Free SEO Tips - Basic Techniques for Seach Engine Optimization
Some examples below showing how basic SEO techniques were used in articles listed by Google for this site. The figures fluctuate but I expect them to as I have better things to do than site playing with search engines all day long :-). SEO interests me firstly from a computing point of view and not a marketing one
The Google Keyword Tool was used to find out what photography related topics people were actually searching for before each article was written as there is no point in choosing an article topic and content that no-one is looking for. This is part of what is called Search Engine Marketing. After identiying suitable keywords from the list a suitable title was chosen for each article and the content was written to deliver what is promised in the article title. Each page was then optimised using basic SEO techniques such as making use of the page Title, Description and Keyword meta tags. Using just these basic SEO tricks I pulled in more traffic from the search engines for those photography related topics I wanted to write about. Even though this is an SEO article you may have noticed that I am using my main keyword 'photography' in this article too :-) - that way I am getting maximum bang for my buck in the grand scheme of things
I like to write for people but put my keywords and phrases in the page where they will appear natural, within context and contribute to the meaning of the text. Many web sites get all this stuff badly wrong and their search engine listings read like they were typed up by a drunk robot
Screenshots of Irish Light and Colour SEO Results
"Monitor Calibration for Photographers"
"Beginners Guide to Digital Photography"
"How To Backup Photos" - Ireland Only
"How To Backup Photos" - Worldwide
Links to the Web Pages
Monitor Calibration for Photographers
Beginners Guide To Digital Photography
What do the examples tell us?
They prove that basic SEO techniques work for long term traffic and that a new site using these techniques can come up higher than other more established sites. If you write articles for people and aim to sound and act like a real person in the process, they will read and respond.
For example, the article "Landscape Filters Tutorial" comes up higher than the Luminous Landscape, which contains 3000 photography articles and has been around for years. This one article comes up in Google Ireland at the number 1 position for 4 or 5 variations of the keywords used. This along with some reader feedback shows me this article has value.
We need to choose low competition keywords and phrases that accurately summarise what we are going to say and then write the content to match.
You only need to write a well crafted niche article once - as you can see from the examples - and it can earn it's keep for years by delivering interested people to the site - regularly. This is where the gold is because if you give people what they expect - and then some - after reading what Google says about your page they will be happy and you can build a loyal community of regular visitors.
Is SEO difficult?
No, because writing a web page is similar to writing an essay. An essay contains text about a subject and so does a web page. At the top of the essay we can have a title and description of what the text is about. Properly written web pages also carry title and description tags. Web pages also contain a keywords tag. We make use of this tag by adding keywords from the page text in the hope that people will find our web page through searches that match our keywords. Whenever we run a search on Google we can look at the list of results and read what each says before jumping in to a web site on good faith. You miss a lot of good stuff, sure, but lets face it - it is hard to ignore a listing that is descriptive and stands out because it promises to to answer out original questions.
Can I Learn SEO?
Yes, anyone can learn SEO. People who own and maintain a web site or on-line business should be reading up on basic SEO techniques because they are the ones who will have most to gain from what they learn. By reading an SEO article a day for a few months anyone can gain a good understanding of SEO and what is involved in fine tuning a web page to come up in the search engines.
Where to Start
Looking at the web pages of sites that are in the same business gives clues as to what are good or bad key phrases to pick for web page optimisation. For example, a certain photographer and web designer types 'Photography' into the Google keyword tool it tells him that during the month of July there were 45 million searches for that one word. A more reasonable and realistic route would be to dilute the results and opt for 'Car Photography' which returns 10,000 searches.
The competition for this 2 keyword phrase is medium and the photographer has an album of vintage car photographs. There are 10,000 potential visitors who want photos of cars and if knowledge of basic SEO techniques is applied to an interesting and informative article on the subject then it might be reasonable to expect about 100 - 1000 visits per month for a single top performing web page.
