SEO…stands for Search Engine Optimization. It should really stand for Stop Eating my Oreos. Let me tell you something. That’s what it’s like when somebody is pulling some dirty SEO tricks to knock your site out of the sky. Well, in this installment of Internet marketing A-Z, I’m going to tackle that nasty letter S and go over some SEO basics. This may just be one of the most important articles you’ve read in a long time.

Why do I say that? Because all dirty tricks aside, if you’re not optimizing your pages for the search engines, especially Google, you’re not going to be heard from…in this lifetime anyway. See, SEO is a very long drawn out process. It doesn’t get quick targeted traffic like running a pay per click campaign does. SEO is something you do gradually over time. There is no fast solution so SEO unless you’re going to try to pull some of those dirty tricks. And then if you’re caught, expect Google to throw you in the sandbox so fast it’ll make your head spin.

There are basically two types of SEO, on page and off page. Let’s start with on page first. On page is what you actually do with your web page, such as anchor text, keyword saturation, meta tags and so on. It is the easiest form of SEO because all of it is entirely within YOUR control. Sure, you have to know what you’re doing on a more technical level (especially when you get into HTML editing) but it’s not dependent on outside factors such as links coming from other web pages.

That’s where off page SEO comes in. This is where you get backlinks from other sites linking to your page. This requires a lot more work. Other high ranking sites aren’t going to link to you just for no reason at all. You have to give them a reason…a good one. And just having great content on your site is not good enough. This is a world where everybody is thinking, WIIFM (what’s in it for me?) Unless you can come up with a great answer to this question, don’t expect too many PR 7 sites to link to you.

Therefore, you have to build your backlinks slowly over time, which you should do anyway. See, if Google sees you getting too many backlinks too quickly, you’re going to end up in the sandbox so fast your eyes will bug out. That’s why marketers who try to go through these link farms (which are worthless anyway) end up with pages of rank zero. Off page SEO is a time consuming process and there are no shortcuts.

Okay, now here comes my big point to all of this. Take it for what it’s worth to you. Don’t spend too much of your time on SEO. There are quicker and easier ways of getting traffic such as through pay per click and writing articles and submitting to directories. SEO should just be one more thing to add to your day…not something to hang all your hopes on.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

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