Search Engine Marketing For The Beginner! 7 Bare-Bone SEO Basics!

#1: Narrow down your list of keyword phrases to 3-4. Make sure they are highly targeted keyword phrases for your business. These are the keywords you think people would search for in Google, Yahoo or MSN (the major search engines).

For example if you sell auto parts, your keyword phrase would be auto parts in New York and not just auto parts.

When people search for your site, they search for targeted phrases, and not just keywords these days! This is great news, because it is incredibly hard to get the ranking 1-10 for one keyword!

#2: After you have chosen your phrase, check it. Yes. Search for those words in Google, Yahoo and MSN (these are the big guys). If your keywords are extremely popular, you may want to rework your phrases. Targeting a keyword that is not highly sought after could lead to big profits in niche markets. I had a small business that did very well with the keyword “vegan baby.”

#3: You’ll want to look at your ‘tags’ or have your web designer look at them. This is what you or your designer is looking for. These tags include meta tags, title, header and anchor tags. They look like this ---

<title><h1><h2><h3><a href=…> in your code. The tags are html code that lists the different words in relation to your product on the web page. Make sure you include your keywords in these tags.

#4: Content is King! Write often and update often. Search engines love new information. Write normally and filter in keywords when appropriate.

#5: Incoming links! This is also called link popularity. Other sites linking to you are a great way to increase your popularity and improve your website’s ranking.

#6: Outbound links! Links to other sites are important, too. Be careful to not confuse your reader; put them where appropriate.

#7: I really like this free tool for evaluation. Give it try. http://www.freewebsubmission.com/web-page-analyzer.html

Of course there are other things you can do to help your rankings, but these are the big ones. Good luck.

Jen Blackert, Client Attraction Marketing Coach, is a results-driven marketing strategist that teaches entrepreneurs how to attract all the clients they need. Her methods are based on the universal laws of attraction. Visit her website at http://www.jenblackert.com and her marketing podcast at http://www.insightsintomarketing.com

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