December 16th, 2008 | SEO Quick Tips

Know what you want to be found for. You should know the top two or three terms that are most important to your Web site and have incorporated them into a 25-word description that doesn’t use marketing hype, which can then be submitted to human powered directories. You should also know a list of the top 10 to 100 terms you’d like to be found for and ensure that you have pages within your Web site with good, solid content for these terms to please the crawlers.

Research your search phrases. If you can, also check your referrer logs or other traffic tracking program to help you. If you don’t have referrer logs, install a traffic tracking program such as Web Trends Live on your site and let it gather stats for you for a couple of months before you decide on your search phrases. Check your rankings for the search phrases that you researched from WordTracker, or other search phrase research tools, as well as those from your traffic tracking program or referrer logs. I suggest this because you may find that you are already doing fairly well with some phrases and you may not want to mess with those.

Examine your internal link structure carefully. Even for large Web sites, to the extent that it is possible, you want every Web page linking to every other page. Complex linking structures will work to your disadvantage.

Generate lots of fresh, useful content. Keep your blatant marketing activities on economy drive (pardon the pun), be subtle about your promotion. People will notice, and will favor, less dumb hysteria, more openness, and honesty. Admit to mistakes if you make them (as you’re bound to), but don’t cringe and don’t give the impression of reacting self-assertive or self-deprecating for the heck of it. If you can, issue a newsletter of your own. Never mind if you only have yourself, your wife and your stepmother for subscribers - put it on site and submit it to the engines. They simply adore that sort of all-text stuff!

Search engine optimization in only one aspect of a well rounded promotion campaign. That campaign should slowly broaden into more traditional avenues. Search engines aren’t the formula for long term site success - it’s up to your site to produce repeat visitors.

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