SEO for Beginners: How to Get Started

Search Engine Optimization is a natural organic way to drive traffic to your site and direct your way onto the first page of the top search engines. It's a method that has been used for years before paid advertising became popular. When people are searching for something, they are more attentive to the natural results than the paid advertising on the far right which is why SEO is essential. So, here's the rundown on SEO and all you need to know to reach to the top of the search engines.

About 70% to 80% of website traffic usually comes from search engines. It is highly important to rank high on the search engines because most people don't look beyond the first two pages and if your website is not seen there, then you are probably only receiving 25% to 35% of fair traffic and sales. What helps to bring in more traffic is having content that is relevant and important. What brings in relevance is your choice of keywords. What brings in importance is the amount of quality links to your site.

Search engines use spiders to analyze your site, and they look for keywords which tell them where to place your site on the search results. So keywords are the first step you need to consider when using SEO. Try and figure out what keywords your customers are looking for at search engines. When searching for keywords, look for words that are not single. Single words are too broad and competitive. Keyword phrases are more targeted and that's what you want. Wordtracker is a great keyword tool and a good place to start. Next, use these keywords frequently on your website and on your html code (html meta tags) because the more often you used these keywords, the more relevant your site would be to the search engines, and the more likely your site will come up with those keywords in the search results. So if your page contains 200 words, 2 or 3 of those words should be keywords totaling 2% to 3% density. You should consider using your keywords in links and in headings of your page.

Links to your site again tells search engines how important your site is. If they see that your website is important enough that several sites link to you, than it must be important enough for your site to rank high on the search engines. Obtaining links, backlinks or inbound links to your site is the #1 importance for ranking. So the more links you have, the higher the ranking. Make sure the links you use for your website are also important and high ranking. They should have at least a "4" Google page rank.

To generate links, you need a strategy. Start by adding your site to DMOZ and Yahoo Directories. Write articles. Article marketing is a great way to obtain backlinks to your site and create more traffic. Submit to local and industry directories. Look for link partners and link exchange with them. You can ask customers or suppliers to link with you. Look for relevant, high ranking sites to link with you by emailing them or calling them. You can also use an SEO program or software that looks for high ranking sites and emails the owners at once. It can save a great amount of time and energy.

Here's another tip. Submit your website to Google as soon as you register a domain name. Don't wait because you haven't built your site, thought of what content to write, or don't have a business or marketing plan together yet. Submit it right away and I am going to tell you two reasons why: First, it takes a long time to get indexed on the search engines. It takes months to get indexed, and even more months to get high rankings. So don't expect to rank high in the first couple of months of submitting your site. Second, whenever Google notice a new website, it keeps the equitable ranking of that site for a certain amount of time, so it can analyze and determine whether your site is genuine, plausible and is long term. It does this to filter out all the SPAM sites. So, Google "sandboxes" your website. You're establishing site history, by submitting your site early. By the time you have all your content together and developed, Google will have no reason to see you as SPAM.

To succeed with SEO, utilize these techniques and overtime you will receive a high ranking site in the top search engines with consistent traffic. Remember SEO is still alive on the internet.