The Basics of Organic SEO

When I first heard the term “Organic SEO” – or search engine optimization – I thought it was a healthy way of generating buzz around your website. While it won’t make your site feel any better – if done properly – it can definitely help your financial health by generating traffic and revenue. So what exactly is organic SEO? Basically, it’s getting found on the search engines without paying for a prominent placement. If properly maintained – depending on the level of competition for your keywords – you could show up on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs) for a long time. Here are three basic tips on organic, or “free” SEO:

Optimize Meta Tags and Other Tag Attributes

In terms of organic SEO, not all tags are considered equal by search engine “spiders” or web crawlers. By far the most important are <title> and <description> and you should utilize the <keyword> tag as well. Speaking of keywords, you should always place them in the “alt” attribute of the <img> tag. Also, when placing text links page, the text between <a> and </a> should always contain a pertinent key expression (a group of keywords).

Optimize Your Web Copy

Properly optimized web copy reads well for humans while ranking well on search engines. It starts by writing quality, reader-oriented content on your site and then sprinkling in your most important – and highest converting – keywords. Here are a few other tips for optimizing your web copy:

• Start with keyword research and find the most popular expressions
• Cross link pages
• Don’t leave the most important content at the end

Finally, while Flash may be catchy and fun to watch, it won’t help your SEO ranking. Instead, use informative, keyword-rich content that describes what you do and where you do it.

Spread Your Links

Building incoming links is another way to help your organic SEO ranking. By writing informative or entertaining content others will want to link to your website or blog. When this happens search engines like Google take note and will rank you accordingly. Essentially, when another site links back to you, they are basically telling Google that they are “voting” for your content. Keep in mind these must be “quality links” as not all links rank the same. The more relevant the link, the higher it will rank. These are just a few basics for getting your website ranked organically on SERPs. Bear in mind the Googles of the world are constantly changing the rules on how they rank; so a simple rule of thumb is to write useful information that offers value to the reader. There are a lot of sites out there that stuff their sites full of key phrases; and while the “spiders” might like them, the humans certainly won’t and they’ll go elsewhere. And that is just not healthy for your finances! If you have any questions about SEO, the team at TheeDigital is always willing to help. We offer a complete suite of SEO packages and consulting services.

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