SEO (search engine optimization) is considered one of the best free sources of advertising – it can garner you traffic, eyeballs and customers.   SEO is organic, which means its a natural (not paid) way for the search engines to find you.

With SEO you can get thousands of visitors to your offer everyday without paying a dime. Of course, that’s not to say it’s free — time is money after all. And, SEO will take time to do it correctly.

But if you have the patience, the long term benefits of SEO are more than worth it because your site, once ranked as an authority in the expertise you want it to be know, can stay ranked for years to come.

 

How do you get ranked?

(image source Freepik)

First you have to pay attention to your title tag. This is the most important part of any website and it’s the first thing the SE (search engine) spider will see. Make sure your main keyword is listed at the beginning of the title and maybe even a second time.

What about the description and keyword tags?

While some experts feel these aren’t as critical for SEO.  the description tag is still crucial because it can make a huge difference in your CTR (click-through rate). Click-through rate is the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement (wikipedia).

This is because the search engines show this under your title in the search results and having an interesting and compelling description of your page can determine whether someone clicks through to your page or not.

What about keyword density?

(photo source: Freepik)

Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page (wikipedia).  To achieve keyword density, include your keyword two to three times throughout your page in a natural way. Aim for the hourglass effect, use your keyword in the beginning, middle and end of your page – more in the beginning, a little less in the middle, and more again at the end. I tend to use keywords 1 time for every 100 words. However you can use a 50 to 1 ratio or a 150 to 1. Whatever your preference, create a formula and stick to it.

Create LOTS of content including posts and pages. This is important for two reasons: One – the more pages you have, the more page rank and two – the search engines like constantly updating websites.

 

Target “long tail” keywords.  Long tail keywords are both easier to rank for and more profitable. Getting ranked for 20 different 30 searched terms a day is far easier than going after a single 600 searched term, it’s more efficient and can add more to your bottom line. That is because, in most instances, the most highly searched terms are very general (generic) and extremely hard to rank for and ultimately make money with. For instance, the term “make money” is too generic and too many sites are vying for the term.  So they pay for it with adwords.  That is not ‘natural optimization.

And finally, avoid black hat methods.  While they may have worked in the past, black hat methods are seldom, if ever effective in the long run.

Use this crash course as your guide to jump start your SEO campaign and get your site ranked in the search engines in ways that won’t cost you a ton of money.

And be sure and download the FREE SEO Checklist – The Steps Necessary To Increase WEB Traffic and Build More Profitable SEO Campaigns below: