What do you usually do when trying to learn about new things or gain new skills? In modern times, one would simply go online and type keywords on a search engine and journey down the information superhighway.
But what about if you want to gain decent knowledge and expertise on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Would reading about SEO be enough to make you an expert on improving and promoting a website in order to increase the number of visitors it receives from search engines? Well, doing research would certainly be a good start to put you on a path to becoming skillful in optimizing a website to make it search engine friendly.
Here are a few links to sites that can help one to learn about the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
seomoz.org
searchengineland.com
linchpinseo.com
Read and research on the subject until one feels ready to start working on a few websites to test what you have learned or conduct a few experiments. Start the tests on a few websites by putting a bit more content to some of the pages or changing the title tags. It’s important to keep an SEO log to record the data or findings you get from the experiments.
Don’t forget to record the changes that were made along with the dates when the alterations were done. See if the changes made to the websites have affected the rankings. Examine the results and then test more websites to see if the changes you installed produce similar influence on the rankings. One can then apply the new knowledge you gained via the experiments to improve one’s websites and make them search engine friendly.
But don’t stop just yet because there is still so much to learn about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). At this point, it would be a great idea to install a tool that would allow one to have a closer view at the amount of traffic on your websites. Google Analytics allows users to look at the sources of a site’s traffic and the queries that people type in search engines. Improve and increase the content of a particular page and observe if it brings in more visitors and look at the keywords that allowed people to find the page.
Google Analytics will also show the content that made people stay longer on your site and the pages that held the interest of visitors for only a few seconds. Learn how to take advantage of the features of this free service and other SEO tools to broaden and increase your optimization skills and knowledge. Apply the new found knowledge to your websites and hopefully the traffic and search rankings will rise.
Let’s proceed with another step towards increasing your optimization skills and knowledge. Join an online community or forum dedicated to SEO. Then partake in the pool of knowledge and be generous in sharing the things that you have learned so far. Take note of threads and posts that involve websites losing significant amounts of traffic or dropping in the rankings.
Observing these types of cases will allow one to determine the factors that will cause a site to lose visitors or rankings. It also provides one with a list of mistakes to avoid when trying to market a website. These posts are also good opportunities for you to offer helpful advised to troubled members.
Being active in an SEO forum also allows one to be aware of the algorithm changes and updates that are being implemented by Google and other search engines. If you have questions about Search Engine Optimization, then a forum would also be a good venue to pose your queries.
However, aways take advice on forums with a grain of salt because some of them can be bad or outdated. Do not rely on a single source and try to verify with other experts before making major changes to your site. Joining an SEO forum is also a good way of building relationships with other folks who are working to improve the traffic and rankings of their websites. Perhaps one can set-up some good guest posting opportunities with the relationships you built with other members of the forum.
One should also concentrate on creating great content for your websites. Look for a topic that you enjoy and have substantial knowledge of and make an article to be posted for your site. For experiment to work, the article should be of high quality and should be among the best in the web for that particular topic. It should also be unique and provide great experience for readers. Then observe its rankings to see how it rises.
The page would not be impressive for the first few months but it will continue to rise in a year or two provided that it is truly of excellent quality. This should show that a truly quality page will be recognized in time as shown by its ranking in the SERPs. If you are writing about a popular topic, then there’s a good chance that there are other excellent pages that rival your own. This means that one needs to regularly update your content to improve it and make it better than the competition.
So what comes next after learning several SEO techniques and gaining extensive knowledge on getting good rankings and topics? Well, there’s the constant journey of improving and keeping in touch with the latest optimization updates.
Don’t be cocky and feel like you know it all because a new algorithm from Google may suddenly take away the high rankings and turn your world upside down. Spend several hours every week on reading new SEO articles that may teach you about new techniques or mistakes that should be avoided. Continue to interact with other SEO’s and build relationships that may eventually increase your reputation and standing within the community.
About the Author
Merben went back to the basics and explained SEO; what it is about, its importance and learning SEO good practices. You can outsource link building from Agents of Value to do SEO for your online business.
