Search Engine Ranking Basics - Part 1	Visited: 1104 Not rated Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
by Jose Nunez February 12, 2007

The first thing you should know about SEO is that Consistency is the “key word”. Because of that, in this article I will cover the immediate areas that relate to solid Search Engine Ranking for particular number of key phrases. This will apply to any type of website, on any industry you are targeting.

Search Engines Rank web pages, not web sites.

You should have unique Titles, Descriptions and Keywords in your pages. Therefore, there should be only one page per keyword phrase you are targeting, highly focused on that phrase. You can also target as many related combinations of your phrase as searches are using to find it, as long as you have pages focused for them.

Your web site has to be relevant to searchers, not just the search engines.

One very important area of SEO is to be well-balanced. There many variables that matter when it comes to optimizing a site, there is not a specific area were all the effort should be on. Instead focus on achieving a Top 10 Position, and here is why: It is OK to be number 5 or number 3 in any given rank… If you are in the 1st spot and you are clicked simply because that spot gets more clicks, are you really going to get more of whatever your site’s goal is just because you are the number 1?

Less is more, when it comes to targeted keywords.

If you have like most, an average site, focus on 5-10 keywords. Build your entire site around these keywords. Remember to be relevant to searches using these keywords. You should rather have one keyword for which your site is on the Top 10 (first page), than ten that are on secondary pages. Put those keywords in your Title, Description, and Keyword areas, and remember the uniqueness factor.

Build real content for people, not for machines.

It is said that “content is king” for good reasons. It is very important. I prefer context over content personally, but I will discuss that later. When two sites highly optimized in a particular industry for a particular key phrase compete, this is one of the most important areas Search Engines evaluate for relevancy, and therefore positioning. Keep your content updated either by adding new, or by editing existing one. The relation between content and its freshness is a must.

Tell me who links to you, who you link to, and I will tell you who you are.

Yes, linking is that important in SEO. You must have incoming links, but what really matters, is that you must have quality incoming links, and you must build them all naturally. Search Engines reward sites when their links are build steadily over time.

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