What are the basics of SEO?

It's not that hard, to tell you the truth. Especially when you own SEO Powersuite, more on that in a second.

Of course I can say that - I've only gone for low compete terms, but even for high-compete terms, the basics of SEO don't change.

I'm not an expert, but I do have websites that rank all over the first page of Google, and my #1 best website is #1 for 3 different terms (subject to change of course!).

Would you like to know my ultra-secret "SEO Loophole" that will guarantee the top ranks in Google?

Ain't one.

Loopholes and shortcuts are a load of bull sold by those who want to sell you an e-book, or a monthly service, or thousands of dollars of backlinks that are here today and gone tomorrow (if they're ever even indexed at all - or "found" by the search engines).

I want to be quick to say that if you do use a monthly service, or have bought e-books (I've bought two that work great)...or even if you've bought link-building services: this isn't some diatribe against your decisions.

Nor do I want to come off sounding like as if all of these solutions don't have their place - but you know why they're necessary?

You lack sufficient knowledge of SEO, or sufficient time to do your own SEO.

If you have the money to spend, and you are short on time - of course it makes sense to pay for whatever services you need. But in my world, every bit counts. And I can't stand what I see from the:

>> Link Pimps

>> Armchair SEO's Wannabes

>> Manipulative Marketers

All of whom have ONE thing in mind: their own bottom line. That's it.

Link Pimps just keep telling you you will need more and more and more crack-like backlinks - and if you don't keep it up, in some services your links will disappear entirely, and I won't mention the handful of services by name, but do ask questions before you subscribe to any monthly link-building service.

For example, ask what happens to your one-way or three-way links if you end your subscription?...

The SEO Wannabes take advantage of any small business owner who has a bank account and zero knowledge of SEO and algorithms, etc. Usually their practices are to get you on the "front page" of Google using Google Maps or some other hocus-bogus...

And the Manipulative Marketers just throw a wide net of mixed-bag marketing tricks, like: "Google is Broken!" or "If you want traffic, you CAN'T Trust Google, you MUST use MY Products!" "SEO is so hard you need a PhD to figure it out!"

Too funny. I don't have a PhD. I just use smart resources and learned (learning!) SEO. It's paying me a steady paycheck, and has from month 2 onwards into SEO and internet marketing.

LESSON: If you don't learn SEO, your ignorance will become the paycheck for these characters. Not only that, but you're leaving money on the table. Do you need to pay for the education?

No, just keep reading!  I'll tell you about a FREE set of tools at the end (SEO Powersuite).

One of the best places you can learn solid SEO is from SEO companies...yes, they usually charge you for it, but not if you know where to look. A great guide is this one for SEO lessons. Who created that?

A company that creates SEO tools, and they have really salient advice and tips to get your head around just what SEO is. Their suite of tools is tremendously effective, and has proven to deliver me consistent results in building, ranking and tracking websites.

How would I know? It's only my favorite bag of FOUR FREE TOOLS! I couldn't complain about it, though I was skeptical at first and ran my anti-virus on the download. Don't worry, they're legit (I think Disney is one of their clients, just for the record).

Some SEO Tips

This isn't going to be a book - it's a HUB - but I did want to leave you with some tips that I use in my business to make money online using my own websites (and HubPages, and Squidoo...).

Consider this a minor tutorial, the free SEO guide will give you a lot more detail.

1. Keyword research. Everyone has their method, I actually just wrote two Hubs on the Best Keyword Research tool and this other hub on keyword research for low-compete terms. It all starts with finding the right keywords.

What are the "right" keywords?

This depends on your goals, your niche, your monetization...

For example, a "good" AdSense keyword gets great CPC (cost per click) - but is should also get good traffic. If the traffic is ridiculously high, and you can't RANK for the term...it's probably not a "good" term for you.

You'll have to decide how to conduct your own research - and experiment using HubPages and article directories, I'd say: no sense building a website around a dud you can't rank for.

Other places to look are Google suggest, Google Trends, the Wonder Wheel, or the free tools I will suggest in a minute. (I use the free tools now more than Google's, much less buggy.)

2. Use your keywords in the "meta data," which you normally can only manipulate on your own website, especially WordPress. This data is the first thing a spider or search engine bot "sees" about your site, including the title, description, keywords...

Google says they "don't check the keywords in the Meta Data," but they're not the only search engine on the planet. In any event, use keywords in all these areas, without spamming or stuffing them!

Never stuff your keywords: a website is NOT a burrito...use your keywords intelligently, naturally, and no more than 2% IMHO (though you will hear other figures, this has served me well).

3. Put your keywords in the title, the URL, the first and last sentence/paragraph...and a little more throughout the content. All subheadings should include the keyword, within reason - and also variations of it.

If you're on WP, then you'll need to change your Permalinks in > Settings > Permalinks, part of the Dashboard. Switch it to:

/%category%/%postname%/

Then use your keywords for the categories, and in your postnames. (I don't do this at my blog, it was a mistake.)

4. Use your keywords in all "Alt" tags, titles, captions and descriptions of images and videos. This is a great way to get traffic when Google serves up your images in its search queries, and under-utilized by many.

5. Use your keywords in all your navigation HTML. Say you're linking between your home page and another page, use the keywords you want the page to rank for, rather than "Click HERE" or, "See this Hub..."

!!!

That's a missed SEO opportunity, and an easy one to avoid. On websites, this inner-linking helps the spiders to see what pages are most important, and for what terms.

It's true that in link-building (external links pointing to your website or "backlinks") you will need to vary your text time to time - this looks more natural than always "Keyword Phrase" -- if you have 10k links with "Keyword Phrase" then you'll lose weight for those links.

Change it up time to time - but internal links: different story, IMHO.

There's a lot that can be said on this, from "silo structures" to "authority sites" - just keep this in mind:

If your site is organized into categories, and those categories make sense (think: HubPages!), then you can build an authority, SEO-Juggernaut website. It's good for your visitors, reading experience etc., it's also good for the spiders and your rankings in time.

6. Relevancy and Proximity are two terms that are more or less self-explanatory. You want your pages to be relevant to the keywords...do NOT pick a keyword because it gets good estimates of traffic, only to build a page on another subject.

Think about the intent of the searcher with that keyword. If you see that "Cardio Exercise Workout" is a great term that you want to target, and only because it gets thousands of searches - but your page is all about Coach purses...no dice.

Proximity is related to the location of your keywords in the text - and this actually goes for every use of the keyword. So if you are naming a file using "keyword" you want to be sure the keyword appears as early as possible. Same with URLs, content, etc.

That isn't to say you shouldn't use your keywords in the "southern hemisphere" of your content - but rather ensure you use your chosen keywords early on at the very least:

In the title

Subheadings

First paragraph/sentence...etc.

The point of on-page SEO is that you want to "label" your content so the Search Engine Spiders can understand what you are writing about - and so visitors can as well.

Don't leave spiders or visitor guessing what you're page is about.

7. Off-Page SEO...let's break it down, I've already written a couple of Hubs:

Where can I get good backlinks? and Free Backlinks Resources.

In a nutshell: you need backlinks - how many depends on your competition, and your niche/keywords. Look at the top 10 for a clue to what it will take, but even then you need to analyze their on-page SEO: if they are ranking high for their terms but have crummy on-page SEO...

Guess what? Your job's much easier (in most cases). All the links that you build from various marketing (article marketing, guest posts, blog comments where applicable) will need to be making use of variuos keywords you want to rank for.

I personally like ArticleRanks and Magic Submitter (really cheap Magic Submitter discount), Unique Article Wizard, Magic Article Submitter...yada yada - you get the point, you need to get backlinks and NO you don't "need" those other services (depends on the niche and keywords).

--> YES they help! But they aren't necessary. <--

The first step is making sure your on-page SEO is in place. Hands down, the BEST on-page SEO tools...

...wait for it!...

( for FREE no less! ) SEO PowerSuite.

What's included?

WebSite Auditor: Checks your on-page SEO and any website's: use it to tweak your own or to see if you can topple a competitor.

Link Assistant: Checks for backlink partners that you can contact for a backlink - this software will legitimately make contact on your behalf, with others in your industry for keyword choices you input. Unlike BlacklinksPro which is a bla.k hat tool - more on that in another Hub.

SEO Spyglass: Unbeatable! This analyzes your competition for their backlinks, you get a load of data that you can use to again see if you can either out-perform or out-smart them: copy their stronger (higher PR) backlinks, and assess the situation. It's not as hard as I'm making it sound, and is tremendous!

Rank Tracker: This is my FAVORITE keyword tool. I use Micro Niche Finder but it's a snail compared to this thing - and Rank Tracker has a few functions.

1) Tells you where you rank in the major search engines for any keyword...BUT it uses 15 data centers, NOT just Google AdWords keyword tool (like Micro Niche Finder) - it will also use their own company's proxies: that means you won't get banned for pinging the daylights out of Google, and speeds up research.

If you've used Micro Niche Finder, you know what I mean!

2) Can suggest TONS of good keywords for you, their traffic volume (you get to pick which tools and data centers it will get this information from, from WordTracker? Google Suggest? The AdWords tooL? Your choice.) The amount of data it gives you, and the speed, really made me re-think Micro Niche Finder.

3) Will give you a report of where your competitor ranks for these terms...and uncovers what keywords they use.

Whether you upgrade or not, this is by far the best suite of SEO tools for the professional SEO that doesn't cost a thousand a month (yes there are tools out there that will cost that much, designed for the industry leaders and not the moms and pops).

My point in sharing this information with you is that you would know there are ways to get your mind around SEO, resources that are free and useful. You don't have to look down on SEO because you don't understand it, nor do you need a PhD.

What you need are the right resources, some experimentation, and great tools. Once you see how easy it can be, and begin to know *what to look for* (using competitive analysis tools for tougher niches) - you have the tools you need to actually make a steady income and change online.

Download your FREE copy of SEO PowerSuite today and see for yourself.

SEO PowerSuite has honestly been my favorite tool this entire year for SEO.