Free DIY SEO

Link building is a very important aspect of SEO. Search engines see a link from another website as a ‘vote’ for your site, so the more links you can get to your website, the better.

However, it is not just the quantity of links that is important but also the quality. A link from a page or site about the same subject as yours (i.e. with similar keywords to your site) carries more weight.

Another aspect of this is the anchor text, the text which is the actual link. If the anchor text includes the keywords you are aiming for, it is an even better ‘vote’ for your site.

A few of the main ways you can get links to your site are:

• Exchanging links with other websites with similar or related content (reciprocal linking).
• Submitting your site to web directories.
• Writing and submitting articles.

But mainly, it is about creating a site with great content - then people will want to link to it anyway.

The search engines need to know your site exists, so they can index it and rank it in the search results. Most search engines have an online form you can use to do this (here is Google’s, MSN’s and Yahoo’s - you have to sign up for a free free Yahoo account).

However, there are hundreds of search engines out there so an automatic submission tool is a real help. You can use specialised SEO submission software or websites like www.freewebsubmission.com. It is a good idea to have a separate email account/address for search engine submission so all the replies and confirmations (some may think it spam!) don’t get mixed in with your normal email.

Search engine submission was once very important and you could pay a lot of money to have your site submitted. But you really only need to do it once, if at all, since the search engines will find your site anyway by following links from other websites. In fact, some experts think search engines ‘prefer’ (i.e. rank more highly) sites found in this way.

Once you have decided on your keywords, the second stage in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is incorporating them into the design and content of your website. A website should be structured so that each page targets a particular key phrase with your homepage targeting the most important keyword.

The search engines look at specific areas of a page for keywords so this is where you need to make sure they appear:

• The title meta tag.
• The description meta tag.
• The content on the page.
• TheH1 tag (and other heading tags).
• The anchor text of internal links.
• The anchor text of external links.
• The filenames of pages.
• The filenames of images.
• The alt tags of images.
• The title tags of links.

Of particular importance are the title meta tag and the description meta tag. These are often used in the search engine results that are displayed after a search is completed.

The main point to remember is that search engines like text; they can’t read photos or video or graphics. Of course, graphics make your site appealing to human beings, so you should use them, but remember to add text to the alt tags so the search engines will be able to read them.

The first step in optimising a website for the search engines is (SEO) Keyword Research.

Keywords and key phrases are what people type into a search engine. What are poeple going to type into a search engine to find your site? What words are used most in your area? Which are most relevant to your website?

First, generate a list of possible keywords by asking yourself ‘What would I type into a search engine to find the service I offer?‘

Remember people are not going to know that you are called ‘Dave the Magician’ and search for that phrase; they are going to search for ‘party magician’ or ‘children’s entertainer’ or ‘magician Leicester'. Incidently, magician Leicester is a key phrase I'd like to come top for.

You can add to this initial list of ideas by asking friends and clients, looking at competitor's websites - look everywhere. You then need to refine it by using an online keyword suggestion tool. This will tell you how many people actually use a particular keyword or phrase and also suggest alternatives.

Try the free Digital Point Solutions keyword suggestion tool. This tool accesses the two main providers of search data, Wordtracker and Overture.

You need to find the keywords that are not just going to drive lots of traffic to your website, but traffic that is going to convert into sales and clients.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of helping a website to appear near the top, or best of all number 1, in the organic search engine results for a particular search term.

Organic results are the results listed and ranked by search engines as opposed to the sponsored listings which all search engines display and which advertisers pay for.

The good news is you can get to the top of the organic results for free if you are prepared to do DIY SEO.

Yes that's right, another blog about SEO (search engine optimisation).

But it's about doing it for yourself for free and not as an end in itself - I'm not an SEO professional.

I'm a magician based in Leicester in the UK and that is my profession, but my background is in technical writing and the production of educational materials for print and the web.

I promote myself as a magician through my main website dangifford.com and have had some success in getting it to appear high in the search engines, so I thought I'd write about how I've done it and continue to work at it - it's an ongoing process.

Iused to post a bit about SEO on my magic blog but I have more to say now, so I'm going to post it here.