You do not have to be an expert in search engine optimisation (seo) to achieve some modest results provided you your web site is in a niche with a reasonably low competition. If you are new to seo, you should select your niche based on keywords that attract less than 1,000,000 competing sites, as shown at the top of the Google search page. The process of web site development I use is as follows. I define a reasonable result as being able to make the first page of Google's search results.
Start your web site development process by identifying the niche you want to be in. Once you have sorted your niche out, you need to do some research to identify the relevant keywords for that niche. There are lots of tools to help you with that (search the net for +"free keyword tools"), but if you have an AdWords account with Google, their Keyword tool is as good as any. Collect a table of the relevant keywords and their corresponding daily search volume. Web CEO is good tool for identifying effecient keywords.
Once you have identified the relevant keywords and their estimated daily search volumes, you need to assess your competition by trying out your keywords in Google search and observing the number of competing sites. This is where you have to decide which of the keywords are going to be most effective for your niche. Basically, you are looking to identify which of these keywords hav the highest daily search volume and, at the same time, the lowest number of competing sites.
At this stage you should have an ordered list of keywords, or keyword fraises, going down from the highest daily search and lowest competition to the lowest daily search and highest competition. Any key word with daily volume of less than 200 daily searches is not going to be very effective. Also any keyword attracting more than 1,000,000 competing sites will be challenging. If you would like to find out more about keyword effectiveness, search the net for '+keyword +KEI'. KEI is keyword effectiveness index.
Now that you have identified your niche and it's most effective keywords, it's time to design your web site's domain name. Ideally, the main part of your web site's domain name should be an exact match of the most effective of your keywords, or keyword phrases. Remember that the most effective keyword is the one with the highest KEI. For example, if your most effective keyword is 'web hosting', your web site's domain name should ideally be 'www.web-hostin.com' or 'www.webhosting.com'. If you can't get a domain name that is an exact match of your most effective keyword, just use the best matching name you can get with the none-matching words preferably at the end. For example, 'www.web-hosting-guide.com', or 'www.web-hosting-info.com', etc.
When looking for a domain name, start by looking at existing domain names for sale. There are many places in the internet where existing domain names can be bought or won in auctions. Look for domain names with back links and possibly some traffic. If you can not acquire an existing domain name, look for domain names that were recently deleted, or are due for deletion in a few days so that you can grab them before anyone else does. When getting an existing domain name make sure that it has not been used for spam, or the subject of any bad publicity, etc. When registering a deleted domain name, or new one, make sure you select a good domain registrar. Click here for a list of the best domain name registrars which I have used and found to be reliable.
Finally, you are ready to get your web site up and running, note however, with some domain name registrars you may need to wait 24 hours for your domain name to be activated. You can start preparing your web site content while your domain is being activated. Once your domain name is activated, fire up your ftp client and upload your web site content. Congratulations! You have just completed the first part of your simple seo work. The next part of a simple seo implementation involves three main tasks: submitting your site for indexing by search engines and directory sites, establishing a good quality backlinks, and build quality content pages in your web site.
Before submitting your web site to search engines and directory sites, you need to sort out a couple of issues; recall the keyword list you have worked hard to refine and order in the most efficient way for your web site niche; now that hard work should come in handy for use in your web site content. One of the things used by search engines to determine the quality of a web page is the relevancy of the keywords in that page's Meta tag. That Meta tag should contain your keyword list in the same order of efficiency as was discussed above. To start with, use no more than 10 keywords in the Meta tag. The rest you can use to update your site in coming weeks, or when you don't have enough content to add to your site.
The other thing which you need to think over before submitting your site to search engines is the category under which your site will be listed. This is important for two reasons; first some web site categories are automatically blocked by web filtering software employed by a lot of companies, For example games web sites are blocked by most companies to stop their employees wasting time playing games. The second reason is that if your site has any content that is not suitable for children, you need to make sure that the category of your web site correctly reflects that fact. My advice is be honest about the category of your web site.
One other minor issue to think about when submitting your web site for indexing is not to use your main email address for the submission as you may be bombarded with spam. You can submit your site either manually, by visiting search engines and directory sites, or by using a software tool. Most people would use a software tool for that as there are far too many search engines and directories to submit your web site to. I use Web CEO for this.
In the next part of this article we will go into other simple seo techniques which you can do to improve your web site's chance of appearing in the first page of Google's search results. Till then take care and keep checking this site for that part.
