What does Organic SEO really mean?

search engine optimizationOrganic search engine optimization does not mean chemical free. It simply means search engine rankings that are not paid for by a Pay Per Click program of any kind. It is referring to “free” traffic. “Free” is a loose term – this is traffic that has been earned not bought. Earned by hard work and learning what to include in a website and how to include it.

There are 2 main categories of Search Engine Optimization – On-site and Off-site. Onsite is anything actually done to your website and offsite are all the efforts made outside of your actual website. There are so many different methods of obtaining Search Engine Placement – and the first page is the main goal. Above the middle of the first page is where the “gold” is at – here are some ideas to get your site listed and ranked highly in Google and the other search engines.

Onsite Search Engine Optimization Basics for any Website

  • Research a list of keywords that are relevant to your target market – and use them throughout your text.
  • Use titles and subtitles that contain your keywords
  • Create links that contain your keywords – called archer text.
  • Make sure your Meta data (keywords and description) is filled out. I am always surprised how many websites do not contain any meta tags.
  • Make sure the title of your website is keyword rich
  • Use images and make sure the titles and alt tags of your images have keywords. It is useless to call your image 001 or any other number that is irrelevant to your keyword list. Many Content Management Systems take the name of the image file and create alt text automatically.
  • The fist paragraph needs to contain your keywords – and they need to be in the first part of the sentence to get optimal weight.
  • Your web pages need to use the Header Tag system. Think of header tags as an outline. H1 is at the top and H6 is last. H1 has way more importance to a search engine than an H6. There can only be 1 H1 per page and the heading order needs to be ascending.
  • Internal linking on your website is important for SEO and user friendliness.
  • Create content that other websites want to link to so they can share the wisdom with their readers too.
  • Include a Blog on your company site if at all possible.

Offsite Search Engine Optimization Basics for any Websitecreating backlinks

  • Get your site listed in as many Online Directories as possible with dmoz.org as the first directory submission you make. Many directories are free, some require a link exchange and many are paid.
  • Build back links by commenting on other blogs, exchanging links with other sites, and creating profiles on Social Sites.
  • Create a Google Profile and fill it out as completely as possible.
  • Get your Google Business Listing and submit your business to Google Maps.
  • Create your FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and BizNik accounts and fill out the profiles completely and make sure your websites are listed.
  • Create deep-links into your site. Do not always link to the home page but link to interior pages whenever possible.
  • Use Squidoo, HubPages, and Articles to get more content out into the hands of your readers and to create more back links. Linking through a website as a link chain is also useful. An example of this is to create a HubPage. Make a Tweet that links to the HubPage and link the HubPage to your website. An article at EZine Articles can link to a Squidoo page that then links to your website.
  • Use Social Bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us
  • Create Press Releases
  • Use Forum Signatures to create backlinks.
  • Create Videos related to your business and post them on Video sharing sites like YouTube.

The number of off-site ideas out there are only limited by your imagination. Be creative. The above lists are a great place to start. If any of the ideas presented above are a mystery to you then consider joining the training side of this site.  Get your hand held while you are learning the whole process of Search Engine Optimization and website marketing.