Search Engine Optimization - 10 Minutes to SEO Success

Once people have a website, they start to realize the importance of search engine optimization. Why? Because without it, you just have a website, and what good is a website if you don't get lots of targeted traffic looking for products and services which you provide.

I am a senior software architect/developer and until a few years ago, thought I knew enough about search engine optimization to get by. I developed a website for my business, put some keywords here and there and waited for traffic. I waited, I waited and I waited and the traffic never came. Does this sound familiar? This is when I started researching industry best practices when it comes to search engine optimization.

The base of all SEO is content. Content is the text you see on the page. It's what search engines read when they come to your site. It's also search engines job to provide the most relevant content available on the internet and this is why Google is so successful because they do it better than anyone else.

Writing Original Content

Writing original content is the biggest factor which affects your websites' SEO. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN are sticklers when it comes to duplicate content. It's search engines' job to provide the most original, relevant content.

If you think you can outsmart search engines by copying content from one page to another and changing a few words, you'd be incorrect. How many similar words in a sentence do search engines classify as duplicate content is not known, but it greatly affects the ranking of your pages. To check if pages content is original, I use a website called "Copyscape". This website checks for other pages on the internet which has content like yours. If someone has copied your content or you've copied theirs, it's sure to find it.

Writing Pages based on Specific Keywords

Each page on your website should be written for one keyword or one keyword phrase only. Say for instance, your company offers "search engine optimization services" and you want to market your website using keywords such as "search engine optimization services" and "SEO services". Instead of creating one page and expecting traffic for both keyword phrases, you'd be better off to create two separate pages; one for "search engine optimization services" and one for "SEO services". Just make sure the two pages are completely different. Otherwise, one of your pages will get flagged as duplicate content and will not rank high or at all in search engine results.

Here are the places you should put your keyword phrase. Please note: These are ordered from most important to least important.

• The domain or page name. If you're writing on your blog, most blog software including WordPress uses a dynamic approach to page names such as "http://www.yourwebsite.com/blog/index.php?p=999". This is what you call a dynamic page or database driven page. This can be changed with customization, but will have wait for another article. Having a static page or at least a page which looks like it's static will help your ranking. This is the most important place to have your keyword or keyword phrase.

  ie: www.yourwebsite.com/seo-services.html

• Your webpage title. The "