DIY Tutorial on Search Engine Optimization – Introduction to SEO

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(Part 1 of 3)

We all want traffic to our website because traffic turns into business! One of the most desirable ways to get traffic is from the Search Engines and with some thoughtful attention, you can get significantly more traffic to your site. That process is called Search Engine Optimization.

The topic of Search Engine Optimization can get really deep really quickly…and there’s a lot of debate over advanced tactics and nuance. The good news is, that there’s a lot you can do that’s simple and easy to optimize your site and get better Search Engine ranking.

The topic of Search Engine Optimization is such a critical part of online success, that I wanted to put together a tutorial that explains the key concepts a small business owner needs to understand in order to do basic, effective Search Engine Optimization to their site.

The Piggybank Websites that we design on the Joomla Content Management platform come ready for Do-It-Yourself Search Engine Optimization. With that ability and the guidance in this series of articles, you’ve got an excellent start to attracting significantly more traffic (and more qualified traffic) to your site.

This article is focused on proven, practical things that you can do right away to attract more traffic to your site, fast!

3 Things to know before you get started with SEO

1. Of all the Search Engines out there like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., Google is THE big player. When we look at the stats from all of our Customers, Google is responsible for about 80% of all Search Engine traffic. That means…FOCUS ON GOOGLE!
2. No one controls Google. You can’t buy a #1 ranking in Google. However, there’s a lot that we can do to influence how a site performs in Google. In fact, Google does an excellent job of telling us exactly how to do that.
3. Play nicely or suffer the consequences! In the world of Search Engine Optimization, there’s what’s called “White Hat” and “Black Hat” things you can do. The White Hat tactics are perfectly legit and Google encourages you to do those things. The Black Hat methods are trying to trick and manipulate the Search Engines and Google really doesn’t like that and invests a lot of money every year detecting the latest Black Hat methods and punishing those sites. We’re sticking with White Hat!

Does SEO'ing Work?

We’ve achieved many #1 rankings in Google and many more rankings in the top 5. For example, we own a web business called LadyBen…it’s now the world’s #1 website for buying and selling classic wood boats. However, that wasn’t the case when we took it over some years ago.

After several rounds of Search Engine Optimization, we achieved the coveted #1 place in Google and as a result get many times the traffic to the site than when we took it over (over 80,000 visitors a month with over 250,000 page views a month!). In fact, every month, Google sends us a cheque from our Google AdSense!

So, it does work and it is very worthwhile doing!

On Page and Off Page Optimization

When people think of Search Engine Optimization, they usually start to think of things that are done to the website like “putting in keywords”. That’s called “on page” optimization…all the things than can be done to your site.

However, On Page Optimization is only HALF the story. The other half is called “Off Page Optimization”: the things you do off of your website to influence your Search Rankings.

This tutorial will be looking at both On Page and Off Page factors. 

Part 2: How To Find & Use Your Most Popular Keywords