SEO is a recipe

Ok, now I bet some are wondering exactly what this means, and really it is very simple. Search engine optimization is similar to a recipe to make about anything, in the fact that there is a certain order that you need to complete certain tasks. In this lesson I am going to give the order in which you need to develop and market your website, and you may notice that many people have this backwards. The first step is to have an idea for a website about something, which is where a little imagination and creativity helps. The next step is after you have this great idea, take 15 or 20 minutes and do some keyword research on the general topic, and possibly the keywords you want to target if you already know them. For some tools to achieve this with, you can try SeoChat and another good keyword tool is the Google Adwords Keyword tool. Ok so now you have your idea, and some good keywords you want to rank highly for, its now time to start building your site. The thing you need to keep in mind, is that your goal is to develop a quality site with content to attract visitors and keep them returning, and at the same time using your keywords or phrases the right amount of times, but most importantly the right areas of the page. The most important key to this is getting your 4 or 5 main keywords or your keyphrase in the title of your page, which is what will show in the blue bar at the top on your browser. You want these keywords in the title to have the first letter capitalized, since Google adds extra emphasis to capitalized keywords. It also is helpful if you can put your main keyword or two into the domain or subdomain of your site, as google gives some extra points for this as well. Now that this is done, you can begin creating your site, and trying to add in your main keywords, however, it needs to be done while keeping the site still useful and enjoyable. Most SEO experts agree that a keyword density of 2-3% is the optimal amount. This means that you should be able to just create your site, and as long as you have the right keywords for the site you are creating you should end up with right around this amount. One of the most important things you need to do when building your site, is to make sure your internal links, or in other words your buttons or menu, which go to other pages in your site, are all working links. Many search engines will not even index a site when they find broken links in it. Now its time to create all that keyword rich content. In our next lesson, I will be showing you how to get google to index your site in less than 48 hours, without submitting to a single search engine.