Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seems to be both the ‘it’ buzzword and a rather seedy topic all rolled into one.  While firms can charge ridiculous amounts of money, especially if they are good, many may not be fully able to afford that price tag.

Which leads us here (you are welcome).  This is the absolute beginner’s guide, the aim is simply to help make you a bit more knowledgeable and maybe be able to make some improvements on your own. I’ll be the first person to confess admit that this very website follows almost nothing below. 

SEO is a rather unifying problem facing most websites, and while it seems incredibly complex and a huge hassle, you should pay some mind to improving the search engine rankings for your website. 

What is SEO?

The quick and easy answer- it’s the best way presently to get the most search engine bots to your website.  Which is something you want, it increases the good kind of traffic and makes your website more valuable in terms of rankings and ‘bot juice’.

Why do people pay for it?

It’s work.  It’s lots and lots of work.

How do I know what needs to be done?

While it’s far from the last word, to start with a bit of a perspective run your url through Website Grader .  It’s free, and can give you a bit of an idea of what needs to be done.  While no, it is not the best tool out there (looks at the experts) it’s okay for those just trying to get started.

Ignore the blog ranker towards the bottom of the results page, to be blunt- it kind of sucks. 

The results page will give you a general idea of what you may need to work on.

What now?

Now, comes the work.

While Website Grader will give you an idea and a jumping off point, it is by no means the absolute final word.  It doesn’t take a lot into account, and for that matter the bots don’t either.  While not all the advice presented in the report may be relevant to your own website, it may do some good to take some of the advice into account anyway.

Generally there are some things you will want to look into:

• Meta Keywords and Titles: What is your page about?  Make a list of the search terms related to your website.  For a decent jumping off point, you can use Google’s AdWords tool to have it’s bot look at your website.  Keep page titles relevant to your content and incorporate the keywords if possible.
• Be Relevant: Sure, you can just copy and paste anything into the meta area but it won’t do you any good.  Keep your keywords related to your content.
• Avoid Link Farms:  It’s a common mistake, especially when you hear that the more websites that link to you the better.  Generally speaking, link farms (websites that just collect links) will hurt you more than anything.  You won’t get traffic, and they can lower your value. 
• Link yourself properly: Make sure that your pages link to each other.  The bots follow these links and find more of your website.  Unlinked, or even 404 pages should however *not* be linked.
• Make your URLs make sense:  Proper and human readable address’ can help.  Jumbled and seemingly random strings hurt your ranking.
• Keep it all fresh: Having fresh content helps out.  Keeping your website updated, and on topic will help get you more attention from the bots.  The best way to do this? Have a blog on your website.

The above are far from he only ways to accomplish better rankings in search engines, but they are by far the easiest and most basic.

A Note: Yes, there are millions of articles out there on SEO, I did want to get the basics written up.  I am planning on writing a series that will help out artists and portfolio websites.  It truly helps to have the basics down as your foundation (see, there’s some unintentional art-relevance for you).

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