SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of optimizing a web page or site to increase the number and quality of its visitors in a search engine’s organic results. The advantages are clear: free, virtually passive web traffic for years, month after month, all without having to spend a penny. But how can you optimize your website for SEO, and which ranking factors really make the difference? What are the most common mistakes made by new webmasters or website owners? How can you tell if your SEO efforts are working, and if so, what can you do to optimize even more?
If you’re new to Internet marketing, the first thing to understand is that there are different ways of achieving an SEO campaign. There are methods that employ pay per click advertising like Google AdWords, and different methods of generating relevant backlinks such as forum posting, directory submission, and social bookmarking. In this article from seo experts, we’ll focus on the latter, since this is arguably the most important aspect of achieving sustainable SEO success.
Backlinking describes the process in which a web page with relevant information links back to another website. Search engines will recognize a website’s backlink to another through these links. For example, if you wrote an informative article about quilting, your article would have two backlinks. One link would come from the article’s resource box at the end, and the other would be from the original website it was hosted at. The search engines recognize these links, and they are counted toward your SEO score. This is called “inbound link building.”
Some people incorrectly believe that SEO is about writing high-quality, keyword stuffing articles filled with keywords. While the highest quality content is beneficial to SEO, the opposite is also true. Writing garbage content is detrimental to SEO because search engines are looking for well-written and useful information. The SEO expert should write informative, interesting, and useful content. The keywords should only be used sparingly and only in a way that will not make readers doubt that the information they’re finding is relevant to their search.
One of the biggest mistakes many beginning Internet marketers make is to submit their website’s RSS feed to search engines. Search engine algorithms are designed to ignore any RSS-feeding content. The only time your website’s RSS feed may come up in a search is if you manually search for it. It’s better to submit your RSS feed to search engines when you create your listing. If you don’t do this, your RSS feed will be counted as “inbound” links, which will count against you.
There are plenty of ways to get backlinks to your website. Some professionals who are well-established in the field of search engine optimization will charge you hundreds of dollars for an email list of high quality backlinks. This method of obtaining backlinks is known as link wheeling or link buying. If you want to do it yourself, there are several good products that will provide all the tools you need to generate numerous quality backlinks. With these tools, you can easily generate hundreds of backlinks quickly and easily.