SEO for you and me

What is SEO ?

SEO is the key to unlocking your website’s full potential. Google handles over 200 million internet search requests each day, and people who search for information clearly express what they want. Imagine capturing a relevant stream of such web traffic.That would mean that you are able to drive hordes of interested and potentially loyal folks to you website . That is the purpose of the existence of any website , to get traffic . So , it pays to get various search engines to sit up and notice your website and consequently , you ! SEO is the fine process of Search Engine Optimization of a web site . It is a combination or Art , intuition , science and intellect . It is also one of the tingling buzzwords on the net now

So How do I do SEO ?

Depends on whether you are rich or like me , economically challenged !! If you are rich , then you could hire a SEO specialist and pay him through your nose and watch him work his magic and leave you Search Engine Optimized ! BTW , at the end of all this , don’t expect him to tell you what he did , he won’t , it is his bread and butter you know . He does not want one more competitor ! Or you could take my approach , do it yourself and learn on the way , that way your optimization is optimal and useful . It not such a big deal if you want to do it for your own website . There a few clear and simple things that you need do , it is all just logic and common sense based . Relatively uncomplicated .Without much ado , below are things that I did for SEO for both my websites .

Do it yourself SEO

1. SEO starts when you start thinking about having a website . It starts from what your domain name is and for how long you have that domain registered .Search Engines generally do not favor a domain that is registered for a short time or is about to expire , the problem there is that then you look like an fly-by-night spammer using a temp domain . Start with at least 2 years , if not 4 years
2. Your rankings will start low , accept that and try to work your way upward , no one gets Top Rank when they start .Another key here is to stick to a niche area . if you spread yourself thin , both the readers and the search engines will be lost on you .
3. Keep working on the content of the site , but that does not mean you will keep tweaking it too often , the search engine is like your mother-in-law , it takes time to get respect there ! Too many changes in too little time aren’t that good , use that time to actually add quality to content .Sticking to one look breeds familiarity and comfort and hence loyalty too .
4. Niche is good , but so is patience , after you set a topic , keep going , you will get there eventually , do not change tracks , that is a NO NO
5. Networking is king , remember , your ranking is directly influenced by the number of links that other sites have to you , more the merrier and the rank gets better
6. Be good to your readers , reply to comments , interact and engage them , build relationship on line that is symbiotic , if someone comments on your site , go return the favor
7. Be Twitter Savvy , that my dear bud , is the absolutely unbeatable platform to promote traffic to your website , but use your brain and do not keep tweeting the same thing again and again , remember that you need to have a following in twitter to leverage it and boring tweets don’t get you followers .
8. A very correctly formed and properly written Site Map is the key to SEO success , Google has specific requirements and please google them and stick to them
9. If you are a blogger , get affiliated to as many blogging platforms as possible , that is a nice way to get noticed and also to connect with like minded bloggers
10. Try going the extra mile , get guest posts and toons and light boxes , all the bells and whistles help
11. A nice idea is also to have a ‘Connect with me” set of links giving the user an option to connect with you on various networks that you are on , then you can start promoting your site in those platforms too
12. Tags are your friends , tag you blog , tag your posts , tag your tweets , tag everything that can be tagged and use a good tag provider like Technorati or Delicious to get noticed .

There my dear friends is all that I know about SEO , hope it is useful !

See you in the next !

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