Simple SEO How To

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I always see the same question over and over in the forums. I just answered this question today on Warrior, and thought I should add it here for completeness.

Question: I am new to internet marketing, and I want to know how to get my new web page to rank in Google.

Answer: This is a big question. Here is the "simple" way to think about it.

There are 2 things to consider -- on-page SEO and off-page SEO. On-page factors are factors like the title of the page, the headings, the keyword density, related content, etc.

Off-page SEO really means how many pages of authority are linking back to you. Think of these as votes of for your site.

So, here is what you might do (simple rules):

Make sure your keywords are in your page title tag
Make sure your keywords are in your heading (H1) tags
Make sure your keywords appear on the page
Get sites to link back to your pages using your keywords as the anchor text (the part that you click on).
Make sure your description tag (this is the text that shows up in Google) includes your keywords and calls people to action. The description SELLS your page to people.

Remember, you are not competing with Google. You are competing with your competition on the search engine results page. Look at what they are doing and do it better.

If you do all of that, you will be off to a good start.

Best regards,
Mark

"Mark, I loved this!"

Please let me know when there is more cool content..

Susan Gertz

This may sound ridiculous, but I am not sure what my keywords are. I know that "dogs" is part of it, but that is too broad. Something like "dog art" maybe, or "custom dog art"? How to I decide?

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Mark Mason

I missed this comment -- sorry about that.

Not ridiculous at all. You need to decide what you want them to be. What SINGLE action do you want visitors to take? Do you want them to sign up for your newsletter? Do you want them to click through to your affiliate offer? Do you want them to buy your product?

Based on that, think about your searcher. What keywords are the best match for the outcome that you want?

In your case, you might want to look at the google keyword tool and see what people are searching for.

A quick look shows....

dog pictures
funny dog pictures
cut dog pictures
bulldog pictures
dog portraits
dog art

Don Crame

You Said "This is a big question. Here is the "simple" way to think about it."
but you you covered it all, as always great content, these are snippits of valuable info to anyone starting out. keep them coming.

Thanks very much.

Joe

mark you say...

Make sure your keywords are in your heading (H1) tags

if you are using the h1 tag in firepow its hidden along with the h2? is this ok?

joe

Joe -- I have not looked at the H1/H2 handling in Firepow in about 6 months. Andrew released a plugin that does the right thing. Recommend that you use that.

I am not sure what you mean by "hidden"

Ron Lovell

This is great information, I always wondered what the key was. Will start making changes thanks to you.

I sort of forgot about this site -- reviving the case study is a great idea.

rajul kaushik

Hey Mark,
Your themes are really good, neat and simple.
Thanks for the SEO tips. BTW: would you please take a look at the site in my sig below and advise if I have build the blogsite well enough?
Thank you.
Rajul

Patrik Berggren

Hi Mark,

good SEO is when You create pages with correct semantic, using h1 - h3, paragraphs, lists etc. Don't write explicitly for search engines, write for Your visitors. If the can get a clear view on WHAT the page is about looking at the title, the description (wich will show up in searchengines), and then using the h1 - h3, everyone have done what they can. Then it's all up to the "off-page", wich SHOULD be built naturally :)

Regards
/Patrik Berggren

Allan Schmidt

Spot on.

Thanks Allan.

Thanks Aaron. When I first started in Internet Marketing, I spent countless hours worrying about SEO details that do not matter for most of us. I will never get those hours back, but hopefully I can save some new people some time and energy.

Aaron at FullTiltBlogging.com

Great article Mark. Why don't more people listen to this advice? Just what you teach here will get most people to the front page of Google.

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