Newbie 101 Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Guide
Helpful guide for new webmasters
Introduction:
Preparation for a healthy website
We all start out with plans with a great idea for a new website. We just know our site will be great, and of course we want our sites to be number one in the search engines. Many new site owners do not realize how hard it can be to gain your position out there in the Internet. As the the Internet expands and evolves, the Search Engines also have to evolve to keep up with all the new website's and techniques people are using today. Back in the good old days we could use a few keywords, and we were able to hold the top positions in the search index. However today things just are not that way anymore, and we have to work hard to keep up with our competition. It not only is about our relevant competition these days. There are so many website's out there today that we are bound to compete with non relevant sites just because of the fact of the massive amounts of website's today.
Some site owners are willing to work harder then others for their positions. If you are one of those patient webmasters that is willing to work hard by following the steps, rules, and tip found here you have a better chance at succeeding. Why would you want to take advice from me? What do I have to offer you? I will never promise or guarantee you anything, but what I can offer you is some tips that do work, but they only work if the person being the computer is serious and willing to do what it takes to make it out there today. As for me -- I am known for my ability to come up with quick ideas to brand and market a new or old website. In the graphic design world I am known to be a Creative Designer. I've used both of these skills throughout my career to help others design and promote their sites. Search Engine Optimization aims to increase the number of visitors to a web site from unpaid, organic search engine listings by improving rankings. This website is 100% organic.
The truth for new website owners
Nine out of Ten new website owners make this mistake
You decide to expand to the Internet and build a website, with the hopes that you will get super rich! The front doors of your brand new website are open, and you stand there with a smile as you're all ready for the flood of people that will be coming to your website. The day and weeks go by and you start to wonder what you did wrong. Read more below to find out more.
That is your first mistake You cannot build a beautiful awesome web site and expect immediate trust, and worth. If you are expecting one-hundred visitors in the first hour it will not happen and you surely will not see your website in the top search engine listings the next day. Your first week goes by and you realize you had two visitors, and you cannot find your website in the search engines. You feel like a complete failure, and you feel all the hard work was for nothing.
The reality of it all is this You will not see thousands of hits to your website, and you will not start making money right away. If it was that easy then everyone would be doing it. The people that are making the money and getting all the traffic are the people that fight everyday to keep their positions. When I say fight I do not mean they literally go out to attack you. They fight with cash, networking, scripts, and so much more. They will fight you just as hard as you're willing to fight them. Please hear me as I warn you --they will not allow anyone take their positions and traffic away from them without a powerful fight. They had to wait to get their positions and respect just like you will. Once you accept this and are willing to give it the time the site needs you will make it!
To sum up the mistakes that nine out of ten webmasters make is this. They give up! These three little words is the big secret to why people do not have success on the Internet. Those that stay in the pit to fight are the ones that will make it and you can quote me on this. TIME, Hard work, research, and following the rules is what makes a great website.
Are you going to give up or continue reading on to learn more?
Map out your ideas and research
Know what you want and go for it
Imagine where you and your website will be in three years? Imagine where it will be in five years? We all would like to be healthy, and wealthy in our future, but just like anything else it wont just happen if you don't work at it. If you have had a bad experience in the past with a website do not carry over those bad feelings this time around. Take a moment to think of where you would be today if you stuck with it after reading the information in this guide?
To get started get your ideas down on paper. You need to have unique quality information on your web pages, and lots of it. Write your ideas down and make sure you have a nice flow of helpful information. Consider whom you would like to link to by offering some quality links to other sites that are in the same subject(s) as the content within your website. Write about anything you love and have plenty of knowledge in, and remember there is always going to be a "newbie" out there so do not overlook writing for those that may be at a beginner level. Set up your website so that it is organized and has a nice flow to it. A successful website must stay organized and and have fresh content.
My advice is that you have some friends and family surf your web site and ask them to write down a few notes. These are the questions I would ask my preview team.
1. What was their first impression was of the site.2. What was the first thing you seen or read?
3. Where did your eyes tend to go on my page the most?
4. If you were to do a search for my web site and without knowing me what keyword or search phrase would you use to find me?
5. What area of my site did you dislike?
6. Was the information easy to read, and did it have a nice flow to it?
The feedback you receive will be very helpful to you, and we suggest you do this a few times a year until you get a good grip on what works and what doesn't. We have several areas within this website where we list some of the most important steps one must take to have a successful website. If you want the top five on Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and more it will take some research, time, and patience to read the advice below.
The simple three year plan
Time in years is nothing compared to what happens during those three years
I suggest the three year plan -- do not sit there and say "three years" is this woman nuts? The real question you should be asking is do I have what it takes to get through those three years? I'm not saying that it will take you three years to find success. You will find out this three year plan is the most important time for you as a new website owner. The next three years you will learn and do so much that you will have gained the control you need to be successful.
I believe in the three year rule because I've been there, and I've helped many others start their website's and watched them grow. Some of you will need that three years, and some of you will only need one year. Some people will become very successful in a few months, while others it will take a few years. Either way the three year plan is a set of goals, and if you're still in the game at the end then you have survived.
Set your goals for the three years. Do not set your goals to high because we do not want you to drop out early because you feel you failed. Set up realistic goals for you and the website.
The steps to get going are listed here.
- Purchase a hosting plan that will allow you to grow into your website. Did you know most hosting companies today offer you a free domain if you purchase their hosting packages? Stay away from long overdone domain names. Try sticking with .com if possible. See our page on domain extensions. Dreamhost Web Hosting Special for our visitors Up to $25.00 Off You must use our Promo Code Newbie 101
- Build a clean optimized search engine friendly website on a subject that you have knowledge in. Do not keyword spam or use any other black hat techniques.
- Become a registered user of Google webmaster tools. Follow their suggestions.
- Add new or updated content to your website often. Set a schedule and stick to it.
- Promote your website in a professional manner. Do not spam and leave trails of rotten breadcrumbs to your website. What this means is do not go forum and blog hopping and leave your URL everywhere. Be very careful on whom you affiliate yourself with.
- Sign up with Adsense when your website turns three months old. Do not sign up for this program until you have made sure you have a decent site started and if you do Google will appreciate it and accept you)
- Sign up with Google Analytics (if you haven't already) and add the javascript to every page on your website, and this will be the start your six week study. In the end of that six weeks look at what the analytic stats are showing you and work to fix any problems you see. Analytics are critical and you should research this feature heavily.
- Continue reading up on SEO while you tweak your website with some known web mastering tips. Find Affiliate programs that offer a product that your visitors will like. The main goal is to offer a nice site for your visitors. Simply offer them something that is 100% relevant to your sites purpose. Do not make the mistake of adding multiple affiliates to your website. Stick with one or two products that your visitors can truly use.
- By the end of the first year your domain has aged, and the Search Engines see you truly mean business, and because of this you will see more traffic. The income is likely still low, but in the end you made it through that year where most give up. Keep fighting and you'll see things pay off soon. You should have a good grip on what is working and what is not working for you.
- Continue to work on your website. You should now have a good understanding of the Google Webmaster tools, and should be fixing any issues showing as a negative on your website. Make sure you are listed in these top main Search Engines.
- It is the end of your second year, and you should be doing pretty good by now. You are now a website that the Search Engines like and will continue to watch you because you have gained their respect. Your visitors are growing daily and your meeting many new people via emails, other website's, blog's, and forums. The word is getting out about you and your website so it is time to really tighten up and get even more serious. Now is the time to make sure you have cleaned up any mistakes you've made with links and other relationships with non relevant website's. You're a serious website owner now so prove it to everyone!
- You hit your third year and now you are starting to see you really can make this work. It has been easier now as you do not have to put so much work into the site. You may even be making enough money to make a large car payment just from your Adsense alone --if not do not give up because you will.
- You may have gained PageRank and now you have other website owners emailing you to see how much you will charge them to add their link. This is something that can make or break you so be very careful on whom you accept links from. The goal is to stay relevant throughout the website and this includes whom you link to. I highly recommend you research more about accepting payment for advertisements to make sure you do not upset the Search Engines. Also be very careful about trusting actual pagerank's across other sites. See our report on Fake Page Ranks.
- You made it - you are a proven Webmaster and you are now way ahead of all those new webmasters that are out there just starting out. You have gained trust by your visitors, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and more. Now set your goals and aim for that sixth and seventh year. You will likely triple your stats and income by then. You will not believe how fast those three years go by when you're truly trying to build a helpful relevant and trustworthy website. BRAVO!
The important terminology
Terms you need to know in the site ownership world
1. What Is SEO The term SEO is a known term to most webmasters around the world as Search engine optimization. This usually is a task that is ran daily on multiple pages within a website with hopes of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
A webmasters SEO efforts usually include optimizing the sites inner coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing - spidering a site. The more unique content you add to a site helps make the site much more appealing to users. Another class of techniques, known as "Black Hat" SEO or spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing causes harm to the search listings, and the website that is using black hat techniques.
2. What is SERP A search engine results page, or SERP, is the search listing of website's you see when you do a search in a search engine. Example if you went to google.com and did a search for the term PSP Tubes you would see the results of your search in the SERP.
3. What is SEM The term SEM is known as Search Engine Marketing. This is simply also known as Internet Marketing which seeks out ways to promote website's by increasing their visibility in the Search Engine results pages (SERP's) tings, different from SEO which seeks to obtain better free search listings.
Meta Tags vs. Quality Content
Meta Tags which one is better?
Meta Tags vs. Quality Content: Which one is better? There use to be a major debate over SEO specialists for years and it was over meta tags vs. quality content. However, the search engines have changed and now most SEO's are living by the rule that quality content within your web pages is the winner hands down. My opinion is that each search engine will spider your site differently, and each will use your tags differently. Not all search engines use these tags, but there are some tags you must use if you truly want to be sure you have properly optimized your website so that people can find you in the search engines. I also agree with the site content comments, and I've already expressed here in this guide that relevant quality content is critical.
Here are the on page areas I would consider optimizing immediately.
First I would hit up the meta tags within my header. There are several meta tags today that are retired, but these below are still very critical in my opinion.
The "Title" tag is the critical tag. Google will index you based on this title so be very careful and name each page on your website different. Be sure you name the site so that it matches the web page content. Use your top keyword(s) within this tag. Some people will spam the title, but Google is smart and they can tell when you are spamming. Here is an example of my index page ... my title has several of my keywords, and it is actually the title of my site! <title>Michele's Paint Shop Newbie 101</title>
The "Description" tag also a critical tag to use. It is not required, but Google and other SE's will/may take this description and use it in their search engine result pages. Be sure to describe the web page contents by simply summing it up, and use a keyword or two in this description.<meta name="description" content="Newbie 101 web design and search engine optimization. " /> (note: I do try to cut out as many stop words as possible, but then again I still need to use some of them to keep the flow of my sentences going)
Now lets talk about your "Heading <h1>" tags which are known as <h1><h2><h3> and so on. When you write an article you typically give it a heading title and it generally is a few words to describe what the article or information is about. The search engines will consider this as "important text." Here is an example of a heading I've used on one of my pages. <h1>Which Meta Tags should you use?</h1> You can set the styles of your headings with CSS style sheets. Example my <h1> uses a bold larger black font, and my <h2> uses a bold, medium sized navy blue font. Whatever text you use between your heading tags it should be keyword optimized.
Now for the sites "Body Text." The more helpful information you have on the site the better. Search engines love web sites that offer helpful valuable information. They cannot read your website, but they sure can gather up enough information from the web pages to get a good idea what it is about. They can tell if you are a keyword spammer and more. Don't even bother to try and scam them because it won't work for to long. Try to use your main keywords and phrases toward the top of your web pages, and use them wisely. Consider your code to text ratios by having an article/information that contains over 500 words or more. This number varies among the SEO community, but my experience tells me that 500 or more is better.
Links: consider using "Title Tags" within your links such as this sample <a href="index.php" target="_top" title="Newbie 101 Web Design">Newbie 101 Home</a>
Images: consider using "Alt Tags" to describe your images. Here is a sample <img src="images/mystery-navigation.gif" alt="Bad Design Mystery Website Navigation" />
NOTE: The tags above will help the visual and hearing impaired.
Keywords and Keyword Phrases:
Available tools and information to help you
You want to have both unique keywords and phrases.
Make a list of what you and your business is about, and select the top ten keywords that best describes your business or products. I suggest you use the tools below to generate the absolute best keywords or phrases for you! Do not get all spammy by adding a keyword in every sentence. In my personal experience your main keyword and phrase should be in your page title and somewhere in the top of your page i.e. the header. If the search engines see that you are filling up your web page with just random text and keywords then they will know.
Site Content Information :
Information, articles, links, keywords, and phrases. Carefully decide on what content you will add to your site. Write articles on your expertise and/or product. Add a few keywords/phrases to your article title and text to attract the search engines. People will get bored with boring texts so be sure to have a few small accent images and an interactive feature. You can add free things such as a simple poll, guest book, or even a map. The areas below will give you some cool ideas.
Sitemaps :
You want a web site that is easy to navigate and easily spidered by the search engines. I recommend that you do not use some fancy menu that includes a special programming script. If you must use a menu like this *(flash, DHTML, or some other fancy menu) then you must add and use a standard "site map." It is not as easy as it sounds, but with a little time and patience you can design a friendly site that is easy to navigate, and that is found by the search engines. Using proper anchor text (link text) is critical, and the biggest advice I can give on this area is that you never use those horrible words called "click here." Use keywords as your anchor text. Another way to use keywords safely is to use them in your sites image alt tags, but again we do not want to spam this area either so be careful.
Average Costs of Search Engine Optimization
You may want to consider the costs before hiring someone
Lets take a look at the typical costs of hiring a specialist. What I am about to show you will definitely make your jaw hit your keyboard. Here are the going rates the steps a SEO Specialist would do for you?
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How much does SEO cost?
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Now what if you could do this yourself for under three hundred dollars for a whole lifetime?
Search Engine Optimization Program
Without all the bull -- I have found something that truly is worth my hard earned money
Whether you choose to read this and believe it is your choice. I wouldn't waste my time or relationship with my visitors to promote something I didn't believe it. With that said...
The program called Internet Business Promoter IBP is the secret search engine ranking software that most guru's do not want you to know about. I myself realized the costs of hiring someone that didn't care about me and my website, and the cost of me doing the job myself was pennies compared to what I would have spent using some service.
My experience with the program. The interface of the program is so easy to understand. The minute you open up IBP it gives you the latest news in Search Engine Optimization, and a handy button to update the program. It offers two areas of expertise that works together for SEO/SEM and then you have the choices for link building, SERPS, and more. I was able to start using the program immediately due to the simple navigation. Upon running my first report I realized it allowed me to save my records that I could keep detailed records. Over the next few weeks my search engine ranking reports began to grow, and now I could easily compare these reports to compare my rankings. The reports were easy to understand, and I could clearly see if my page was moving up in the search engines or if it was falling. These reports would tell me why the page was falling, and I could easily go and fix the problem. A few weeks later I ran the tools again to see if my changes made a difference, and I was so pleased with the data in front of me. The changes I made actually put me in the first position, and what impressed me even more was that the keyword I was ranking for was not very unique at all ... It was very common! The reports are so easy to understand as red shows my page went down, and green shows that the page has moved up. Wow, how easy is that! I could clearly see if the changes I made to my website earlier that week had a positive or negative effect on my website ranking! The program allowed me to save my reports in multiple formats such as PDF, HTML, TXT, and more. The reports were in plain english so that anyone can understand it! Over the next year I had complete reports and data so that I could see what works and what did not work in the SEO world.
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Get top 10 rankings on Google, Yahoo, MSN Search and others.
Get more website visitors and increase your revenue.
Outperform your competitors.
- If you are ready then check out Internet Business Promoter IBP.
Promote your website carefully
Consider submission to these directories
Promoting your website and business online it is critical that you get traffic. If you do not have traffic then what is the point of having a website? If you have just built a new web page or have had a site for sometime now but it seems to be lost in search engines you may want to consider having someone trained in search engine optimization to look over your web pages. Did you know that there are over 10 areas of a web page that can seriously increase your page rank and traffic if it is properly optimized? How do you know if you are even using all those areas? What we could do for you is that we will put your page up against your competitors pages and return the information to you. With that information you can optimize your site and get your website noticed.
Search Engine Directories: Here are some link directories to submit your site to.
DMOZ Human Editor Directory *Be sure to read their terms!
Free web directory Quality human edited free web directory
Free Submit Shop
SEO Web Directory
ICQ Sites. Submit your site here.
SurfGopher
Free Directory
Page Rank: Find out what your Page Rank is for every page on your site.
Live Page Rank
What is your Link Popularity: How aware are search engines when it comes to your site.
Link Popularity
Keyword Verification Tool: Is your main keywords working for you?
Keyword tool to use is:
Keyword Verification
Search Engine Saturation: How well has the search engines listed your site:
Search Engine Saturation
Search Engine Top Sites: List your site in Category Top Sites:
Add URL-Free.com
Webmaster Tips
Helpful tips and tools revisited
TIP: Sign up with DMOZ Directory. To do this your site must be complete with no under construction pages. When you are there use their directory to find the BEST area for your site to be listed. Once you find this area and are very sure this is the correct area for your site then you scroll up and click "Suggest URL" and fill out the form. This part is very important as you want list your site properly so take your time. DMOZ Human Editor Directory *Be sure to read their terms!
TIP: Do a search on a few search engines for your sites main topic and top sites. Example SEO Top sites. Locate like two top sites that fit your sites subject and sign up with them. Be sure to follow their rules (such as banner size and site content) and have a banner ready.
TIP: Consider signing up with OnlyWire. This is a multiple social bookmarking service, and when someone else bookmarks your site it basically gets more listings and somewhat assumes a link to your site. Another great list is found at 3spots
TIP: If your interested in a Pay Per Click site then check out SpyFu. It is a great keyword research tool and one worth putting in your SEO arsenal. Check out SpyFu keyword research tool.
TIP: Do not forget that there are great image hosting companies out there that will host certain files for you. This could help take off a server load for you and save you money by spending like $25.00 now rather then hosting increases which may cost you much more. Check out Photobucket Pro
TIP: Are you looking for a quick and easy way to analyze your sites hits, and what brought traffic to your site? Check out Hit Tail.
TIP: Start a Blog today. Blogging can be very helpful to absorb quality traffic for your cause/purpose. It is a very popular feature today so why not take advantage of it. You can set up and a blog in less then ten minutes. Once you have a nice blog rolling along you should consider using a blog and ping program. A ping program such as Ping-O-Matic is a service to update different search engines that your blog has updated. Check out Google Blogger and Ping O Matic
TIP: Start a controversial headline at your site or blog. Use the days news reports and slam down your thoughts about it in your blog. This is a true white hat tactic to gather links.
TIP: Go and search for sites that promote the same area of subject that you have on your site. See if they offer to put your link on their site, but make sure the page you will be going on has a Page Rank of 3 or higher and has under 50 links
TIP: Go and search for sites that promote the same area of subject that you have on your site. See if they offer to put your link on their site, but make sure the page you will be going on has a Page Rank of 3 or higher and has under 50 links
TIP: Upload some videos to YouTube! Be sure to add your URL to your video!
TIP: One of the best ways to start marketing and making money online is by becoming an affiliate. There are many good places to find products that you can promote and earn a commission. Such as Click bank for digital products and Commission Junction for everyday products. These aren't the only places but they are a great place to get started. When you have signed up for an affiliate program don't forget to always use you affiliate link when selling products otherwise the vendor will not know who to pay and this could cost you a great deal of money. However there is a warning here. Do NOT make your site into a clickbank link-farm. You need to sincerely promote a single product that you know is good. The product you should have used and know good details about it so that you can write about it and recommend it to others. My suggestion is promote one or two items only that fits the sites theme/subjects.
TIP: Do NOT stuff keywords into your .css files. Spamming your style sheets is not a good idea. Google knows about this little trick and they can demote your site for it or even worse not index you at all. Check your .css file for spam issues here W3C CSS Validator
TIP: "Know your html code to text ratios." For example the Google bot comes to crawl the web page. What will it see? Will it see 200 lines of javascript, flash, and 10 words? If that is the case then you are in for a rude awakening. You also want to do this with keywords. Check to see if you have to many keywords stuffed into your text areas. For those that are serious about their website's success I suggest you use IBP as this will tell you multiple ratios, and so much more. Internet Business Promoter.
TIP: Please make sure your sites anchor text is listed properly. Never use "click here" Use only proper keywords/phrases. If you have a link about Website Marketing and you use "click here" ... that is a major SEO mistake. Go fix your links and remove all click here anchor texts, and replace them with proper anchor texts.
TIP: "To vote or not to vote." When you add a link on your website to go to someone else's website that means you gave a "vote" for that site. The search engines look at it as a vote. Do you want to vote for that website? Usually yes you do IF the site is helpful to your website and its visitors. If you want to link to a website, but you are not so sure you are ready to "vote" for that site then you have the option to add this code within the link code. Add this tag in links that you do not want to give a vote to. What is the point? My experience has shown me that when I do my analytic research I can see if an outbound link helps my site or not. Basically over time you can play around with site votes to see how it affects the site.
TIP: Know your sites bounce rate. What is a bounce? Basically a bounce is when someone comes to your site and leaves from that very same page. Why did they leave? Did they arrive there because your keywords do not match the sites content? To get that answer you need to know where you can see your sites bounce rate. First you need to sign up with Google webmaster tools and use their analytic tools. Enter some code to each page on your website, and wait a few weeks. Go back and now you can see the bounce rate. I only recommend this tool to those that have a good understanding of web design/SEO experience.
TIP: Keep a calendar. Nobody is ever sure of when Google will have a PR update, but you can keep a calendar diary of these events to help you plan out your website updates better.
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