With more than 85% of internet surfers using search engines to access different ecommerce sites, it is important to do something for better website positioning in search engine results pages. This is where search engine optimization techniques lend a helping hand. Many people don’t implement SEO on their website just because they find it hard to handle things on their own. In reality, it is not as difficult as one might think. Self-SEO is possible and even you can tinker with your website to make it move up in search engine results pages.

Before getting down to the real thing, it is important to collect some info about spider, crawler, database, indexer, web server, and top results. All search engines contain these components and it is important to learn about them before launching into the “real” SEO campaign.

After getting the hang of the basics, using these time tested proven techniques you will increase search engine traffic to your website.

1. Checking website SEO status: For better ranking, the first step should be to get a feel for website’s current SEO status. IBP (Internet Business Promoter) offers a great resource to accomplish this task. Download IBP and you will get tools for link building, search engine submission, position checking, keyword research, and more.

2. Keyword analysis and researching: Along with using IBP, Google keyword tool can also be used for keyword analysis and researching. Keyword researching is vital as it lays the foundation of an effective SEO campaign.

3. Examining competitors’ strategies: When doing keyword research, make sure you do a thorough analysis of your competitors’ keywords. This gives a clear idea about “industry specific” primary and secondary keywords. Here, time should be spent on checking the website structure and clickstream of all competitors. Plus, have a look at their link pool. Check carefully and find the sites offering link juice to your competitors’ website. Of course, you can use IBP for complete analysis, but you can also use other resources for keyword researching and analysis.

4. Checking site structure: After conducting a thorough research about keywords, the next big move should be to create a site structure. Always start from your index page. While dealing with site structure, don’t overlook the importance of checking some resources to get the List of Best and Worst practices for designing a high traffic website. For instance, it is a good practice to use primary keywords on first page title and in html meta tags. Same should be done with internal pages. There are many other such practices and to learn more about them, log on to (see resources box).

5. Paying attention to keyword density: Keywords are important for SEO, but keyword density, which is the frequency of appearing a keyword in the text, should always be taken into consideration, as it will be the difference between informative and spammy text. To verify keyword density, simply log on to freewebsubmission.com.

6. Using images correctly: Keywords are vital for content and so is the use of h1, h2, h3 in the page text. Along with keywords, images should also be formatted in a correct way, i.e. by making use of alt and title tags. Images or flash content is not readable by search spiders, so make sure everything is spic and span.

7. Building reputation: After going through previous steps, the next step should be to add such content on the website that inspires people to trust a website, for its quality of products and service. This can be done by adding secure order forms along with showing awards, achievements and partners’ links.

8. Website Promotion: After designing a “search engine friendly” website, it is time now to get to the tougher part – website promotion.

o Submit to search engine. This is the first step of website promotion. But, attaching same importance to all popular search engines is crucial. It means along with submitting to Google, you should also submit to Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines like AOL and Ask.
o Adding links to directories like Yahoo business, Dmoz, etc has proved beneficial in case of sites with better ranking. All niche related directories can be found by performing a simple search for primary keyword. (e.g. “scuba diving directory” where scuba diving is your main keyword)
o Conducting an article submission campaign can have a great impact on website ranking. Submitting informative articles to sites like EzineArticles.com, Articlebase.com, etc helps you build back links. Also, utilize the option of contextual link building for better results. Contextual link building gives value because the articles or reviews are posted on a big network of blogs. These are different blogs that are set up on Unique IPs. This set up gives value link juice and a considerable number of backlinks.
o Using social media is another quality way of creating a buzz. This involves opening accounts on sites like Facebook.com, Twitter.com, and LinkedIn.com. Visit these sites regularly and post comments about different articles and make sure your website link, description and keywords are added to all contributions.
o For website promotion, it is unwise to underestimate the importance of using videos. Video marketing is the hottest trend, for which sites like Metacafe.com, YouTube.com and Dailymotion.com can be utilized. This technique can prove to be a perfect source of viral marketing, as all these videos containing link to your website keep moving from computers to computers and mobiles to mobiles.

That’s all you need for better search engine ranking that will perk up your online business. Basically, this entire process can be divided into two segments. First one is all about searching and analyzing keywords and then using them to design an optimized website. The next segment is based on website promotion. If a website is already created according to the SEO rules, its ranking can be improved with efficient marketing. Also, tinkering with website after doing another keyword analysis is recommended, as it helps sustain your top ranking. Last but not the least, join few forums to find some search engine experts and discuss off-the-wall tactics to attract search engine spiders.

With 12 years of Internet business development experience and over 9 years experience as Web Hosting Application Analyst, Adrian Mareensky has an extensive application development & web hosting proven experience. His professional interests range from web-based applications development to web server administration, focusing on customer service-oriented web hosting.

Other resources:

- http://www.webconfs.com/15-minute-seo.php