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.

When building a website you must focus on the functionality of your site.  In other words – how are users going to easily navigate, search and find what their looking for on your website?  Building a user friendly website can be quite tricky for some new designers.  However, if you can design and build a proper website from the start, you will save yourself from having to re-design your site in the near future.  Here are some useful tips that you should consider when building your website:

Creating a Sitemap

Whether your website is 4 pages or 4000 pages, you need to have a text-based sitemap.  It’s imperative that you have static links of all your pages directly on the sitemap.  If you’d like you can provide a short description of what each page is about right beside each static link.  This will allow users to find what their looking for more efficiently.  Having a sitemap also allows the search engines to easily spider your entire website and index all of your pages.

Consistent Design & Layout

When designing a new website make sure that each component is consistent throughout.  In most cases, a website will have a unique home page layout and inner page design.  The most important factor once again is consistency.  Make sure you have the same color scheme, font, text size and navigational menu throughout your site.  The last thing you want is a user to feel like he/she is going to another website when they click on a link that goes to one of your inner pages.

Navigation

The way you structure your website’s navigation will determine the level of ease your customers can access information.  If this crucial step is not done properly, you face the risk of loosing potential customers.  By providing various visual paths or links to inner pages, you ensure that people can easily find information throughout your site.  One excellent way to do this is through a menu, also known as a menu bar.  A detailed menu bar should be visible on each page on your website.  Most effective menu designs are created down the left side of the web page or across the top.  Since it might not be feasible to include your entire sitemap in the menu bar; pick your main categories / funnels to include.  A drop down menu can be created to include sub-categories within the menu bar.  Also try to avoid using too much flash or complicated java script for you menus.  It may appear to be visually appealing at first, but can just cause a great deal of confusion for your users.

Website Legibility

Make sure your website is legible. A website that can be easily understood, with a professional design layout will maximize your online sales potential.  Using dark text on a light background is the standard practice for creating legible text.  Split up content into short sections and use subheadings to highlight the major topics.  Organize your content with headings, bullet points and accentuate key areas with bold key-phrases.  By making your message clear you can count on users spending more time on your website, and ultimately converting into customers.

Check for Errors

Review your website on a regular basis for content, design and/or technical errors. Having a professional website with spelling and grammar mistakes can destroy the message that you are trying to convey to your audience.  Even if you are working with a professional content writing team – make sure different people are editing your content for grammar/spelling mistakes. 

We all know how frustrating it can be when we browse a site and end up clicking on dead links that lead nowhere. As new pages are created and/or deleted on the World Wide Web, it’s pretty common for a link to go bad.  Check your site for dead links on a regular basis.  Just type in Google “free broken link checker” and you will find plenty of them. Here is one free tool that will display the broken links within your site: www.dead-links.com.

A good way to avoid technical / design errors is to validate your code.  These days, users have many options when it comes to web browsers and this means that your website runs the risk of not displaying properly in one of them.  The best way to avoid this issue is to use validation tools to ensure your web pages are W3C and CSS compliant.  Visit: http://validator.w3.org/ and http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ to diagnose your site’s code. 

Contact Information

No matter what product or service you’re selling, if a prospective client has a hard time contacting you, than they will surely go to one of your competitors who are more easily accessible.  Make sure all your phone numbers are displayed on a contact page.  Sometimes, it’s a good idea to even have your phone number in the top header/banner of your page.  On your actual contact page, include all your phone numbers, addresses, emails, etc.  You can also have a contact form for users to fill out so they can get more information.  Some people prefer to be contacted by an agent, as apposed to calling in right away.  The more contact info you display, the more assessable you become to your users and the more reliable and trustworthy you appear to be.

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.