Search engine optimisation abbreviated as SEO is a function of internet marketing where by you improve your search engine rankings through two selections of techniques commonly known as on page and off page techniques.
However the first thing you have to do before any SEO is keyword research. This is the first part of SEO it is critical that you take you're time researching you're keywords because if you don't it could be detrimental to you're whole SEO campaign.
Keyword research
Keyword research is the process of taking time to analyse and compare search engine results with the amount of traffic and competition certain keywords receive. For a brand new site I would recommend that you stay focused on keywords that have 1 million search engine results or less. This can generally take up to a year to achieve a first page ranking for however it is not very accurate of me saying that as it depends entirely on the keyword your trying to rank for.
There are two main types of keyword these being short 1-2 word keywords or long tail keywords.
Short Keywords (1-2 words)
Short keywords either 1 or 2 words are generally much more difficult to rank for and usually receive more traffic and a higher number of competitors. Such as "Migraine Treatment"
Long tail keywords (3 words plus)
Long tail keywords are generally easier to rank for as they are more specific to a market and contain less competition however although traffic is generally lower it can sometimes be as high if not higher. Such as "Instant Migraine Relief Treatment"
To do keyword research you need to use a keyword tool I would recommend either using Google's own Keyword Research Tool, Wordtracker, Wordze or Keyword Discovery.
If your planning on doing an extended amount of keyword research it may be beneficial to purchase a keyword tool or a membership to the software for 1 month or a year. The best paid keyword tools in my opinion are Wordtracker, Wordze and Keyword Discovery.
Big Tip: For your Keyword research you should plan on getting 4-5 keywords per web page for your website. Stick to researching keywords for your home page first as this is the most important page of your website then look at doing the keyword research for the other pages.
SEO 101
I will firstly discuss the on page SEO techniques to improving your rank on the search engines.
On page SEO
On page SEO is basically the techniques that you use on your website to increase your websites search engine strength.
1. Title: The title tag is one of the most important on page SEO factors which affect the search engines. You NEED to include your keywords in this tagline to ensure that you're on page SEO has been completed to a high standard. The title tag should be no longer than 60-70 characters.
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4. Body: The body of your web page will include heading tags, lists, bolded text, underlined text and your main content.
5. Heading tags: The body should start with a <H1> tag which will be relevant to the pages content and should also include your web page's main keyword in. The heading shouldn't be too long but should condense the whole pages main focus.
6. Content: The overall content should include keywords however you want to be sure when writing your content that your writing for your readers and not for the search engines. This is highly important for both the growth of your website and to ensure your not penalized by Google for keyword stuffing. You want to keep your contents keyword density to 5-7% this basically means the overall amount of keywords in comparison to the overall amount of text should be that percentage. This article I wrote explains keyword density much more in depth.
7. Bold keywords: This is something in my earlier years that I went a little over the top doing. When you have written your content you have the option to highlight one or two keywords by bolding them. This tells Google that these keywords are more important than the rest of the content on your page.
8. Keyword Position: Another strategy for ensuring your on page SEO is bullet proof is including your keyword at the start of your article and at the end. This doesn't have to be straight at the start and at the end but generally within the first sentence.
9. Footer: This is somewhere else that you can optimise your website. The footer should include a link back to your homepage using the anchor text as your main keyword. As well as including a link back to your home page you may want to add one or two more links to the second and third most important pages with their main keyword as the anchor text. This is merely for link juice more than anything else.
These are the main principals of on page SEO, I could go in to so much more detail however this thread is aimed at beginners and I don't really want to over do it.
The on page SEO is only 25% of the SEO struggle to ranking high it is quite a strange set up but with out on page SEO you will struggle to rank highly but with just on page SEO you will have no chance.
Off page SEO
Off page SEO include the external factors or influences which will have an affect on your websites search engine rank. The main factor of this being the amount of links you have to your website.
There are two types of link the internal link and external link I shall explain these now.
Internal Link
An internal link is a link from one of your web pages to another web page take my website for example a link coming from
SEO Tutorials | All in one on page SEO | > SEO Tutorials| All in one link building | will be counted as an internal link. The links I spoke about previously in the footer are all internal links and for every page that footer is displayed one link will be added.
External Links (Backlinks)
External links otherwise known as backlinks are links from external (outside) websites which link back to your own website. An example of this would be my signature which has a link to my blog this will be added and included as a one link to my website, unless the link has been tagged as no follow however I wont go in to that.
So what off page techniques are there?
The main process of off page SEO is link building and this is one hell of a long process!
Link building consists of building up the amount of links that are directed at certain pages of your website. The main link building campaign is usually focused on the home page then usually the catergory pages. There are several ways you can build links some work better than others but there are other sites you want to make sure you DON'T get links from.
The sort of links you want to get, the links you can have dreams of getting are links from highly respected websites such as government websites or educational websites however these are hard to get a hold of.
To find good external websites to link from they should be
· Relevant: Relevancy of the external website is important a site that is relevant to yours sending a link your way will be regarded much higher than a site that is totally irrelevant as this will look like it has been put there for the reason of gaining links.
· High Page rank: A high page rank can be a sign that the external website is a respected site which has been around for a long time. However this is not always the case with the Google Algorithm changing so much currently and black hat SEO being used more frequently you should definitely not just judge a website from its page rank. Take my site for example I used to have 23 pages with page rank now currently I have NO pages with page rank. The reason for this is because I changed my website's design and redirected all the URLs. The site is still respected as being a good website by Google however it just has not been updated yet.
Now you may be wondering well OK but how can I increase the amount of links my website has. Well there are hundreds of ways to increase the amount of incoming links your website has here are a few examples.
But just wait! Before I go straight in to numbering off a couple of examples of ways to build links I want to tell you one more VERY important thing. You know those keywords you spent ages researching before. Yes, the ones you used in the on page SEO well your going to use them again in your anchor text. Now you may be wondering what anchor text is well here goes.
What is Anchor Text?
Anchor text is the highlighted and usually underlined text within a hyperlink. For example Search engine SEO The anchor text in this example is "Search engine SEO".
It is extremely important that you put your main keywords in your anchor text, using one at a time! It is also important to note that you should swap from keyword to keyword and not to concentrate on using one keyword at a time as Google may get suspiscious.
Anyways where were we, oh yes link building examples.
1. Forum Signatures: Forum signatures like the ones you can see below in my signature space are a great way of increasing the amount of links your domain has especially in the early stages of your domains life span. Things to check for is that the forum has do follow links which basically means the links are included as external links to your website and secondly that the links are coming from a relevant website.
2. Blog Commenting: Blog commenting can be a great way of both increasing the amount of external links you have being sent to your blog as well as increasing traffic. Not only this but you can target your perfect reader and bring in both relevant links as well as largely targeted readers for your blog which could increase readership and more.
3. Article Directories: This is something I am currently writing a series on and is one of my favourite ways of link building mainly because the links come from quite strong websites which are respected in Google as well as this the articles usually bring in quite a bit of traffic. The work you have to do in order to gain these links is a little harder and more time consuming than that of most other techniques however it usually pays off. If you want to learn more about Article Marketing you can read my latest series 7 steps to Article Marketing
4. Blog Carnivals: This is another great way of building links to your website. People host blog carnivals to collect up a collection of relevant links on a certain subject which they will then post on their own blog. The idea here is that at the end the blog carnival host is left with a great resource of perfect examples for their article which he can then link to. You receive a free backlink and the traffic which comes with it.
There are hundreds of ways to collect links to your website one thing I strongly advise is that you DON'T over do it though. Keep the increase in external links steady and don't go over 100 links a week.
As well as offering some tips on how to increase the amount of links your website has I think its also important to note down some of the main strategies you should NOT use to build links.
1. Do NOT engage in reciprocal links (I link to yours and you link to mine). I ve done this a couple of times in the past and it seemed harmless but I think the safe bet is not doing it at all. I currently have one reciprocal links on my site and I wouldn't have anymore.
2. Do NOT participate with linkfarms (they are never content related and will destroy any ranking for your site). Link farms are theere only to gain links and therefore they ruin Google's Algorithm. Google don't like these sites and if they find that your site has been using these to gain links you can say bye bye to your rankings.
3. Do NOT participate in three way links, last I heard google finds circular linking and sees them as reciprocal (not confirmed yet - but why take risks)
so the beef is in the external one way link to your site. They can easily find out if your linking from one of your sites to another site too as they are generally hosted from the same server therefore the IP addresses are the same.
4. Now do NOT get a link from a hand painting website to your forex site. It is not content related.
As well as these 4 points which Puravida came up with it is also important to note that Google does NOT like you purchasing or selling links on your website. If Google finds you doing this they may penalise your site which could mean that it would take you a lot longer to get those all important search engine rankings you want. This has happened to several sites in the past including some of the biggest blogs on the internet.
This is all I am going to touch upon in this basic outline of SEO I know I havn't covered everything here but everything I havn't covered here plus more is available at my Internet Marketing blog. Now you maybe thinking I only wrote this post for advertisement well I didn't I would write everything I know but seriously I ve wrote it once on my blog so why should I 
I do have two free eBooks available on my site if you subscribe now they cover everything about Keyword Research and SEO (I mean everything).
Here is the link to my blog
Search Engine SEO
Keyword Research Tools
Free Wordtracker Keyword Tool
Google Keyword research Tool
Keyword Discovery Tool
Other tools I would recommend on using are
Google Webmaster Tool
Google Analytics
Firefox Add on
SEO Quake
Rank Checker
You're Internet marketing journey. I will be adding more tutorials very soon as well as some video tutorials in the next week or two.
Thank you,
Now Get Back to Work and Start Making Money!
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