SEO Positioning Survival Guide
I read lots of blogs about SEO and am always interested in tips on SEO positioning. I also get newsletters about Internet marketing and search every day. Usually, I'm able to write about what I learn that's new and pass the information along to you. However, back in July, I read a great article in Axandra's newsletter, which I totally look for every single week and read every time I get it instantly. (If you haven't signed up, here's a link for you: http://easyseotricks.com/axandra.) Somehow, I was busy and the email got pushed to the bottom of my "ideas" folder. I'm resurrecting it today, and giving you my input on their 6 Things You Should Know about SEO .
Who doesn't want free, organic, targeted traffic? To get it, you need a solid strategy for SEO positioning for any web pages or blogs or whatever you want to rank for in the search engines. Here's a list of the six things you need to know:
- SEO doesn't work all that quickly.
Brad Fallon is fond of saying that, "SEO is a marathon, not a sprint," and it's a perfect analogy. Think about what you're doing — writing articles, blog posts, and press releases, getting backlinks from blog commenting, adding posts to a forum, and on and on. Aside from having a good on- page strategy, off-page factors are just as important. It takes time to build your reputation and when you do… it lasts a long, long time. If you continue to follow good practices for optimal SEO positioning, you'll be getting search engine love for.ever. Don't forget that. Everything you do has a cumulative effect.
- You need to refresh and update and include keywords you want to rank for on your pages
You really should begin preparing your pages with SEO positioning in mind. Keyword research should come FIRST so that you can set your pages up properly. Plus… you need to add new stuff. Spiders love new content, and that's part of the reason why blogs are so powerful. When you're constantly updating and using keywords that you've researched and want to rank for in your content, you're doing things right.
- Get valuable backlinks
Forget reciprocal linking. It has very little clout these days. Go for links back from other people's blogs. SEO Link Vine is amazing because you write an article and it goes out to be posted on other blogs in the cybersphere. Links back from unrelated sites (niche-centric, just not owned by the same person or people) has enormous power, especially if they carry a page rank higher than your own.
Also get backlinks from the places mentioned above: articles, press releases, blog commenting, forum posting, etc. Just be sure that you're getting links back from places that "do follow." Twitter links, for example, are fairly useless because they are "no follow" links. Spiders don't go to the pages linked and could care less where they're coming from. (To figure out who's following and not following, get the Firefox add-on "Search Status." It will highlight "no follow" links for you.)
- Diligent keyword research is imperative
I'm not sure why so many marketers are just frickin' lazy! Why would you not want to do what it takes to see your SEO positioning plan come to fruition? That starts with solid keyword research. New marketers are often unsure about how to do it properly, and shy away. That's understandable. And often, they just don't think it's all that important. It's HUGE! Find keywords that you can compete for, and you'll see your SEO results really soar.
- Be realistic
This goes back to the keyword research aspect of a good SEO positioning strategy. Don't try to compete for words like "golf" or "widescreen TV." I mean, if there are more than 1,000,000 pages for any keyword, you probably should shy away. Plus, if you see there are lots of "authority" sites listed in the top spots, you probably don't have much chance of beating them. Don't even try.
- Set goals
This also takes a bit of realism. You can't set a goal like, "I will be on page 1 of Google for dog training in the next 30 days." No! That won't work. Here's a much better goal: "I will write two articles a week and submit one to article directories and offer the other to a blogger in my niche as a guest post." Or what about, "I will comment on 5 blogs a day." Those goals are real, and anyone can meet them. It's important that you task yourself with specific items so that you are constantly moving your SEO positioning plan ahead.
If you're intrigued and don't quite know what to do… just go over to http://SpiderLanguage.com and get a solid SEO training background. I don't care if you just started out yesterday. This is training you really shouldn't ignore. Organic search engine traffic, which is totally free AND targeted is the best in the world, and who wants to tear everything apart later on down the road when you figure out that search traffic is the bomb? Don't waste time or money… come on over and I'll show you everything you need to know to have your site on the right track from day 1.
