posted in search engine optimization on 27 October 2008
by Andrew Lang
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Search Engine Optimization in 2008

I've written a lot about search engine optimization on this blog, but I think it's about time to consolidate the latest SEO techniques into one convenient article! The purpose of this article is to teach you the most effective, legitimate ways to achieve high rankings in the search engines for your chosen keywords / keyphrases.

Content is king

First and foremost, content is king. This has been the mantra for many years, and will continue to be so. Make sure your website is a destination worth staying at, returning to, and recommending. Hone your content so it is interesting, informative and of course, unique. Share your expertise freely on your website. Update your website regularly with informative articles. This is the obligatory opener to any search engine optimization guide, since search engines also want quality websites high up in their listings. Quality = unique, informative, regularly updated content.

SEO in 2008 is all about trust and authority

In 2008, more than ever, the two important keywords for search engine optimization are trust and authority. Rankings are heavily influenced (if not exclusively infuenced) by these two factors. If a search engine trusts your website, they will include more and more pages from your website in their index. They will rank them higher. They have entrusted your content to their own customers (those making searches in their search engine). You will gain authority primarily via particular links to your website from authoratitive websites. More on this later. A few years ago, SEO was more about volume of links pointing to your website - the more the better. Now links are easy to obtain, finding / compelling authority websites to link to you is a much more subtle art.

Take your website very seriously

I include this tip, because your attitude is very important when it comes to SEO. It's easy to get a website these days. It's so much cheaper than 5 or 10 years ago. You can get a free template and cheap hosting and away you go. Even 4 years ago, we used to sell our template at £695 (now we retail at £395 as we've honed our business practises down to a fine art, and passed the savings on). However, this has engendered a kind of "let's throw some stuff at the wall and see what sticks" type of attitude from some businesses. On the internet wall, nothing sticks. If you want to almost guarantee failure, do something half-heartedly online. if you're lucky, you'll trundle along. Commit your time and effort to your website. Update your site regularly. Link build / promote your site regularly online. Not only will your website be more successful, you will inadvertently pick up some great skills in terms of content writing and link building along the way. Your next online business will be a lot easier as you have a skill-set already honed for your next website!

Register your domain for 10 years

Search engines want to know your website is going to be around for a long time, and is a long-term venture. Registering your domain for the maximum period (10 years) is one signal of commitment.

Get your site reviewed by trusted directories

Search engines trust particular directories since they're edited by humans. Search engines use such directories like a basic filter. If you're listed in these directories, it means an editor approved your website, so it's another trust signal gained. There are only a small handful of such directories you should focus on. Conveniently, they are listed here. Most of them require payment for the review. If your website / business is legitimate, your website ought to be included without a problem. Yahoo! directory is probably THE most influential. We would recommend DMOZ.org as it is influential, but to be frank they offer a very very poor service when it comes to site review - we have submitted sites that don't even get reviewed at all (we can check from site stats if we get a visit from DMOZ editor, often they never review at all!). We mention DMOZ, because our message is: register your site with DMOZ (it's free, takes just a few minutes of your time), but don't expect it to get listed there (treat it as a wild bonus if it is!).

Instead, spend some money with Yahoo! directory and the other paid directories. They are much more responsive, and still very influential.

Post comments on dofollow blogs

Introduction to dofollow blogs here. Dofollow blog comment posting is a great way to get one-way deep links to specific pages on your website with your chosen anchor text. There are two ways to do dofollow comment posting: the right way, and the wrong way. The right way is to write truly informative comments that add to the discussion. The wrong way is to write something banal like "great article, thanks!".

Reciprocal links are still good

Link swapping with related, quality websites is still a worthwhile habit to keep. You will find yourself getting actual click-throughs from such links if you swap with sites that don't have huge directories of links. Use a search engine and search for suitable link partners - email them (a personal email) asking them for a link exchange. Only email sites that are very closely related. You only need to convince a dozen or so sites over time to get most out of reciprocal linking (we're only suggesting you get a handful of reciprocal links). You can also find reciprocal partner websites using these sites dedicated to reciprocal link building : http://www.link2me.com/ and http://www.linkmarket.net/. Bear in mind you need to be very selective with who you choose to reciprocate links with. Look at which sites they have listed in their links page. Anything unrelated to their business, and you should avoid linking to this website.

Post articles to social bookmarking sites

One way to get search engine's attention is to post your articles to social bookmarking sites like digg.com and reddit.com. If your article is interesting enough, people will vote it up and you'll get natural click-through traffic to your site.

Use rel="nofollow" to spead authority where it matters most

The most valuable page on your website is your home page. Naturally it's the page that ends up with the most links pointing to it (almost always this is the case). And so your home page passes its own authority onto pages that it links to.

This authority is diluted by the number of links on the home page. If you have 10 links on the home page, each link is given much more authority from the home page than if there are 100 links on the home page. Using rel="nofollow" is good in that you can concentrate this "link juice" authority to chosen links. So you can still have 100 links on your home page, but you can choose which links get the authority passed on, and which ones don't. Any link with rel="nofollow" has no authority passed onto it.

On-page optimization - keep your pages tidy

Make sure each page of your site has a unique page title, a search-engine friendly URL, and a strong meta description (the title and meta description are what people read in the search engine listings). Write for your visitors, not search engines. Don't spam keywords on the page, but do make sure they are present in a naturally flowing text.

Conclusion

SEO is a long-term strategy where succeeding means gaining the trust of the search engines through quality content and targeted link building, and they in turn will give your website a commensurate amount of authority.

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