Search Engine Optimization Simplified

By Ricz Sabido On July 11, 2009 Under Search Engine Optimization

Traffic generation is the lifeline of your online business. No traffic = no sales. There are several ways to get traffic to your site, most of which are free, and some of which are paid.

If you’re just new on marketing through the internet, chances are, you don’t have that much money to spare for advertising. Worry not, there are a lot of ways to get free highly targeted traffic to your site. It won’t cost you money, but it will cost you time.

Getting Free Traffic Using Search Engine Optimization

When it comes to free traffic, nothing is more targeted than ranking well in search engines for your specific keyword/s. Optimizing your site to rank well in Google or other search engines (commonly known as SEO – Search Engine Optimization) is one of the best and most effective way to get free traffic automatically.

Your aim should not only be at the top 10 of the 1st page but to be the number 1 on your specified keyword/s. A study done by Cornell University last 2006 shows that over 50% of clicks go to the top 1 listing.

distribution-clicks-serps

The immediate advantage is that the sites which are at the top of the list get the most and highly targeted traffic.

Search Engine Ranking Factors

The truth is, no one knows how many factors the search engines have to compute for the rankings. Google measures rank based on a really large number of factors (we’re talking about over 100 total factors here…)

Having a knowledge of these factors and their estimated weight will help your pages to always rank well and get targeted free traffic.

On page ranking factors:

Title Tag Usage
Meta Tags
H1-H6 Tags
Body Text
Domain names
And Many More…

This list is only a fraction of what you need to optimize on your web page for it to rank well. However, keep in mind that on page factors only contribute to a small portion (around 20-30%) of the actual rank.

Internet Search Engines Secrets

The truth is, Google cannot tell exactly what your website’s content is all about and which content should be ranked the highest. Remember, Google is only a program – a system based on computer algorithms. Now how can Google tell who should rank first? This is through recommendations from other websites which is better known as links.

The internet is one big popularity contest. Hide out and do nothing, and no one will notice you. Socialize and hang around with others, participate and get known, then there’s a bigger chance that Google will notice you as well.

It’s All About Keywords!

Search engines rank content based on keywords. You should write content and structure pages to target keywords. Successful search engine optimization strategies are structured around keywords.

If website rank depends on links then keyword specific rank depends on keyword specific links.

Today, it’s not enough to just have more links as Google is looking for a lot of criteria such as: how popular are your links, how old are they, your link’s growth rate, link anchor text, and so on…

The Art Of Keyword Linking For Search Engine Optimization

The secret: Focus on the quality of your links and not on the quantity. Build your links by getting links from websites which are:

On the same niche and topic as yours
Attracts high volume of traffic
Widely referenced and well known
Considered as an authority site by Google

Anchor Text

Effective links will be links pointing to your website using the keyword/s or phrase you want to rank well for as the anchor text. For example, if I want to link to my site, RiczSabido.Com, instead of using “Click Here” or “Visit Website”, I would go for a keyword that I want to target like “making money online”. So instead of just RiczSabido.Com, the link should look like Free Making Money Online Tips.

Let’s say I would want this page to rank for the phrase “search engine optimization tips”. I would seek links from other sites and ask them to format it like this: <a href=”http://www.riczsabido.com/search-engine-optimization-simplified”> Search Engine Optimization Tips” </a>.

Winning The Search Engine Optimization Contest

Google analyzes the links pointing to your website and decides what it should rank for based on what website is linking to you and more importantly how they are linking to you. The site with the right links pointing to it using the proper keyword anchor text will stand the best chance of ranking for that keyword.

How you will get these links will determine how successful you will be at building rank for your keywords. There are several methods to get these kind of links. We’ll tackle that in the future.

For now, go out there, introduce yourself to the world wide web and get those links!