What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
Before I get started with my SEO tips and ideas I thought I’d clarify what SEO is and why it’s important.
According to Wikipedia, “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.”
A search engine’s “job” (i.e. Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) is to return the most relevant results to a visitor’s search query. So if I sit down at my computer and type in wakeboard racks into my Google search bar it’s Google’s job to provide me with the web page (yes this can be a single page not necessarily an entire site) that they feel is the very best match for my search query. As stated above, we’re talking about the natural results – not the ads that show up at the very top and on the right hand side.
How do they determine what page is the “best match”? Well, there are several factors that help Google “rank” each page in order and we are going to look at some of these factors.
When you go to optimize your site you will want to focus on your “on-page” factors, as well as, your “off-page” efforts. On-page factors are the ways you can tell Google what your site or page is about by adding code and content to the actual page. Off-page factors are what other sites are telling Google your page is about. This can happen naturally as others link to your site but you will also want to learn about ways (other than on your own site) to “tell” Google what your page is about. These are the off-page methods we’ll be looking at as we go.
I want to get started with on-page factors A.S.A.P. but before you put any work into your SEO you’ll want to make sure you understand how to choose your keywords or the SEO work you do will be a complete waste of time.
I’ve done some videos on this in the past but the keyword tools I use and the look and feel of them have changed so I’ll be putting together a new video for you in the next couple of days.
Until then, I’ve set up my new Facebook fanpage and if you go there and “Like” the page and add your favorite SEO tip (or ask me an SEO question) I’ll give you credit in my SEO post series with a nice PR3 link back to your site. I’m also gearing up to hold some contests and giveaways on my page there so be sure you go “Like” it and check back from time to time to see what I’m up to over there … sound good? *SmiLes* Suzanne SuzanneFranco.com Fanpage
Suzanne Franco Land - I am an online marketing expert who loves to use blogging (winner: Blogging Idol Season 2), video marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, and more ... to make a full time income online. If you would like to hear more about how I make my online income please use the contact us link or use any of the social icons below to reach me. *SmiLes* Suzanne
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Hi … My name is Suzanne Franco (Land) and I’m a wife (newlywed actually) and mother to 5 amazing kids (my 3 and his 2 – ages 10 to 17) and we live in the Texas Hill Country where we try to spend a lot of time in the water (river, boating, wakeboarding, the beach, etc.) and running from one kid’s sporting event to the other (mainly football, cheerleading, and soccer). 
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I remember before when I applied for a job that involves SEO and the employer asked me what do I know about SEO, I only copied its definition from w!k!ped!a. LOL. Thank God now I have a broad knowledge about it even though I started with zero knowledge about it. God is really good!
Twitter: goldalliancegrp
July 14, 2011 at 10:11 pm
Nice tips. Please do a post on strategies for getting quality backlinks. Thanks.
Twitter: jammen89
July 18, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Thanks for giving us these tips. this will surely help us in optimizing what we are promoting.
Search engine optimization or SEO did help me a lot in increasing the ability of my website to be seen in search engine. By using SEO one can also gain amazing traffic within their website.
SEO is the best medium to get traffic and earning for a long period of time through search engine. It’s like a long term benefit scheme. Initially you have to make hard efforts to correct your site from on page point of view. Then you can proceed for off page optimization to get huge SEO benefits.
These are great tips! Search engine optimization is so key and I think it scares a lot of people off who are new to the website and blogging world. Your explanation makes a lot of sense and I think would be easy for any skill level to follow. Thanks for the information.
seo is more impotent for every bloggers we should no about it,It’s always a pleasure reading your articles. Thank you for sharing such relevant topic with us
I like your post.SEO defines many things to you.Due to seo u may to know about many things about internet marketing. Its very interesting and useful for us. Thanks for sharing this article.
This is my second career, actually at first I have no Idea what the Heck SEO was.. I’m applying for Network admin but unfortunately there is no available position, and the supervisor ask me if I can be a SEO temporarily. then I agree.. and so on.. and as of now I’m still a SEO Specialist.. I really enjoy my new career.
Very good information on SEO.
SEO is very vast topic and requires working for days and months to get a complete grip on it but you have really summarized this vast topic by dividing it into two major parts the on-page SEO and the off-page SEO. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Twitter: webtricksblog
August 17, 2011 at 12:03 am
Hi,
Indeed these are all great things to do to your blog. I have recently started my blog and have learnt a lot over the last couple of months. There is so much more to learn still. Thanks for the info.
Twitter: #!/WebPsd
August 19, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Yeah.. Facebook “I like” is a monster in SEO (i think
). Thank you for post. 
I would like to see an update to this as i enjoyed the article although brief it was informative. I am self taught and still learning, i try and read any and everything i can get my hands on and implement it on my two business websites. I would like to see something on the new panda update that google did.
SEO is indeed very important but it has to be done correctly. Unfortunately, there are lots of people specially from India who does nothing but spamming and black-hat SEO. That’s why Google keeps on slapping websites if they notice something like spamming even if it’s not really spamming.
Twitter: info_tech_trade
August 23, 2011 at 9:35 am
I think patience is an important factor when it come to search engine optimisation. I almost gave up promoting my website until it suddenly rose from pagerank 0 to pagerank 3 overnight.
Twitter: barrywheeler
August 23, 2011 at 2:54 pm
SEO is about patience! It’s not something that you will see short term gains in, the more you work at it the more results you will have!
Sticking to the basics is also very important. Don’t try anything above your knowledge level, you could see yourself having problems recovering from things you had no idea existed!
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Great information about Seo.Thanks
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You’re information is very valuable. Thanks for sharing this. I’m sure to visit you’re site again to find any information about SEO. Thanks.
well I’ve been into seo for almost 3 years, and I must admit that I’m still not satisfy with my skills.. I love to learn more about seo and techniques of course.
I really appreciate your efforts of sharing the useful information with us,
I found it very enlightening. Looking forward to find out more and acquire further knowledge from here, thanks again and have a nice day !!
Very good informations about seo.thanks
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Twitter: debtnational
August 30, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Some wonderful tips. I really need to know how to properly backlink and get better at optimizing my site. The many things I still need to learn. Thanks for the great post!
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Very useful and informative tips from Suzanne. SEO has gone more innovative these days. The only thing which I feel one must do is to stick to the basics of SEO which looks really simple as mentioned above. Thanks!!
I think for the most part website owners and blogggers understand the basics to on-page SEO – at least they should. Off-page SEO seems to be the forgotten child. Can you write a post on this topic (off-page seo)?
I am just learning how to ‘do off page Seo) and it can be very hard and also tedious (however you do come across some good blogs) so it is nice to come across a site that gives real helpful advice like yours.
My question is ‘how do know if your site is a www or not a www’ I have read quite a lot about canonical connections yet nobody can tell me 1) which my site is 2) how I can change it or redirect backlinks to where I want them to go. It would be a very good part of your on-page seo instruction so people don’t get in the same pickle as me.
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I want to get good search results in yahoo search. What I do for that. Are you giving guarantee for the results within first 10 results and the no.1 result. What are the charges for optimization?And how I get good result without payment.
I have recently started my blog and have learnt a lot over the last couple of months. Thanks for the help.
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Awsome info and right to the point. I don’t know if this is really the best place to ask but do you guys have any idea where to hire some professional writers? Thanks in advance
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This is basic information for SEO. I recommand Google Adwords Tool for keyworkd.
Twitter: NSAL
September 14, 2011 at 10:21 am
S.E.O. is a full time job that so many people are unfamiliar with. Even many S.E.O. companies miss the boat. The whole thing get a little out of hand. I think the search engines should give MOST of the weight to on page properties. Since external links are mostly made by S.E.O. companies, what’s the point?
Patience and a little research around the web and Suzanne Franco is good place to start. My number one rule is Google loves good original content. I started my photography on my photo blog 3 years back and now I get clients directly from Google searches. Paul at Leeds in Yorkshire photography
Nice post. I enjoyed reading it. There are some really good tipps. I will keep them in mind for the future.
I was in the same situation for you where I needed to learn SEO for one of my websites and one of the most helpful ways I found was to just to on youtube and view the tutorials by someone of the experts and ordinary people like us, I learnt quite a few good tips.
Hi Suzanne, I loved your post, your way of starting off with this SEO post is great, normally people post with too much technical terms which a normal user can not understand. You started from its base. Thanks for sharing this post.
Good post, SEO can take a long time to understand and I hate the link building services that advertise their efforts to take advantage of good people just trying to get better rankings. A natural process is always better and although it might take some extra effort you will see the benefits in the long run.
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Thanks for the post. You can also download the SEO guide made by Google itself. It’s a 32 page tutorial PDf file that teaches you the basics of SEO on Google.
Great tips. There is a lot of to know about seo. You must to keep on watching what the other make. So you can faster learn the seo strategy.
I have a question, is on-page optimization equally important as off-page ?
Can I website with almost none on-page rank well in Google or is it impossible ?
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Great article. As you mentioned here that on page factors should be considered as prime factors for optimizing a site. Only backlinks can not work.
SEO is something that we can’t ignore, but don’t too focus on it, content quality is no 1
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Twitter: spinxweb
October 19, 2011 at 4:54 am
Now days search engine optimization become harder and harder because of the lots of update by search engine algorithm and necessity of new content which may cost higher. SO only smart Seo professional will survive in this race who mightbe knowing the correct usage of content.
Twitter: isotech_pest
October 19, 2011 at 12:22 pm
SEO was getting so hard to keep up with that we just outsourced it to a marketing firm. It is getting more and more complicated every day. We needed help.
Getting traffic is sure one of the greatest challenges every website owner faces! One of the ways of getting targeted traffic to your site is through search engine optimization. Unfortunately it is also one of the slowest ways of getting traffic and does require a lot of skill to rank high in the search engines especially for competitive keywords which generate a lot of traffic. But once you hit the first page for your chosen keyword then the rewards can be endless. I have resorted to leaving all my SEO work to my partner as he is very passionate about it and he does it really well. I concentrate on other marketing stuff. Thanks for sharing the great info Suzanne!
Thanks for the great information about SEO. Before I’ve learned SEO, I launched few test blogs and do everything about that I am reading. It took me a year to fully understand SEO and I believe I am on the intermediate level.
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Twitter: loanslot
November 2, 2011 at 1:07 am
Does Facebook really helpful in terms of SEO? I’ve read somewhere that they are not allowing Google to index everything.
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Twitter: ashusukhija
November 3, 2011 at 12:02 am
Content being the king you need to sprout the keywords from title to bottom of the page and definitely link it so that off page seo goes on well..
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Good points about Search Engine Optimization .
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks a lot for the information regarding SEO Suzanne!
I’m trying to get into Search Engine Optimisation. I haven’t yet grasped it but i am certainly learning with every blog or article i read.
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Twitter: blogwhips
November 4, 2011 at 2:08 pm
thanks for the help i can apply these ideas to my automotive/cars blog
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@Kevin.. yes..Facebook play a major role in terms of traffic. After google new algorithm, Panda..social media websites are indexed by google in a better way. Also, google will not show all indexed pages for some reason but Yahoo site explorer is better for me instead. BTW…the article by Suzanne on SEO is a perfect one for novice to start their carrier as a SEO professional.
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