Everyone loves a good tip, right? Here are 55 quick tips for search engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking. Well, not my mother, but you get my point. Most folks with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be able to take these to the bank without any problem. 
1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.
2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.
3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.
4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.
5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.
6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.
7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.
8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.
9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images.
10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.
11. Check for canonicalization issues – www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then http://domain.com should redirect to it.
12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html.
Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.
13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.
14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned.
15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.
16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.
17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.
18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.
19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.
20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.
21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.
22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title.
23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.
24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.
25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.
26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.
27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold.
28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and zines.
29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.
30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors.
31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content.
32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.
33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.
34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.
35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content.
36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!
37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description.
38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images.
39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc.
40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap.
41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:
(1) Log out of Google
(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar
42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.
43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.
44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually get used to the new URL.
45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.
46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account.
47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.
48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.
49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.
50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.
51. Add viral components to your web site or blog – reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.
52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.
53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much.
54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred page in your sitemaps.
55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site.
Richard V. Burckhardt, also known as The Web Optimist, is an SEO trainer based in Palm Springs, CA with over 10 years experience in search engine optimization, web development and marketing.
As a beginner and determined to improve both my web-site and marketing expertise, realised that I hadn’t taken inmto account many of the suggestions provided points.
Back to the drawing board and thanks for what appears initially to be thorough researched and helpful information.
My goodness!! I have been doing everything wrong….It seems I will start over…
thanks for the tips:))
Good job on this article! Thanks.
Awesome article Richard! Keep it coming!
Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?
Article exchanges. You’ve heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else’s article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)
Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.
Not anchor text. Don’t overdo the anchor text. You don’t want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation – something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, “Gumbo Pudding Pop” occasionally, “Get gumbo pudding pops” as well, “Gumbo-flavored pudding pops” some other times, etc.
Very good list. I love how people put these together to help us out. It makes it easier for us noobs. I love the tip where you shouldn’t just do links alone. Rather branch out into other ideas such as videos. It’s a really good tip because I should be doing it rather than not doing it when it comes down to it.
I love this guide, i dont think you covered links enough though, although “content is king” backlinks play a HUGE page in SEO,
But overall lovely guide.
Thanks for sharing us that informations. Really great tips for newbies, but don`t know if parents would understand it… :-)
Don`t stop this good reports! Really a good blog too, like it.
Thanks for the tips.
I will come back to the list and work my way through.
Many thanks :)
I’m so glad you put this in “Don’t be obsessed with PageRank”.
PageRank in no way helps with rankings, websites with a PR1 can easierly outrank websites with a PR5
Great Article, very useful for building my site.I have a question though, if i have identical info on two websites that share the same domain name but not the same extension: ex http://www.mydomain.com and http://www.mydomain.co.uk, would that be considered as duplicate content? Im really trying to have different extensions for geolocalisation issues cause my website is destined for english clients! I figured that having different extensions will help me get better seo in the uk and in the rest of the world?!
Thanks for the tips. Although I too would like to see more information on links.
Specifically, I have a small start-up website that sells online safety training. How do I find people that would be good candidates to link to me and what value do I offer them to link to me?
Really great article. It will be very useful for SEO novice. I read all the 55 steps and bookmarked the page for my future reference..That’s a great info. Thanks for sharing, really like your view. I can see that you are putting a lot of time and effort into your blog. Keep posting the good work.
Brilliant ideas and thoughts mentioned in this article. I got lots and lots of points from here. It fin tuned my brain. Thanks dear. Thanks a lot.
Richard,
Thank you for all your tips!
However I’m starting wondering if really content have that much influence on ranking. Let me explain, I have done some tests with a rich content website, and another one with really few content and only one page. Second one was better ranked that first one!
Cheers
Mat
Wow. Tips 2 – 6 about content and links are still the most effective SEO tips to increase your search engine rankings. Now, #46 is new to me, video sitemaps and I can see tremendous value in that. Thanks for the timely info!.
You've got a really nice lists of tips. Thanks for that. Among the list I love it when you said “Don’t be obsessed with PageRank.” Its nice that you mentioned that as I found a lot of people that is too obsessed on getting high PR. Its nice to have high PR yet rankings doesn't really have much to do with your PR. You can out rank high PR if you optimize your site well with your target keyword and you link to quality, related sites. :D
Thanks Ann Smarty u given a gr8 way for SEO world Albertson Denim From http://addictivemedia.co.in/
Hi, you have wrote very very great tips of SEO. I like your post, especially point number 4. Thank you for the tips
Here are 55 quick tips for search engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking.
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Like this tips it is very useful for my site
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Some grea advice still seems like a black art though. Any help with seo for a website http://www.4golfonline.com is a great help.
Thanks for this list. Most of this I was aware of but it is nice to have a good list of most useful points all in one place.
I wasn't aware of the cache:URL trick and will be sharing that with clients when I to over linking opportunities.
Excellent article, great work.
However I was wondering what you feel the future of SEO to be?
It's realy too much effective.
Great post. Thanks to writer for sharing. The strategies you have mentioned hope it help us more. I would like to suggest the site which has also a good stuff regarding this issue : http://www.seositecheckup.com/articles/22
Great list. Never did an blacklist check. Just checked, seems I'am on an blacklist server :-(
Will see if I can change this.
Great tips! I've heard of a lot of them but some of them are new to me. I have just recently put up my site http://www.golegogames.com and since my site is mainly images and affiliate links I am concerned that I'm not reaping the benefits of having rich text. I use alt text on my images but after reading this I feel that I may have overused keywords and may be penalized by search engines. Please advise.
Hi, I am a rep. for a company that specializes in this very service. We set up all of our customers with websites for optimization and can offer website design also to maximize your presence. Our expert IT department personnel are real pros and have a proven track record. They currently service businesses all over the United States and an impressive portfolio to show for it. If I can be of help to you drop me a line with your phone number and I will contact you and set up a online presentation for you to preview.
helped a lot, thanks..
helped a lot, thanks
As a beginner and determined to improve both my web-site and marketing expertise, realised that I hadn't taken inmto account many of the suggestions provided points.
Back to the drawing board and thanks for what appears initially to be thorough researched and helpful information.
Edwin Kyalangalilwa
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Sorry Edwin I may have given you my email address wrong. Its a gmail account. I get confused because i use yahoo also under a different account name. Here is my correct address.
Good to read this as I'm just having an e-commerce website overhaul. One of the web-design companies I'm (was) considering using queries the effectiveness of a website with lots of text as the most important feature for SERPs
I loved all the tips and the simplicity of the explanations.
really a great set of SEO tips. I must need to improve my content
thanks, it was interesting
Hi Edwin, I represent a company that specializes in custom website designs and optimization guaranteed. If this is of interest to you I would be glad to send you a portfolio of recent projects, customer comments and all the information you would need to determine if our services can be of help to your business. Drop me a line with your phone number and I would be glad to speak to you.
I would like to introduce this page to my friends.
great tips and useful information, will share this with others, thanks!
very thorogh and detailed post, thanks
Thank you for a very informed blog, these tips are great I will definitely be adding you to my favourites list and review these tips often.
Xavier
its help me a lot….
PAGE RANK IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF SEO…PERIOD. Having a decent PR is good for the ol' ego and general well-being which gives you that extra pep-in-your-step and motivation to keep your site fresh with new content, tweaking old content, seeking out new one-way links and just always improving your situation.
Thanks for putting the time into this great list…the technical points helped a lot!
Very nice SEO tips. Thank you so much.
really very useful tips. before reading this article i didn't know some of these. Thanks very much Richard Burckhardt.
Great post….this search tip is awesome
here are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:
(1) Log out of Google
(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar
quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link
that is the ultimate way to get high SERP ranking
so expect to work on your optimization daily.
that is the ultimate way to get high SERP ranking
I’d like to reference some bits of this article on my website with your permission. I couldn’t find your contact info.
I’ve been coming back to this specific post, time and time again. The information is very helpful. Thanks so much. In the past week, I have gotten my website on the top page for my search words. I have also been using Google plus. I think Google is putting a lot of emphasis on people when people plus one a website.
Thanks for the great tips! I have been building websites for fun for quite some time but just recently started trying to optimize search results for my latest masterpiece. I’ve learned several good ideas, thank you.
Hi Richard, thanks for the very useful tips!
Thanks a lot for the tips, I think that even if beginners follow these they will be able to make head way
Thanks man! Good stuff. I am on the right track. But, now I can go on the fast track. My site is brand new. I do a couple hours of work on it daily. Eventually, it should be a beautiful thing.