clothes: Take the time to study and learn as much as you can! If this is the only article you’ve ever read or will read, maybe you should pack your bags. SEO is a big deal, and if you want to be successful, you have to constantly try to improve, even if you think you have it down!
Includes a site map. Sitemaps are basically a page (it can be an .html file or an XML file, or whatever method you’ve found to work) that has a link to each page on your site. This allows search engine spiders (the term used for their software that “crawls” the web and indexes sites) to easily see every link on your site and get it all right the first time. http://www.xml-sitemaps.com provides a free and easy way to create sitemaps for your site.
Write understandable titles and descriptions on each page – This is very important. Why would a user click on a site that says “SEO Tips” and expect something different? Make sure all your page titles are related to the content included. Visitors will not want to come back if they are in a group of marketing schemes or whatever their flavor.
Take part – This is another very important factor. If you want to create a blog and have visitors visit your site, shouldn’t you visit other sites as well? This is the key to success. Visit sites, see what others are talking about – it might inspire you. And don’t forget to leave comments. Don’t leave comments like “Come to my site”, but try to leave real constructive comments. This will build your character and make web surfers more likely to visit your site.
Diversify your content – Having a site specializing in a single topic can be fun to maintain, especially if it’s something you enjoy doing, but what happens when people just aren’t interested in reading the same things over and over again? Try to mix it up a bit, talk about different things. It doesn’t have to be different every time, but keep in mind that readers like to read new content.
Media – I can’t really confirm if this helps or not, but I have read that YouTube videos on your site increase your site ranking. That being said, whether it boosts your rankings or not, the videos on your site help your visitors visualize what you’re trying to say, which makes them want to come back more!
get help – http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ is a great place to start if you have a new site. Google has spent time developing these tools to help you optimize your site. It will tell you detailed statistics about your site, including broken or missing links, code errors, links back to your site, and much, much more. Take advantage of these tools, they are there for you!
These are just some of the many tips that can be found on the Internet. “Google SEO Optimization Tips” is a great search to start, if you want to learn more.
Good luck and I hope we all see some traffic soon!