10 easy steps to successfully optimize your page
#1 Do not purchase a new domain unless you have to !
Due to Google's aging delay for all new domains, your best bet is to use your existing domain/web site if it is possible. Still, if you have no choice but to make a new web site ( new design, new domain, new everything ) expect it to take a while ( maybe a couple of months ) for your web site to show up in Google's results pages. Maybe we can improve this with the next 9 steps :)
#2 Your target visitors are more important than search engines
Don't go straight away to start optimizing your site. Take a moment to consult some studies and see what your target audience is searching for, and how you can supply to their needs. Remember, it's not Google that's paying you, it's your customers.
#3 Carefully pick your key phrases
Don't just rely on your intuition when it comes to choosing your future key phrases. Again, a little bit of research is required. You can use some useful SEO Tools like Wise Optimizer or Google Adwords to find what's the appropriate phrase for you. Never go for very general terms like "insurance" or "vacation" because, aside from being quite hard to get #1 ranking for those words, they never say what your web site is really about.
#4 Make your web site crawler friendly
Why go to all this work of choosing the right keywords and optimizing if, when Googlebot or any other bot comes to your web site, it only sees a blank page ? So you should never make your site entirely in flash. Most search engines can't read flash, and if they do, they do it poorly. Also, a cool flash intro is something to avoid too. Javascript menus ? The same. By using xhtml and css you can make your web site look stylish and in the same time make sure Google sees your web site entirely. Another thing you should try is to build a site without session ID's, and with URL's that are static, or that have as few parameters as possible.
#5 Label your internal text links and alt tags on images as descriptively as possible
Neither Google nor your web site visitors like to guess what's on the other side of a text link ( aka links with the anchor "click here", etc ). So you must make sure that all the anchor texts on your internal links accurately match the page that the link takes you to. The same about images. Make sure their alt tags make an accurate description on what's in that image. Overall, be careful on your overall site architecture and navigation, as it is very important.
#6 Keyword rich content
Yes, you guessed it. Fresh content is one of the most important parts of an web site. Write your own unique articles about the key phrases you choose at #3. Be as natural as possible and use your keywords only when you feel necessary or when it makes sense to. Keyword stuffing will not get you anyway, and even more, you're likely to be penalized by Google. Also, you can use some SEO Tools that will calculate your keyword density. Keep your content fresh and natural and you're ok. If you've done this correctly, you'll make your web site link worthy, which will help you down the way on SEO.
 #7 Take special care of you pages' title tags
Even though meta tags as keywords or description count, by far the most important meta tag is the title. It should be placed right under your <head> tag and it should make a short description of what the page contains. Don't use your company name in your title, as well as don't stuff your title by repeating your keywords in it. Be careful that each page on your web site has unique title tags.
#8 A little bit of on-page SEO
To show the search engines that your web site is concentrated on some specific keywords, you should put them between some specific tags. First of all, heading tags ( <H1>keywords</H1> ) tell search engines that this keyword is so important you decided to put it in your headings. Don't overdo it. With headings, more is actually less.
Second, you can try an make some of your keywords bold or italic. Folder and file names are quite important too. Use hyphens (-) to make your files and folders descriptive, but careful, too many and you might be considered as spamming.
#9 Make your site link-worthy
Make a name for yourself using your web site and your content. After acquiring other webmasters respect, it will seem that links come on their own, without you having to contact people and asking them for links. Which brings us to the final point.
#10 Quality link building
Possibly the most important part. Quality one-way links is what you're looking for. If you've done everything correctly and your web site has a couple of years of age, links will surely come without you having to interfere. If this isn't the case, than you should probably work a little to acquire good links. Submit your web site to quality directories ( DMOZ , Yahoo, etc ) and possibly e-mailing other webmasters and politely asking them for a link.
Avoid link farming web sites and other "illegal" linking methods, or you can kiss your good rankings good bye. Also it's a good practice to check your competitors inbound link pages, some tools like Wise Optimizer will do that for you so you can find out how many links do you need to get a higher rank page.
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Design x SEO
