Search Engine Optimization

Now, a lot of people who blog keep hearing about SEO. What is SEO? Well, basically SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization.

A lot of people like to write about it and here are some things I have learned. What I have learned is in no way a comparison with others who are much more tech savvy, but I like to try to exercise and apply what I can and when I can.

In the past, webmasters could try to buff up their traffic and thought it was all about making the Google Page Rank with doing affiliate links and link exchanges. Then, it was making link exchanges with sites that also had good Page Ranking. Since Google, Alexa (amongst others) had become a great factor in making saying what sites are popular, but it solely was based on a site’s traffic statistics. Also, just submitting a page to a search engine like Yahoo!, HotBot, The Open Directory Project, were valuable things to do for webmasters.

However, now that is not exactly the case. Things have evolved greatly. Implementations to these big dogs in the search engines geared it more to what people were searching for, using their keywords. So, if I looked up the word ‘blondish‘ in Google, my site would come up listed as second. Besides keywords, the way the page was seen (web accessibility), and quality of content were other factors that came into play that made a site more popular in the search engines.

Here are some basics:

1. Keywords. For anyone not into WordPress, using simple meta tags in the html header of your site would be optimal. Do not use too many and make sure they are relevant to your site. For those who use WordPress, like myself, I recommend implenting the widget for the tag cloud and using the WordPress “All in One SEO pack“. You will not have to manually make your met tags. This will do this based on the pages content. I have recently implemented it and have noticed how frequent my site has been seen.

2. Quality of Content. Now, a site is wonderful to have, but even as a personal site, being a bit informative here and there between the humdrum of regular life will not only give your site quality and quantity, but make you less of a shallow person.

Now, back to quality in writing, please remember to try to be as original as possible and reference links for extra resources are a bonus. However, in the same breath try to use credible resources. Treat it like an essay and be your own teacher in proofing it before you publish it. If you have articles that require images, try to load a small thumbnail to save on loading time. I have a habit myself of just throwing up a resized image, so I will start to also adhere to this advice. I should have as I always have been saying that since the beginning.

3. Social Bookmarking sites. I actually exercise this on my blog and I need to update the script to include other places. These sites are places like Digg, Yahoo! Buzz, and StumbleUpon, and more. When you write an article, submit it to the site. It will be posted to the article’s listed in the site, in the category you wish.

4. Site Design. I truly am a fan of having a bit of color on a site, but not overly so. Sometimes simple is great, but overall, I always say it roles down to load time. It always has. There still are people out there using dial-up and it can be a pain to wait for a site to load due to heavy graphics and content. Use valid coding. You will have more web accessibility in any browser if you do so. You can use W3C as a guide if you wish. Also, use graphics that are not heavy. Try not to be too trendy. It might be hard, but make it your way. Of course, if you like popstars, anime, or celebrities, then fine, but make it unique and make sure to credit the source as well as make sure to read the usage policy.

Implementings some of these techniques may help increase your viewing status in the search engines. Just remember, it boils down to how people will find your site on the internet.

Some useful places to read more:

Jem’s article on Help Your Friends Rank Better
Google’s article – Google Webmaster Guidline
Wikipedia’s article about Search Engine Optimization