In this tutorial, my aim is to show you how to SEO a website from scratch, with step-by-step guide that you can follow.
Before I begin, I want to say, “forget about how to SEO a website”. You never SEO a website. You SEO a web page. When every web page on your website is optimized for search engine, the website is considered optimized.
I’m not trying to play around with words. It’s important that you understand the difference.
Now let’s move on to the step by step guide….
Assuming you have a new website or blog, with a homepage and a couple of other content pages. Here’re what you need to do to SEO your website or blog:
1) Set your target
Remember this: You will never know where to shoot if you do not have a target.
In SEO, your target is your keyword phrase (aka anchor texts). This is where keyword research comes in.
You need to decide what keyword phrase you want to optimize for every web page that you wish to rank in the search engine.
Every web page, including the homepage, should be optimized for one (or at most three) keyword phrase. Be focused.
If you want to target more keyword phrases, you should add more web pages to your website, instead of trying to make one web page optimized for different keywords.
2) Get the fundamentals right
Check and make sure that the followings are correctly done for every web page:
– Keyword phrase found in title tag
– Keyword phrase found in description meta tag
– Keyword phrase found in the url (if possible)
– Keyword phrase found within the content
Read Free SEO Tutorial (Part 1) – The Fundamentals for details.
3) Build backlinks to the homepage
The strategies to build backlinks to the homepage is different from the strategies to build backlinks to the internal pages because of 2 reasons:
1. Some link building methods can only be used to build backlinks to the homepage. For example:
– Submitting your website to link directories
– 3 way link
2. Some link building methods are too tedious and it’s almost impossible for you to do them for all your web pages. For example:
– Press release
– Many other methods explained in SEO Link Building – Free SEO Tutorial (Part 3)
Regardless of how tough or how tedious the method is, do all of them for your homepage. You need to give your website homepage a backlink boost in order to build up your website authority as explained in Free SEO Tutorial (Part 1) – The Fundamentals.
4) Build backlinks to the internal web pages.
It’s almost impossible to build backlinks for every internal web page, unless you run a popular site with lots of people pinging and digging your pages.
So let’s be realistic.
Personally I will start with 5 internal pages and build backlinks to them.
I prefer to build backlinks to internal pages via just one method – article marketing. (I’m not too keen on other spammy methods).
Choose 5 internal pages, prepare 5 new articles, submit them to hundreds of article directories and build backlinks to these 5 internal pages. (Note: You should have done this for your homepage in Step 3. If not, make sure that you do it for your homepage too.)
If you have an account with ArticleMarketer, LinkVana and/or ezArticleLink (coming soon), life will be a lot easier.
Whenever time allows, find 5 other internal pages and repeat the process.
5) Be patient and spread your eggs
Search engines trust aged sites. Unless you buy an aged domain, there is nothing you can do about the age of your domain. All you can do is Step 1 to 4 and then….. wait, trusting that things will happen eventually. Like it or not, waiting is one of the most important process in SEO, that’s why it’s our Step 5!
In the mean time, if you are building niche content websites, continue to build more sites and rinse and repeat Step 1 – 4. Some websites will turn out to be winners while some may just survive. If you only plan to have one website and intend to live and die with it, then while waiting, you should establish other ways to get traffic. The whole idea is to spread your eggs.
Hey Kenneth,
Thanks again for another SEO session. Again you never cease to amaze me with your ability to make SEO so concise and helpful. It is much easier to read in a blog than in one big pdf file. So thanks again and look fwd to your next tute. :)
G’day Ken,
Thank you for another excellent post.
I particularly like your notion of optimizing every page of a website, as well as the home page.
Good stuff.
Very Nice SEO Site to promote Blog, big Thanks.
Hi Kenneth, any advice on internal linking. eg. my content pages optimized for their own keyword in anchor text pointing back to my main home page.
Internal links are not backlink. If it is, life will be so much easier. :)
Hello Kenneth, once again you have shared valuable knowledge that would be wise for readers to follow up on. I really appreciated the idea of adding web pages vs. keyword piling on one single page. I also feel it is important to build at least some internal pages backlinks in order to “spread the link love”. I love SEO and would like to remind everyone that time is the key factor to getting results if following all of Kenneth’s suggestions.
Wishing you success.
Kim
It has been extremely helpful,The information provided by you is very good,is very excellent .thanks.
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Thanks Kenneth. I started out on SEO few weeks back and this post came at the right time.
Thanks Kenneth, This has been an excellent series; great content and advice as always. I never think twice about sharing your articles and I’m looking forward to the next one.
Jeff
Thanks for the great SEO series, Kenneth – it makes it easy to refer people to the information they need!
With regard to internal linking. I have noticed that the most popular sites, including all main media sites, always have links to three or more related articles, at the end of an article – content – or, in the right hand column or both.
Very well written article indeed Ken, keep up the great work :)
This was great article that covered the basics of SEO. The thing that I liked best was that it put an emphasis laying your eggs and waiting for results. Too often people will start something but quit before it develops.
Ok Kenneth backlinks are definitely needed for SEO, but how many? As many as you can get that are relevent to your site?
I noticed you have 445 linking in from your Alexa stats. Wouldn’t you want More?
Very nice post dude! I liked following your series, and I enjoy learning how to perform free SEO tactics as well! Gaining traffic from SE’s is huge, and these tips definitely helped out
I have read previous articles and it is great to read this article.i like the way author explain this .I love this all parts
Thanks Kenneth, great content I like the three way link approach. great advice as always.
Thank You Kenneth, this has been a great series filled with excellent advice. I’m looking forward to the next topic.
Jeff
It has been extremely helpful, The information provided by you is very
good, is very excellent. thanks.
I’ll watch this
Once again Kenneth, an excellent article for anybody wanting to build a successful internet website and online business. I am compelled to keep coming back to your blog posts because I always learn something new. Thank you.
With the lessons I learn from this post, I’m now focusing my energy to get the right keywords or phrases to optimized and get backlinks.
To the person above me: You still need to get the right keywords and campaign it for your site because how are you going to get at least page three of search engines if you just sit there and age your site while others are doing everything they can to reach the first page? You really got your country’s people habit, man’yana.
Good stuff…I have been trying to implament a lot of your advice. It is helping.
Thanks
Thanks for the great SEO series , really nice 123 steps
Found this really helpful im going to try it out for my self
Improving the PageRank of a given site is a gradual process.
Thank you this was a great article because you broke everything down nicely.
This article will assist the internet viewers for setting up new webpage or even a blog from start to end.
In simple steps, at first one must do a complete keyword analysis, picking up all the long tail keywords with low competition then fixing all the on page elements of your website with putting your main keywords in the meta title and description. You’ll notice one thing is that your website will start getting ranked somewhere in the SERPs after that. secondly, start building links and that too in a diversified manner like doc submission, press releases, blog comments, good quality directories, e.t.c.
Thanks a great summary!
Best Article for beginners.
In Back link Building Anchor text plays very important role, if u want get ranking from search engines then concentrate on Anchor text of your link, use your main keywords as anchor text.
Link Relevancy is the one of the ranking factor for search engine like google, Link relevancy is determined by both the content of the source page and the content of the anchor text.
Best Article for beginners.
In Back link Building Anchor text plays very important role, if u want get ranking from search engines then concentrate on Anchor text of your link, use your main keywords as anchor text.
Link Relevancy is the one of the ranking factor for search engine like google, Link relevancy is determined by both the content of the source page and the content of the anchor text.
This post is very much helpful for me to learn how to SEO a website from scratch. Actually you have shared a perfect article on SEO. I think reading this article will be very helpful to the readers who wish to learn SEO.
Very nice Article post and good step for SEO. Thanks for sharing
Hi, thanks for sharing such an awesome post with us.
This step by step process are easy to follow and might help the people who want to learn SEO form the scratch.
How many days does it it takes for a website to rank high
It depends on the authority of the site. For an authority site, it can be as soon as a few days. For a new site, it will take 2 to 3 months at least.
Hey Kenneth,
Thanks for part 4. I believe proper on-page with unique content and high-quality link building is the key to success in SEO.