How do I optimize my website for the search engines?

The most important thing I can tell you here is be honest. Don't try all the Black Hat tricks you will read about on other websites. You will probably get high in the rankings for a week or two but in the long run, you will lose everything you worked so hard to achieve. Once you get black listed for cheating, you will have a very hard time ever redeeming yourself. It's not hard to do it right. It actually requires just about the same amount of work. The difference is, do it right and you will be making money for years. Do it wrong and, well.... see ya!

Ethical Search Engine Optimization is KEY to website longevity!

By the way, those people out there that are trying to convince you that unethical search engine optimization tactics are OK and you will never get caught? They have one of two motives in mind. They either want you to give them your money while they deliver their promise to get you ranked high or they are trying to sabotage your website so they have less competition. Either way, it won't work for long. They can easily get you ranked high long enough to cash your check. After that you are gone for good.

OK, enough about that. Let's get on with the ethical SEO.

It might be easier to print this page so you don't have to keep jumping back and forth.

The first thing you want to do is open up a page on your editor. Read the page to see what words are used most often. These are your KEYWORDS. Make a list of 5 - 10 keywords. Note: These are not your keywords for your entire website. You will have to do this same process for every page you want indexed in the search engines.

Go to Good Key Words and download this free program.

Once you have it downloaded, open it up and select Keyword Suggestions. Type on of the words from your list into the base keyword spot and hit GO. Wait about 30 seconds and you will see a list of related keywords and phrases. Don't pick the first word or phrase that is on the list this word has too much competition and you aren't ready for that yet.

Go about half way down the list and pick two keywords or phrases that will match several of your keywords for that page. Write them down. (At this point, you can do this same process for the rest of your pages or work on one at a time. It's all going to get done eventually, you do it the way you feel is most efficient.)

Sometimes you will find several of the same keywords will work for many pages. You will want to find independent words or phrases for each page. This will take longer but it will pay off in the end.

(Here is another free program to help with your keyword search. Keyword Spider comes with it's own learning video. In about 5 minutes you will know everything there is to know about it's use. Watch the video available on the download page.)

If your website is about computers and your keyword phrases for your main page are computer parts and computer services, you will have no choice but to duplicate these phrases on your parts or services page. This is fine but you will want each pages keywords to be as unique to the page as possible. Your phrases for the service page, for example, might then be online computer services and internet computer services.

• Note: If you are wanting to use the keywords that are on the top of the list, consider this. Do a search on Google for my top keyword "computer". How many pages show up? This is my competition. Now try "computer services". How many pages? It is easier to compete with these smaller numbers.

• If you have a real refined topic to begin with, your competition may not be as overwhelming as the general topic "computers". Do the Google test on your choices to see what you come up with.

Once you have your keywords and/or phrases picked out for your page, what do you do with them? The first thing you will want to do is put them in your meta tags.

If you used one of my sample pages to get started, you already have the start of your meta tags pre-inserted. If you didn't use one of these pages, just copy and paste the following code into your code in between <HEAD> and </HEAD>

CODE:

Your two main keywords or phrases will be your title. <TITLE>They go here:</TITLE>
In my example I would use Computer Parts | Computer Services Like this:
<TITLE>Computer Parts | Computer Services</TITLE>

Brad Callen suggests using the | rather than the word and in the above title. This looks more professional and the word "and" would never be a searched word anyway. This character is located on the keyboard directly above the "enter key".

You will have the opportunity to get Brad's free guide on search engine optimization later in this program. Another thing to read right now will just confuse you so you can do that later. Remember, step by step.

Let's continue here

Ethical Search Engine Optimization