4 Simple SEO Optimization Tips
[ed:- This is a guest post by Ry Ryan. If you have any questions or comments I will help answer them as best I can, but they are probably best directed at Ry. Thank you.]
A site that is not properly optimized for search engines will not be nearly as successful as it could be. Search engine optimization is one of the foundations for success. However, there is a common misconception that optimizing a site is something that must be outsourced to a professional. This is not actually the case; almost anyone can optimize a site so that it gets higher ratings. Following are some simple yet very doable SEO tips.
Article Directories
Article directories allow one to post articles on the site that contains links back to a website or blog. Such directories often have pretty good search engine ratings and can help to promote one’s site as an authoritative source of information. Signing up to article directory sites such as eHow, Hub Pages and Ezine is free.
Link Building
The more links your site has, the higher it will rank in search engines such as Google and Yahoo. One of the simplest ways to get links is to comment on related blogs. If, for example, you are setting up a site promoting vitamin supplements, leave comments on blogs that talk about healthy living. Just make sure the comments are informative and not solely promotional, or they may do more harm than good.
Get Listed in Website Directories
Google, Yahoo and Bing are the largest search engines and you should submit your site to all three of these search engines as soon as the site is up and running. However, there are tens of thousands of website directories online that you can submit your site to. Do a search for “list of website directories” and you will get a long list of these. Submitting your site to such directories is straightforward and usually free.
Social Media
Having a Facebook and/or Google+ page is important. This attracts people to your site and boosts your site’s search engine ratings. Having a YouTube video account is also a good idea. YouTube is actually owned by Google and Google gives videos from this site a pretty high ranking.
These are just some of the many simple things that you can do to give your website a boost and help it to get higher rankings. If you are a new webmaster, then just start with these simple tips and you will see your site gain more visitors. Over time, if you update your site regularly, you will find more and more people coming to take a look at what you have to offer.
7 Comments
Gavrisimo
Maybe change title to:
“4 Really Really Simple SEO Optimization Tips”
🙂
Paul Robinson
Indeed, however I have to say that you’d be surprised at the number of people I’ve talked to who don’t know about these really simple tips.
I say why don’t you join Twitter, or make a Facebook page and they say “You can do that for your website?”. I guess it just depends on whether this sort of stuff occurs naturally to you or not. 😉
jamie
I don’t use twitter at all. I just can not figure out anything that I would post there. There are so many people doing the same things I feel like I would just be a raindrop in an ocean.
Paul Robinson
Hi Jamie,
I can understand why you don’t use Twitter, but it is a useful tool to reach out to a viewer base you may never have reached before.
You would normally just post what your latest post is, tips on the subject you post in, interact with other tweets on the subject etc. It seems counter intuitive, but your first followers will probably be ones that visited your website. However once they are following you they may retweet something to all their followers, and the snowball continues.
It’s something that does require effort & dedication, hence the companies that hire a Social Media Correspondent, but it can be worth the effort. 😉
mogs
Hey! Do you know if they make any plugins to protect against hackers?
I’m kinda paranoid about losing everything I’ve worked hard on. Any tips?
Paul Robinson
Hi Mogs,
There are some out there. Their effectiveness is up for debate, but if you want to give one a shot the only one I’ve seen that actually seems to do something is WordFence.
Also, as much as it is a pain, a randomized password with Special Characters included always makes things difficult for people trying to break in. Making sure WP & plugins, including inactive ones, is/are up-to-date is another tip that helps stop exploiters finding old vulnerabilities.
Hope that helps a little.