What is search engine optimization? Well, just what it sounds
like, it's the process of optimizing your website for search
engines. There are thousands of companies out there that
"specialize" in SEO. For a fee (usually a LOT) they will
optimize your website for you. If you're paying one of these
companies, you're throwing away money! Don't believe me? Go to
your favorite search engine and search for "firefighter". Why
firefighter? Because that is the one keyword that we feel is
most important to this website, American-Firefighter.com Go
ahead, search. Here, we'll make it easy for you:
Click here to search Google for "firefighter". Click here to
search Yahoo for "firefighter". Click here to search MSN for
"firefighter". Click here to search Lycos for "firefighter".
Click here to search HotBot for "firefighter".
(we'd link to Overture, but you'd have to scroll through 30
something "sponsored listings" before you get anywhere!)
What do you think of our search rankings? We think they're
pretty good. How much did we pay to get these listings? NOTHING!
Wondering how we do it? The SEO companies don't want you to
know, but it's SO SIMPLE we just have to tell you!
STEP 1: CHOOSE your keyword(s)
Seems obvious, but a lot of people seem to overlook this. Choose
keywords that are most relevant to your website. If your website
is a content site, target keywords that relate to your targeted
audience. This website targets firefighters, so firefighter was
a logical keyword to target. If your target visitors are bus
drivers, then bus driver would be a good keyword? Get it? If
your site is commercial in nature, then your keywords should
match what you are selling. If you sell toothpaste, toothpaste
would be a good keyword. You don't need an SEO company to tell
you this.
STEP 2: USE your keyword(s)
Our keyword is firefighter, and the word firefighter is used
many times on virtually every page of this website (even this
one!). If your keywords are bus drivers, and bus drivers is
nowhere to be seen on your website, something is wrong. If you
sell toothpaste and the word toothpaste doesn't appear on your
website, someting is wrong. Again, you don't need an SEO company
to tell you this.
STEP 3: Get Linked
This part is different depending on if you have a content site
or a commercial site. For content sites you want to find similar
websites. Websites that target the same people that you do.
Don't think of them as competition, think of them as
partners...link partners. Arrange link exchanges with these
websites. Place a link to them, and in return ask them to place
a link to your site. Most search engines use spiders to crawl
the web, so the more similar sites they find that link to yours,
the better.
For commercial websites link exchanges aren't always the best
idea. Any other websites targeting the same visitors, ARE your
competition. You don't really want to send your visitors to your
competition. One idea is to arrange link exchanges with content
sites. We have links to many commercial websites on
American-Firefighter.com that we have posted in exchange for
those sites placing links to our site. The second option is to
advertise. Find large scale content websites to advertise with.
This part can be a little tricky. Many content websites are so
saturated with advertisements, and their prices are so high it
hardly seems worth it. If you can't find a good content site to
advertise on, we recommend Google AdWords:
http://adwords.google.com Not only will your ad be shown on the
biggest and best search engine on the web, but you can also have
your ad shown on thousands of AdSense publisher websites,
content websites that show contextual text ads served up by
Google.
STEP 4: Don't Cheat!
Using doorway pages, hidden links, dynamically generated pages
full of garbage, or any other sneaky tactic won't help, in fact
it will usually hurt your websites success. Many search engines
will ban your website if they find such tactics, and when a
visitor sees such tactics, they will lose all faith in your
website. A website with no visitors isn't much of a website.
Believe it or not, that's it! We have followed these four steps
and have great search engine rankings on nearly every major
search engine...and we didn't pay thousands of dollars to get
there!
http://www.american-firefighter.com
About the author:
Lee Weaver is a volunteer firefighter/emt and builds firefighter
interest websites in his spare time.
