Is It Possible To Implement Search Engine Optimization Yourself

Let me first start out saying that I do not claim to be an SEO expert, however I have had some success with my sites and blogs that I will share with you. For some this may be old new for others it may be completely new info. No matter where you fall within the spectrum of Internet savvy these are techniques that absolutely work that I have personally experienced over the years.

Search Engine Optimization seems to have a number of definitions lately, although I believe it to be simply a means of ranking high for a specific search term or keyword. If this sounds like another language to you all it really means is when someone searches for something , say widgits, they type widgets into the Google, Yahoo or Bing search box and hit enter and the pages that come up are in search relevance or ranked order. This means that whatever search engine you are using has ranked all "widget" websites and in order of each search engines evaluation here are the results ranking from the most relevant to the least relevant for that particular search word or phrase.

Being number one on Google, Yahoo or Bing means that your website theme meets the criteria that each search engine has set and your site has the highest rating. Having established my definition the following tactics and procedures work in ranking well on any of these sites, although they all take different approaches to their respective ranking scores.

1) Having your main keyword within your domain name is very helpful. This alone will not guarantee your results but it is very helpful. Let's say that you wish to rank on Google's front page for the search term "dog collars." Having a domain name with the words "dog collars" within it will help you a lot.

2) Links to your site. Basically the best links to your site are one-way links. That is relevant websites that link to you without a reciprocal link from you back to them. This is sometimes referred to as off-page SEO. Reciprocal links are also good but too many and you will actually jeopardize your efforts. You will also come across people offering you three-way links. This is a contrivance that sets up a series of links this way A to B, B to C, and C to A. Utilizing this strategy you won't get penalized for too many two-way reciprocal links. I don't use it. You can decide for yourself if it's appropriate for your site.

3) Keyword rich content on your site. There is no substitute for good strong content. The important aspect is not to overload your content with your main keywords. The search engines easily pick up on this and will penalize you for it. There are tools that you can use to calculate the proper keyword density for you. We offer some suggestions on our site.

4) Changing content on a regular basis. Having a flow of new topical information is very important to ranking well. Either you write your own content or have it written for you. If you have it written for you make sure that it is unique and not doctored up PLR.

5) Utilize a blog. If you have a standard HTML website, setting up a blog will go a long way to helping your SEO efforts because it provides interactive comment among other attributes that search engines look favorably upon.

6) Site load time. Believe it or not but the amount of time it takes for your website to load is important to your site ranking. If it's too slow you will lose points. Here are some tips: Limit your use of graphics. If you can't, then get an image compression tool. Xara is a good choice because it's a very good digital image and illustration tool, it also performs image optimization and it's priced right, the latest version is under $100. Of course Photoshop can do optimization as well among many other things but it's pretty expensive the first time out. GIMP is an open source digital free image tool but I find it a little hard to learn. We have links on our site to these products as well.

Also lots of Flash animations may look great but they can take up loading time.

There you have it, six simple things that anyone can do to improve their site ranking. Let me also say that there really isn't a substitute for professional SEO. The biggest issue is that any SEO professional that's worthwhile is going to be expensive but if you have the funds they will do all of the above and more to get your website to the top. You can find lots of tutorial and resources on our site and blog below.