How to SEO your Site - Search Engines - SE Optimization

As everyone knows by now, Google AdWords is expensive in the long-term! If you don't know that then you need to get out there and try it and see how clicks drain your online marketing budget!

SEO, though free in the long-term, does cost money and lots of energy in the shorter term. Working out how to get Page 1 rankings is what makes it all worthwhile and seeing your competitors linger in the distance. I'm going to tell you 5 of the most important things I can think of that will affect how your site ranks in search engines.

1. Backlinks are more important than KeywordsNot that keywords are not important, of course you need keywords on your website in order for them to contribute to relevant content you have on your site, but theories of them having to be in your website content every hundred or couple of hundred words has not been defined anywhere. Google, and other search engines, have algorithms that change constantly. In fact, the Google search algorithm changes more frequently than any other.

What has been confirmed, and proven, over the years is that your backlinks (i.e. who links to you and the calibre of that site) is more important in search engine rankings than keyword density.

2. Research your CompetitorsThis is one of the most obvious things for me, but often gets missed by others - research your competitors. Chances are when you type in the search phrase in Google (or any other search engine) that you want to be found with you will see your competitors in the Top 10 positions. You need to see what their seo strategy is. Unless you are so fantastic at SEO and you occupy the first position, you need to do this!

See what keywords they use to target traffic, see where their traffic comes from, who links to them and how many backlinks do they have? What is different between your site and theirs?

For keyword and SEO analysis I use a great tool called KeywordSpy - works well for me.

3. Implementing Successful SEO StrategiesRemember, it's no use copying others - you need to learn from them and then do it better! Search engines are good at recognising content which is copied from other sites, site replicas etc

4. Keep GoingI'm not going to lie to you, it does take time for your seo strategy to work - but keep the faith and perseverance. I guarantee you will see a positive improvement which will just encourage you to keep on going! A strategy they you give up on is worthless, even more worthless than a strategy that you persevere with that you think does not work.

5. Fresh Regular ContentKeep your visitors coming back because they know they will get fresh content from your site regularly. Keep the search engine spiders coming back and indexing more pages of your website because they know they will find fresh new content. Without regular fresh content your site will be lost in the search engine results and not be seen in the Top 100 rankings!

Good luck and let me know how you do!