A Refresher On How To Do Search Engine Optimization

In this edition of OK to Make Money Online, let us take a look at Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO seems to be the hotbed of conversation on the net these days. It is really simple and yet seems to have such a mystique about it. Why? It is really not an art.

Most web sites do not focus on keywords or keyword optimization. The website authors do not do the proper keyword research and so the pages and the site are not keyword optimized. Then when Google spiders the site what does it find? A whole bunch of keywords but very little uniformity, and if by accident there is some keyword uniformity, what is the keyword? Worse yet the keyword or long tail keywords don’t even pertain to the main subject of the site.

So what is a webster to do? Take a hard look at your website or blog: what is the main subject? Do you have multiple subjects? Are the subjects related? Is your visual subject different from your textual subject?

We need to make your site single purpose. So let’s say you have a site that covers many categories or subjects. We need to break it up into niches, with each niche having a single subject or keyword. Then Google will be able to correctly categorize your site by keyword. So: one subject per niche.

With a list of topics or categories in hand, we need to create a website of each. The hard part is going to be the URL name. This is the one area where the name is important. So how do we determine the best name? By using our keywords. But wait you don’t know what a good keyword for your subject or category would be? OK, let’s ask the expert: Google. You can use the tool Google uses to sell ad space under Adwords, Keyword Tool. With this tool you can input your subject, category and Google will return a list of the searches that people have entered and the keywords they used.

After you have completed your research and have determined the best keyword, it is time to find a URL that will contain your new keyword. Go to Blogger and see what can find. When you find a URL with your keyword then start using your keyword on every page and in every article, including the Privacy Page and the About Page. When you have completed your first website, go on to the next and do the same till you have covered all your categories or keywords.

If you are working from a site that is too general, break the articles up, rewrite them using your new-found keywords, and copy them over to your new sites, according to category/keyword. Make sure to use your keyword in the title, first paragraph, once or twice in the body, and in the last paragraph.

If you have pictures or graphics on a page, make sure you work your keyword into the picture information area of the HTML code. This will assure the spider that the picture relates to the article or keyword topic. However, be true to your readers. Some of the black hats will put up any old picture so they can imbed the keyword text. Remember, at some point you want traffic, and you want your readers back. Don’t given them trash; give then something they want to come back for.

Last, make sure not to exceed one or two uses of your keyword per one hundred article body words, or Google may flag you site for keyword stuffing and sandbox you until you correct the problem.

Let’s review: make sure your sites are narrow in scope but not too narrow, research your subject, pick the best keyword or key phrase, use your keyword in everyplace you can, but don’t overuse in articles. This will help you make money online.

Michael

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