Webupon

Let’s stick to the simple facts. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art of getting website traffic from search engines. Nothing more, nothing less. Most people think it’s complicated, but it’s really not! I used to think the same way. Fortunately, I changed my mind.

The good thing about SEO techniques is that, if you do them effectively, you can automatically send hundreds and even thousands of visitors to your website/s. Some web owners even reach the front page of Google and Yahoo search results for certain keyword phrases, which means one thing for the site owner: Lobsters for lunch! (in other words, more traffic equals more website income, regardless of the industry).

Let’s skip the introductions and start looking at some real SEO techniques that you can start doing today. Whether you’re promoting a website, sales page, blog, article page, photo page, or any site hosted on the internet, SEO techniques can work for you.

1. The first three words of your article/content page title should contain targeted keywords

If it’s a blog post, the title of the post should contain at least three words which you perceive as popular in the search engines. For example, if Britney Spears shaves her hair (again) and it becomes a popular news item online for an entire month, you might want to include the keywords “Britney Spears Bald” somewhere in the title of your article or webpage. This is just an example. No need to write about Britney, ok?

2. Post the URL link of your website on other popular websites

The more times that your website link is shown on other sites (called a backlink), the more Google looks at it as popular and trustworthy. This causes Google to rank your site higher in the search engine results. There are many ways to get backlinks. First is by submitting articles to online directories such as Ezinearticles.com and Goarticles.com, then post your website link in the article resource boxes.

Second, participating in online discussion forums might also be good for SEO. The good thing about majority of forums is that they allow you to have a forum “signature” that automatically appears at the bottom of each forum post you make. You can include your website link on the forum signature. Voila…another backlink.

The third and best way to get backlinks is to post comments in high authority, popular, and RELEVANT blogs. When you comment on blogs that are relevant to the topic of your website, you are given the chance to post your website address (your name actually appears as a link to your site).

Sure it takes time to build backlinks, but the more backlinks you create, the more traffic you generate in Google and the other search engines.

Here’s one more thing to remember. Your backlinks must be clickable, or else Google will not be able to crawl it and include it in search engine results.

3. Use Anchor Text Techniques

The “anchor text” is a block of written text that appears as a link to a website. Remember the phrases online that say “Click Here”, or “Order Now”? These are examples of anchor texts. Each time you have the opportunity, post anchor text links on OTHER websites, and these anchor text links should point to YOUR website.

The key to anchor text linking is to include powerful keywords. For example, instead of using the words “Click Here”, you can use the words, “Latest iPod Gadgets”, (that is, if your website is related to gadgets or iPods in some way). The more anchor text links you have on OTHER websites that point to your own website, there is a greater chance that you will rank higher in Google for the keywords you used.

4. Be Aware Of Keyword Density

Keyword density is simply the amount of times that your targeted keywords appear on the content of your page. For your webpage, article, or blog post to be search engine friendly, it needs to have an average keyword density of 3%. That means, your chosen keywords should comprise at least 3% of your webpage content. I don’t know where this came from, but some SEO experts really teach this and claim that it gives your website a huge traffic boost. Do not overdo keywords in one article, webpage or blog post. Use them strategically and sparingly. You don’t want the phrase “Barack Obama Wins Election” to comprise 90% of your site content. It will be annoying to the readers and to the search engines. Your webpage will appear spammy this way.

Still mystified with SEO? Check Wikipedia for more SEO information. I remember how I went from being mystified, to being fascinated, to being speechless about SEO. Now, a lot of the daily traffic that flows into my websites come from search engines (although I confess I’m more into social media traffic than search engine traffic). It can happen to you too.