Talking about SEO and the art of creating a website or web community which is search engine-friendly, there are some basics that people usually forget. I listed them in seven action-points during a conference I recently addressed in Madrid, Spain:
- Search engines are key. Some figures:
- 85% of all website traffic is driven by search engines.
- 42 % of users click on the no.1 result.
- For the under-40 age-group, the Internet will become the most used media en the next 2-3 years.
- You can only get a high ranking if your content is seen as relevant by the search engines. To get a high ranking there are three main steps:
1. Have lots of content on your site and add more regularly
2. Use the right words and phrases on your website
3. Get lots of relevant sites to link to yours. Links to your site tell the search engines how important your site is. The more links you
have to your site from other sites, the better your ranking.
- When designing your site, keep in mind the importance of structuring it properly and using the right words in your HTML code.
- Some links to your site from other sites are better than other. Pursue those links that come from credible, important and legitimate sites.
Avoid all the time auto-generation software and sites set up by webmaster or fraudulent advertisers to host links to their other sites -this is called cross-linking. Google clearly states that will penalize you by lowering your ranking or blacklisting it.
Never create websites which serve no useful purpose other than to boost the ranking of some other site. Google gets angry with these SPAM websites.
- Check where your competitors' links are coming, and learn from them.
- One of the fastest way to get lots of links is to write helpful articles and let other webmaster publish them for free in exchange for a link. It is called article PR.
However, you must know that getting a high search engine ranking takes a long time.
- Be wary of SEO companies that promise or guarantee results in a given timeframe, especially if they don't explain what are their methods for generating links.
(More on SEO at amigot.com/seo)
