Search Engine Optimization Basics and SEO-Friendly Web Design

There are just a few basics that most people are able to grasp easily when it comes to SEO, but there are plenty of advanced methods that take years of practice to decipher and understand. If you ask someone from an SEO company, he or she will
tell you that anyone can work on the SEO for their site, but that deep, organic SEO takes a lot of time and work.

To get started without an Internet marketing company, you should choose your keywords. Keyword research is tedious and frustrating, but will pay off in the end. Select words that are 1) obtainable, 2) relevant, and 3) profitable. Just because you can rank on the first page of Google for a relevant keyword does not mean that it is bringing you any conversions whatsoever. This is the part that will take lots of time and expertise to perfect.

Become active on your site on a daily basis. Whether this means posting blogs, responding to blog comments, or updating content, an active site is more likely to be indexed and noticed by Google and other search engines. You should include buttons to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and even Digg or StumbleUpon (depending on your industry).

Get content out on the web about your site. You want to increase the number of one-way links you have pointing towards your site, and link building is a very important aspect of SEO. The more links (doorways, portals) you have towards your site, the more likely it is for people to click them, and the more relevant your site becomes to those keywords.

SEO-Friendly Web Design

Designing your page to be SEO-friendly is something that many people tend to overlook as they prepare to launch their sites. San Diego web design companies are abundant these days, so you can tell that this is one of the few booming markets during this recession.

CMS Platform: There are tons of content management systems on the web, but some are much more SEO-friendly than others. Drupal and WordPress are both very affordable options that are easily read by search engines.

URL choice: There are two sides of this story, as with most SEO tactics. If you can get a keyword in your URL, that’s great. If you stuff your URL with keywords, such as, www.sandiegoauthenticmexicanrestaurants.com, that’s not so great. There is a fine line between keywords and keyword stuffing, not only in URL’s but also in content. Walk the line carefully, but never cross it. If you already have a URL, and you are trying to update your site for SEO purposes, you may just have to rely on adding keywords in your page extension URL’s rather than the actual domain name.

Avoid: There are plenty of features that beautiful websites like to use, and many web designers will swear by them from a design standpoint. These very same features can cause problems for your SEO campaign and you should avoid them. Frames are confusing for search engines, and can get in the way of a good user experience. Flash and JavaScript are not read the same way as HTML text, so you may lose out on some much-needed attention if you use them over HTML. Additionally, excessive images, videos, and sounds can cause confusion for the user and the search engine. Try to keep it simple, and flash-free.