So many people ask me - How did you learn search engine optimization?  The truth of the matter is, you never stop learning.  ‘The day you stop learning is the day you die’, and that also applies to your website’s rankings when your no longer staying current with today’s SEO. 

I started off like any other person curious about learning search engine optimization.  I Googled various terms like ‘SEO’, and was overwhelmed with millions of results.  Many sources seem to have repetitive information.  Sure you will also find a variety of perspectives - but who can you trust with your SEO knowledge? 

Over a period of time, I have researched various SEO resources and have developed a top 5 list.  This is not to say that these are the top resources for SEO necessarily…this just happens to be my favourite ones.  The below list is in no particular order:

1. www.seobook.com
2. www.bruceclay.com
3. www.seomoz.org
4. www.searchenginewatch.com
5. www.google.com/support/webmasters/   

I know the last one is a little ironic because it’s Google.  But hey, if anyone is going to tell you how you can market your website properly and rank well on the largest search engine in the world…than that person must be Google.

There’s no doubt about it - link building is one of the hardest and most time consuming components of search engine optimization. You’ve generated excellent web copy; you’ve completed all the on-page optimization criteria for your website, but how do you build effective links?

When considering which directories to submit to here are some important factors to think about: Try focusing on building valuable links, as apposed to large numbers of meaningless links. Submitting your site to thousands of general directories that list spammy sites will only tell the search engines that you are in fact one of those spammy sites too. Look for web directories with lots of traffic. Make sure the page you wish to be listed on is actually in the search results. For example, type in Google: “site:directory.com/page-i-will-be-listed-on.html” to see if the page you are about to submit to is actually indexed.

Look for niche directories in your particular industry. If you are an event planner, type ‘event planner directory’ or ‘event planner listings’ in Google and the major search engines. A good rule of thumb to follow: if the search engines find the site valuable and list it in the top 20, than it might not be a bad idea to be listed on their site too.

Keep analyzing the first 20-30 search engine results for different keyword phrases that pertain to your industry or business. Write out a list of websites (not direct competitors) and prepare a method to approach them for a link exchange. Yes I did actually suggest reciprocating links. But be aware, only do this if a) in fact you are exchanging links with someone in your industry and b) if it’s in your best interest to do so (i.e. this website / page gets a lot of traffic that would benefit your site).

Writing good content is probably the olderst form of link building. When the internet was just evolving and websites were nothing pretty to look at, webmasters would surf the web and when they stumbled upon some interesting content, they would often link this content to their website. This is still true to this day - if you have unique and valuable content than you have the best link bait you can ask for.

Writing outside of your website is also a popular means of getting quality inbound links. Write articles that are related to your business and submit them to article search engines. You can also post meaningful comments on blogs and forums and put anchor text inside the comment or conclude your post with a signature that is linked back to your website (this also can be done with articles). Be careful with blogs, since most bloggers avoid spammers by putting a ‘no follow’ tag to prevent spammers from getting any link juice from their posts.

In general, when building a link think about its value in terms of traffic. If your doing it solely for search engine rankings, than it’s probably not the best of links. A good resource for link building strategies is http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2160301. Lastly, if your still to lazy or simply don’t have time to do a proper link building campaign, than you can always higher a professional to do it. One piece of advice: make sure you receive some kind of report on what kind of links they are building and where they are getting it from.

For a while now, many webmasters have been confused with the difference between the ‘alt attribute’ and ‘title attribute’.  These two terms have also been incorrectly referred to as the ‘alt tag’ and ‘title tag’ by many.  From this point forward, hopefully readers will refer to these attributes by their proper name and understand the correct ways of using them.

The most common misconception about the alt attribute is when people use them to insert a description about a particular image.  The alt attribute should be used as it was originally designed to be used - in place of an image which cannot be displayed.  Therefore, people with slower bandwidth computers, hand held devices, screen readers (for those who are visually impaired), can appreciate the image that the website is trying to display.  For example, you have an image of a magnifying glass on your website. When a user clicks on this image/link a search function is then enabled.  A good use of an alt attribute would be to insert alt=”search” in your code.  

The alt attribute is mandatory for images according to HTML 4.01 guidelines.  If an image’s purpose is solely for ’eye candy’, than you don’t need to include alt attributes such as alt=”spacer”.  This serves no purpose to people using screen readers, and can actually get quite annoying.  Instead, simply include an empty alt attribute: alt=”", with no spaces in between the quotations.

The title attribute is where you can include a description of the image / link.  Back to the magnifying glass example - if your alt=”search”, your title=”search the entire website” as an example.  When creating your alt attributes and title attributes, keep in mind what they were actually designed to do. 

In Internet Explorer (IE), you will see the alt attribute appearing as a tool tip.  IE’s error has undoubtedly caused a lot of confusion in the online world.  This is simply a bug, that I assume will be fixed in the near future.  If you wish to prevent the alt attribute from displaying as a tool tip in IE, simply add an empty title attribute: title=”".  If you wish to show your readers a tool tip, this is through the use of the title attribute.

Knowing how to use alt and title attributes properly can give you an edge in your SEO campaign.  Especially in regards to the alt attribute - it has become known that Google does cache this text and perhaps may even use the alt attribute as the heading for images in Google Images.  Therefore, proper uses of the alt tag throughout your site is known to improve search engine optimization efforts.  Misuse of the alt attribute, such as spamming (keyword stuffing) can get your website penalized by the major search engines or perhaps even removed.  As a rule of thumb, make your alt attributes no longer than 100 characters. The title attribute can be longer than the alt attribute (which is quite normal).  However, keep in mind that certain browsers such as Mozilla, only display the first 60 characters of the title attribute.