SEO article - The first and most important thing you must know is that no one can just “SEO” your site and be done with it. If SEO experts offer to SEO your site and it’s just a one shot deal, don’t waste your money. Proper SEO is an ongoing process.

Keywords and Meta Tags

Now, when I write copy for a website, one of the services I offer is to research keywords and then write the title meta tag and description meta tag utilizing some of those keywords. And I use some of the keywords in the text. That is not search engine optimization.

Six or seven years ago, that could pass for search engine optimization. Today, that's the absolute minimum of what every website should have. Real search engine optimization starts there and moves forward.

One more caveat about Organic Search Engine Optimization: You or your website designer should be consulting with your SEO experts before the first bit of code is written for your design. SEO specialists need to be in on the very basics of the design of your website because even the structure of your website can affect how the search engines react to your website.

How the website is laid out, how the structure is arranged, the names and URLs of every page, the menu, the graphics and even the W3C compliance message at the very top of the HTML can all have a profound impact on how well you do in the search engines. Once the website is created, it's too late for a lot of the important SEO factors to be changed without having to spend an awful lot of money changing your website!

What search engines really want

Search engines constantly change to improve their results for searchers. Their only interest is in figuring out how to get the most informative sites to come up when you type in your search terms. And a true SEO expert's only interest is in figuring out what the search engines are looking for and modifying your web site to reflect the current search engine standards.

What that means is that someone needs to be regularly monitoring your website and making the constant adjustments necessary to reflect the changes in the search engines. And yes, that means a regular monthly fee. But unless you're a big company with a big site, that fee shouldn't be much more than the cost of hosting your site.

It also means that you must constantly add new content relevant to what your website is about or you will drop in the rankings no matter what your SEO expert does.

UPDATE - 6-9-2010 - If you're looking for tools to help you simplify or automate your online marketing, I recommend you read these reviews of Website Marketing tools.

Watch out for bad SEO advice

You may have read a lot of articles about search engine optimization and think you know all about it. Believe me, the stuff that's in those articles on the web is old information. The real experts don't put their secrets out there for you to find. At least, not until it's out-dated.

Okay, so what did we learn?

• Keywords and meta tags are the absolute minimum and real SEO starts after that.
• There's no such thing as “I'll search engine optimize your site” and it's done.
• Real search engine optimization is an ongoing process and there will be a reasonable monthly fee involved. And by the way, you should expect a regular monthly report on where your site sits in the rankings of at least the top four search engines. And the realistic goal should be to have you in the top ten results for at least one of your keywords.
• The “do it yourself” articles you read on the web on search engine optimization are outdated and ineffective. The real SEO experts don't tell you their secrets. would you tell your secrets to your competitors for free? However, I will sell you a powerful manual on how to do SEO yourself.

Other useful SEO software reviews, SEO tools, SEO tricks and SEO books:

• New SEO Tool Lotus Jump Review
• SEO Glossary of Terms
• Article - What is SEO and How Does It Really Work?
• Article – What You Absolutely Must Know About Search Engine Optimization
• Article – Anchored Text and Anchor Tags are Key Ingredients for SEO
• Article – Who Needs SEO and Why?
• SEO ebook – TRUST BUT VERIFY – How to Keep Your SEO Firm from Taking You to the Cleaners
• Article – If You Want to Know What Google Thinks is Proper SEO, Ask Them
• Article – Make a Splash Page That Does What You Need and Gets Great SEO Placement
• SEO seminar for companies
• SEO and Web Copywriting 12 Week eCourse
• SEO DIY 4 Week eCourse
• WordsmithBob’s Small Business Marketing Blog

If you'd like to have my experience and knowledge and “all my SEO tricks” applied to your website, don't hesitate to call me at 612-226-7667 or send me an email at bob@wordsmithbob.com .

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