1. Commit yourself to the process. SEO isn’t a
one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the
tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a
long-term outlook and commitment.
2. Be patient. SEO isn’t about instant
gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially
true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business
online.
3. Ask a lot of questions when hiring an SEO company.
It’s your job to know what kind of tactics the company uses. Ask for
specifics. Ask if there are any risks involved. Then get online yourself
and do your own research—about the company, about the tactics they
discussed, and so forth.
4. Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the
do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn
as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great web
resources (like Search Engine Land) and several terrific books you can
read. (Yes, actual printed books!) See our What Is SEO page for a
variety of articles, books and resources.
5. Have web analytics in place at the start. You
should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need
web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and
what’s not.
6. Build a great web site. I’m sure you want to show up on the first page of results. Ask yourself, “Is my site really one of the 10 best sites in the world on this topic?” Be honest. If it’s not, make it better.
7. Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index
pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the
important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s
hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl
navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages.
Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be
safe.
8. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.
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