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CustomAffects
12-08-2013, 05:32 PM
So i just recently started reading up about search engine optimization. I am 22 and graduating college and starting my own business, so this is all new to me. I already have a decent clientele and have been doing my type of work since i was about 14 (window tinting, car audio/ video, truck accessories.) I have created a website and asked for opinions on what i could change so i am taking care of that.

My understanding is that using certain keywords on your website, helps you get linked to other sites in which allows your website to be displayed more as people are searching for things correct? Is there a way to do this without spending lots of money each month? I have looked at moz.com, but im wondering how this all works and if spending money is the only way? I would essentially like to get an online web store on my website, and think SEO would help alot. But as im starting out i really dont want to be spending 400-500 dollars a month, so any help or explanations would be greatly appreciated.

vangogh
12-09-2013, 02:37 PM
I think what you're reading may be on the older side. SEO isn't something anyone can really explain in a single forum post, but I'll do my best. Search engines have a difficult job. When someone types a query into a search engine, the search engine has to quickly determine which pages to display in the results and in what order. There are 2 components.

1. They have to know about a page before they can list it in the results
2. They have to come up with some way of determining which of all the pages they know about is the best to show, which is second best, and so on.

Google looks at hundreds of different factors in order to help them with the latter. What words are on the page might be one factor. How many links are pointing to another might be another. The thing is there are so many different factors that you can't look for the one or two magic factors. Your goal is really to build the best site you can for the real people that will visit the site and if you do that, much of the rest tends to sort itself out. Building the best site you can though, is much more difficult than it sounds.

When developing a website there are things you can do to make it easier for search to find all the pages on your site and things you can do to make it harder. Step 1 of seo is building a site in a way that makes it as easy as possible for search engine spiders to move from page to page of your site. If you use a content management system like WordPress or Drupal, this is likely handled for you for the most part. The next step is helping search engines understand what your site is about. There are some specific coding things you can do, but more of this will come down to how you organize all the content on the site, how you structure the site in general, and how consistent you are in creating content around a specific topic.

It's still important for other sites to link to your pages, but it's not going to happen just by placing certain words on the page. It mostly happens because you promote the site the way you would even if search engines didn't exist. People sharing your content on social sites like Twitter and Facebook will help.

Since you mentioned Moz.com keep reading their blog and look on the site for their Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization. It's a good starting point. The main thing I'm trying to get across here is not to think of seo as placing the right words in the right locations on your website. It doesn't work that way and trying to find that right place will just lead to a lot of frustration. Instead focusing on creating the best content and website you can, whether that means doing it yourself or hiring others to do it for you. Keep creating new content and learn what you can about how search engines work and how and why they rank some pages above others. As you learn more how search engines work you can tweak how you create content and maintain your site.

Jim Gillum
12-10-2013, 09:41 AM
You can take a look at this guide from Google....
http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

Although it was probably outdated a couple of days after it was first released, it will give you the basic idea of SEO...

The Google webmaster blog is a good place to gain information or do research..
It is not the only search engine but, their "rules" will take you through other engines...

DeniseTaylor
12-10-2013, 09:53 AM
Vangogh's answer is excellent and very thorough. I don't think you need to spend $400-$500 per month to achieve results. Doing so sounds like you'd be hiring someone. (Be wary of using services promoting overnight results.) There's nothing you can't learn yourself, given enough time and motivation. Just expect to have to do some work. Getting free traffic to a site takes time and hard work. ;-)

marrick
12-13-2013, 04:38 AM
Search Engine Land have a Youtube video about a seo for beginners. I think that video sums it all up in search engine optimization. Right now seo is not about building links anymore (never has been. It's just that Google make it clear to engage with real users).

Familiarization is one of the keys if you are starting in this field. To give you some insights, I will some of the basics:

On page Optimization - As Vangogh is mentioning, when you are building a site, you must keep in mind that you should make it more accessible to both users and search engines. This is the time when On page optimization takes place, when you are doing some tweaks to your site. There are several methods when doing it. The following are:

- Content Creation
- Meta Data Optimization
- Internal Linking Structure
- Keyword Density
- URL Structure
- Page Layout

Those are just the basics. You might want to search them one by one if you want.

Off Page Optimization - This takes place outside the site. This is where the promotion begins and this is also where you find resources where you can build links to your site for ranking and domain authority.

In general those two aspects of SEO summarize the whole process. But differs in approach.

ryantc
12-18-2013, 01:01 PM
Take a look at the following SEO How To... should have all the information you're looking for on one site.
SEO: The Free Beginner?s Guide From Moz (http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo)

Karry
01-17-2014, 02:44 AM
Not only seo, but also learn social media with seo skills. One more blog from Moz : New Beginner's Guide to Social Media: Moz (http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media)
Hope, you also find this informative. This guide released yesterday by Moz.

Damon the Marketer
01-17-2014, 08:53 AM
[Removed]

You can also ask me questions in this thread, and I'll do my best to answer your questions.

Taylor
01-20-2014, 03:39 AM
I am very impressed by the explanation of Vangogh. I think that SEO is not a kind of exact science that is why it is called "OPTIMIZATION". You can not say that how much (in positive or negative) you will get in return of your efforts. There are few ground level thing which needs to be cleared in the mind of an SEO executive. Some of them are given below-
1. How Google works?
2. What is "natural user" and how to act like that.
3. Why links are made to improve ranks (As i said "Not necessary")?
4. What is Relevency, keyword and uniqueness?

There are some more questions. After learning about all these things your concepts will be cleared about SEO and Google. That time you can read about the benchmarks and updates released by "Google".

I hope you will find my views worth reading.

Qmind
01-21-2014, 01:11 AM
Vangogh gave a great explanation. Once you do some reading on SEO, here are a few resources to help with analyzing your website to see where you could improve your seo efforts.

Like they mentioned above, Moz has some great resources.

100 free seo tools and resources
100 Free SEO Tools & Resources for Every Challenge - Moz (http://moz.com/blog/100-free-seo-tools)

Hubspot- grades your website and gives you tips on how to improve it.

Review Your Marketing | Free Website Review Tool | HubSpot's Marketing Grader (http://marketing.grader.com)

SEO website analysis
Lipperhey improves the quality and searchability of your website (http://www.lipperhey.com)

Gabe
01-26-2014, 02:22 AM
There are a lot of great SEO resources, but it changes all of the time. Besides, a lot of the SEO guides are overly technical and more than you really need to know.

If you want a great primer, check out the video of Dave Collins' talk at MicroConf 2013. It was a great talk, I was at the conference and I'm going again in April. And Dave is a really great guy, I ran into him again at the Boston BoS conference in October. Here's the talk: Dave Collins - SEO Demystified: Practical Techniques That Produce Astonishing Results on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/71547333)

patrickprecisione
01-28-2014, 02:14 PM
This whole content malarkey is the way of the future! Focus on creating stuff that people will want to share, and also do you part to get in people's faces. Creating good content is essential, but the outreach is sometimes an overlooked part of the process.

vangogh
02-04-2014, 12:05 AM
One of the most important things to remember about seo is that Google, etc. want to present the "best" results they can. Best is subjective, but they want you to search and find what you're looking for either in the information Google adds to the page or one of the results. They want the pages that people want to see rank highly.

Instead of trying to think about how to tweak a page to better suit Google's algorithms, just think how you can make it a page people would want to see. That's where great content and a great site enter into things. Then you have to promote your site in some way to help some people find it, who'll then hopefully share it with others. Do that and Google will also want to rank it well so their customers can find your page. Search engines follow real people. They want to present the things real people want to see. It might seem counter intuitive, but a good way to get search traffic is not to think so much about search engines and just do what you can to reach real people and give them what they want.