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.
Comments
159 responses so far ↓
Search Engine Optimization Journal on Apr 23, 2008 at 9:23 am
Great tips! Love the pic of the Mom to please!
David on Apr 23, 2008 at 9:44 am
Great stuff, very good refresher…simple question about tip #20, how can I know if my server is on any kind of blacklist?
Richard Burckhardt on Apr 23, 2008 at 9:51 am
Run a search in Google for “check server domain blacklist” and you’ll find lots of services to help you with this.
Samirb on Apr 23, 2008 at 9:58 am
Wow, huge compilation of tips! Good stuff, I agree the mom picture is awesome!
Ivo on Apr 23, 2008 at 11:33 am
Good work, can I translate these tips to Czech language? With link to this article naturally.
Richard V. Burckhardt on Apr 23, 2008 at 11:36 am
I have no objection, but it’s up to Search Engine Journal since it’s an exclusive to this blog.
Loren?
Eduard Blacquière on Apr 23, 2008 at 11:52 am
A nice and complete list to check once in a while!
Rebecca on Apr 23, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Great list! I’d take a little exception to #5, though, if you care about local search. Local folks will indeed search for your company name — if they don’t, you need more than just SEO.
Brian Harnish on Apr 23, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Mr. Burckhardt: Excellent list! I thought it was very comprehensive, and can’t think of much else to add. I thought of something regarding tip #9 though: if Flash absolutely must be used, locational Flash (a single Flash file vs. a full Flash site) would be better than a Flash site due to the fact that the Flash file can be moved around the page and the content added in front of it, making it much easier for search engines to read the important part of the page: its content.
Chris Hooley on Apr 23, 2008 at 4:07 pm
nice list, but you forgot “get bloggers and SEOs hammered at conferences” it seems to work!
Richard Burckhardt on Apr 23, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I’m adding that one to my next list! How could I have forgotten?
Thanks,
Richard
Internet Marketing Joy on Apr 23, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Although this list has great tips on how to do quick SEO..I’m afraid my mom is a bit newbie, too newbie for some of the terms mentioned..^^..but nevertheless, these are great SEO tips!
Thanks for sharing it with us!
Icheb on Apr 23, 2008 at 5:33 pm
“Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm.”
Why don’t you tell the truth and just tell people that PR is USELESS? Go and get a high PR site by spamming a million guestbooks, maybe then you’ll get it.
“Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.”
Really, three times at least? Is this part of the algorithm now? So if I only write an article every two weeks the search engines will hate me?
“Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.”
Yeah, the owner wants privacy, so he HAS to be a spammer.
“Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines.”
There is no fucking reason why a .edu would get preferred treatment. They simply get more authority BECAUSE THEY GET LINKED TO MORE OFTEN.
“Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages.”
Sure, get your RSS feed indexed and you’re just BEGGING for duplicate content issues.
“Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.”
PR tells you how many links a page has, NOTHING ELSE. This means it is USELESS.
“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.”
You combat duplicate content issues by ELIMINATING the other page, NOT by highlighting the preferred page.
If you really have “10 years of experience” with SEO, you are a moron.
Mark Alves on Apr 23, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Great tips. For step #41, there’s an additional way to turn off Google personalization: get the plug-in from Joost de Valk
http://www.joostdevalk.nl/seo-tools/disable-personalized-search-plugin/
Mery on Apr 23, 2008 at 11:36 pm
You made a excellent List! I feel you could also add this point,
“Register Your Domain for Several Years”
This will help you to protect your brand and identity and also gives a positive sign to Search Engines that you are serious about your web site and can improve your Pagerank(Google’s)
Arnie on Apr 24, 2008 at 12:36 am
Hey a nice mini-SEO book. Way to go!
Jaan Kanellis on Apr 24, 2008 at 12:45 am
Very nice list Richard! I especially like #34.
james on Apr 24, 2008 at 12:56 am
my 2 cents.
Create sitemap.xml file containing all the links in the website.
create robot.txt file , this can help the spiders to crawl , and you can specify in this file, the pages for not crawling also
miguel on Apr 24, 2008 at 5:06 am
interesante
Icheb2 on Apr 24, 2008 at 7:20 am
Aww Richard, don’t have the guts to publish my comment? Can’t stand it when people disagree with you?
Flora on Apr 24, 2008 at 7:31 am
Great and Useful checklist.
Richard Burckhardt on Apr 24, 2008 at 9:34 am
icheb2 -
Sorry, I am told your comment got caught in the spam filter. It’s live now.
Yes, after over ten years of optimizing sites, I am fully aware that if you put two SEOs in a room, there’s going to be disagreement.
And, yes, we disagree.
Web Success Diva on Apr 24, 2008 at 2:20 pm
This is absolutely perfect and so many ideas that I hadn’t even thought of. Great post, definitely sharing with my readers!
Thanks!
Maria Reyes-McDavis
Raj on Apr 25, 2008 at 9:32 am
Thanks for the all the tips Richard. Quick question, you mentioned that if i want my site to be crawled more frequently to have other quality sites link to it… do blogs count? (for example, if at the end of this blog of mine i was to enter my website link, or when i blog on others sites, or googles blog)?
One other question, when you say that i should have a blog on my site (abcd.com), does having a link on my site to a blog site where i blog about abcd.com count?
Richard Burckhardt on Apr 25, 2008 at 9:48 am
yea,good article
Richard Burckhardt on Apr 25, 2008 at 10:03 am
OK, I didn’t post the previous comment about “yea, good article.” I have no idea who did.
To answer the questions from Raj, certainly links from good, quality blogs count.
And, yes, links between your site and a blog you are posting to (I’m assuming you’ve got something like a hosted blog) can count, but nothing beats having your own blog where you contribute quality content and link bait for YOUR site.
Raj on Apr 25, 2008 at 10:47 am
Thank you Richard, how would I go about setting up my own blog on my own site? thanks in advance.
Richard Burckhardt on Apr 25, 2008 at 10:57 am
Check with your hosting company first and see if they have blog software that can be activated for your account. Many hosts offer blogs along with scripts and so forth these days, pre-installed. Otherwise, I’m a big fan of WordPress. It’s free and there are a zillion plugins and themes that are SEO friendly. Download it from WordPress.org and install it.
Markus Nelson on Apr 25, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Great little checklist of stuff - I could not have done it better myself - and learned a thing or two thank you..
Markus Nelson
Paul on Apr 25, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Nice article. Though there are many SEO resources online, it seems that there are few lists such as this. I would like to mention that through the use of swfObject and swfAddress alternate content can be provided for Flash content that is search engine accessible. Smart use of XSLT can allow the same content to populate both the flash and the HTML content seen by spiders.
SEO Agency on Apr 26, 2008 at 12:12 am
Great SEO tips provided here. We like to tell our clients that an effective SEO campaign is a process and not a destination. Proper SEO must be completed on a site daily. Great placement goes to companies who do something each day.
Hey Paul, I found your previous comment interesting. We run across flash sites from time to time that need site optimization. Shoot us an email. Perhaps we can work with you when we run across a flash site or a flash landing page. Look forward to hearing from you.
Richard Burckhardt on Apr 26, 2008 at 12:51 am
Thanks. Yes, I’d like to learn more about Paul’s technique, too. I’ve read about it some, but it’s beyond the scope of this post, which is about simplicity.
How about a post about your Flash SEO ideas?
Jarrod on Apr 26, 2008 at 3:32 am
Good stuff, thanks.
Jeanette on Apr 26, 2008 at 10:03 am
This is so funny, I searched for “check server domain blacklist” and all I got was this page!
-Icheb, where’s your SEO list? Why anonymous?
Joy~
Jeanette
BeyondRandom on Apr 26, 2008 at 10:11 am
Great Tips! Thanks Alot…Im gonna have to add this to my bookmarks
Richard V. Burckhardt on Apr 26, 2008 at 10:14 am
Run the search for “check server domain blacklist” WITHOUT the quotes. You’ll get a ton of resources.
;-)
And, (shameless plug), if you haven’t done so yet, feel free to Sphinn this article and bookmark it in delicious, etc.
Thanks to all. i really appreciate the comments and feedback!
Malte Landwehr on Apr 28, 2008 at 11:05 am
Good you reminded my of having splash pages with flash and big images only. I will retrofit all my websites with some of those!
And by the way, link baiting is not just about good content, its about presenting and promoting the content.
Jarrod on Apr 29, 2008 at 1:51 am
Nice work, its great to see some real advice offered instead of the usual regurgitated stuff over and over.
JJMcClure on Apr 29, 2008 at 9:59 am
I posted your list on the Sitepoint SEO forum, crediting you as the author, naming the source and providing a link back to the original page that this was on, do you have any objection to that?
Richard Burckhardt on Apr 29, 2008 at 10:05 am
I don’t. Thanks! Maybe we can get a few more Sphinns!
;-)
TonyS on Apr 30, 2008 at 2:07 pm
For blacklisting searches among other things, I use http://www.mxtoolbox.com.
Thomas on May 3, 2008 at 3:38 am
Thanks a lot for the tipps:
“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.”
==> how can i make a blacklist check?
Thanks for your answer
Wagner on May 8, 2008 at 7:11 pm
This is an other list of SEO-Tips , but in german:
http://www.shophexe.de/forum/Allgemeine-Regeln-Richtlinien-SEO-wichtige-Webcrawler-
How To DO SEO on May 13, 2008 at 4:39 am
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and this technique is used to promote the websites on the internet.
Caesar on May 18, 2008 at 12:33 am
Thanks for the great tips. I am confused with #41(2) Append &pws=0. Can someone explain please.
Dan on May 18, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Excellent tips. Thanks.
Gidseo on May 28, 2008 at 2:50 pm
It took me longer to get here but I think this wins over John Carcutt’s post!
Markus from Italy on Jun 4, 2008 at 7:59 am
Very very good tips, complete and upgrade, simple and not too generally.
Jegastar on Jun 16, 2008 at 12:49 am
Tips are very good. I have applied all the tips on my site also. Nothing is newer than these points for SEO. Thanks so much for all tips.
— Jegastar.
Zeabtle on Jun 17, 2008 at 7:48 am
Nice tips. I will do it to my site. Thank you.
SHELBY WALLACE on Jun 18, 2008 at 10:28 pm
This is valuable SEO information. I am really going to start applying these tools and see how much it improves my search engine listsings and site traffic. Thank you very much.
Tom Munson on Jun 28, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Thanks for all the tips, Ive been using most but I did learn a few more. Thanks again.
Arul on Jul 1, 2008 at 8:14 am
Great Presentation Mr. Richard Burckhardt. Everything in a step by step procedure. I am going to compare your presentation with other SEO resources and will get the better informations from the comparison. The result might get more information from your presentation, i think.
Thank you a lot.
Anurag on Jul 6, 2008 at 4:37 am
Thanks for the great tricks, I think it will be enough to me for SEO. And I hope this will be benefitable to me.
Thank you.
Chris on Jul 13, 2008 at 10:10 am
Firstly, great list!
I am in the process of making a website for a company called Prima Fascia. We specialise in fitting new fascia boards as well as carrying out other jobs such as guttering etc.
I am finding it hard to think of ways to get other sites to link to me and for me to link to other sites. This is because I want relevant sites to link to me but relevant sites would be competitors so this wouldnt work??
Also, I am confused about how I could update my site daily or even weekly because once the information is on the site, there is nothing else to add. It is a small business with some information about our products and then contact information.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Chris
Richard V. Burckhardt on Aug 14, 2008 at 11:23 am
Chris -
Thanks. Getting links is probably the hardest single process in SEO. One suggestion would be to approach sites that have a similar theme, but not focus, as your site and ask for links. Most of us don’t want to trade links with competitors, but you might find other non-competitive but related sites you can trade links with.
As far as updating, it sounds like you have a static site. In that case, adding a blog that you could post updates and news along with articles about your products would help you get fresh content as well as user comments.
If you use a WordPress blog, there’s even a link directory plugin you can use for swapping links. Click on my name and you’ll go to a recent post I did on WordPress plugins for SEO.
Hope this helps.
Jatin SEO on Aug 19, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Great tips! Love the pic
Website Designing Company Noida, Web Designing Noida on Sep 5, 2008 at 5:24 am
website development company noida, website designing company noida, web development services, best seo company in noida offering seo services delhi/ncr, seo consultant noida, free web hosting india.
James on Sep 6, 2008 at 2:11 pm
now this is where I learned something today! really good stuff thanks!!
SEO Tips on Sep 7, 2008 at 7:50 pm
These are some lovely tips! Should keep everyone busy for a long time!
Sports Clothing on Sep 22, 2008 at 12:50 am
Great great! I got a new idea for today…
seo comapny India on Oct 4, 2008 at 8:11 am
Great stuff,I have applied all the tips on my site also. And I hope this will be benefitable to me.
Thanks
Rika Susan's Home Repairs on Oct 4, 2008 at 8:58 am
This is one of the most common sense, comprehensive lists I have seen. Thanks! Every newbie should have this next to his computer.
Tom on Oct 4, 2008 at 11:00 am
Are you sure Is it not better to hide server technologie by .html or hide all files extension? Because lot of people do that (wordpress…)
And what about the HTML tag H1, H2, H3 … Are they usefull?
Cheers
AbeOnTech on Oct 11, 2008 at 10:21 am
Great list of tips!
I think people get #17 wrong too often…
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.
Most people still don’t believe that too many lower links can be bad
rahul on Oct 15, 2008 at 1:47 am
could you please suggest some blog software for windows hosting.
rahul on Oct 15, 2008 at 1:48 am
my host doesn’t provide the php running facility
thanks in advance
Rahul Parashar on Oct 15, 2008 at 1:51 am
Richard, this page gives error sometimes when sending comment. I’m writing my full comment below…
Hats off to you. great article with useful stuff.
could you please suggest some blog software for windows hosting. my host doesn’t provide the php running facility.
thanks in advance
UK Sports on TV on Oct 15, 2008 at 2:18 am
This article really helped on planning my next move for my new Sports site.
May I ask for a little help on this:
I have my site ranked 2 in google and I am now targeting to have more people visit my site, how can I meet this target? I already promoted the site to web directories and social bookmark sites but I am not satisfied with the number of visitors per day.
Thanks in advance and more power to you, Richard!
UK Sports on TV on Oct 15, 2008 at 2:21 am
ooops, I misspelled my website, sorry.
Steve on Oct 25, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Thanks for the nice list of tips.
http://www.sportscollectorplace.com
http://www.coolgiftsforchristmas.com
SEO Beratung on Nov 5, 2008 at 9:04 am
Thanks a lot for sharing this very useful seo tips with us. Really good explained and easy to use for the own website… Great Job!
Flirt Kontaktanzeigen on Nov 5, 2008 at 10:45 am
Very easy to understand and really helpful for our project. Thanks from Germany!
Thomas on Nov 20, 2008 at 1:10 am
Great tips, I can’t believe they’re free. Many of the SEO tip sites dont have this quality of content even when they charge for it!
dd on Nov 28, 2008 at 12:31 am
大大大
S. Irfan on Nov 29, 2008 at 12:44 am
Hi,
I agree with Thomas; your content is of high quality! I am going to subscribe to the RSS here.
Thank you!
Kind regards,
S. Irfan
Cant Sleep Tips on Nov 29, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Very interesting list, the same list I have seen other companies charge for. I am going to try and change my whois info to show public. I only did private to avoid the 100’s of spam messages I was getting. I think its unfortunate that google may look at your site as spammy when I am really just trying to avoid spam. I do see many bad sites hiding their info though, its definitely a double edge sword.
Ganesh on Dec 2, 2008 at 1:12 pm
We are the chennai based Lcd projectors, projectors, dlp projectors dealers.
We provide a best and good quality service.
pls visit http://www.mosindia.info
File Freaks on Dec 2, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Great advice man thanks alot.
McFroggy on Dec 4, 2008 at 11:35 am
Wow! Great list! I’m still fairly new to SEO, and this has got to be one of the most helpful, comprehensive lists I’ve seen yet! The order seems a bit random (I’d have #23 be #1… as basic and to-the-point as you can get, and so true it seems)… but that’s a non-issue. The info here is priceless.
Can anyone recommend some good free online SEO tools? I like Google’s and SEO Book’s keyword tools, and I’m a fan of http://spydermate.com, but I’m just curious about some other good ones out there.
I’m not looking for help in anything in particular, just free tools related to SEO in any way that can be of help!
Thanks! :)
Gabriella Sannino on Dec 11, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Hello Richard
Some of these are great suggestions and some well… they are old and really no longer Google “safe” But that is not to say as an SEO beginner you should not try these great suggestions.
I have found through the years you can have hundreds of visitors to your site but if they are not qualified they are of no use. Orders are the result of building relationships and relationships are built on communication.
Nothing can take that away!
Remember I read somewhere Shakespeare’s Cassius said, “the fault, dear Brutus lies not in the stars, but in ourselves.” The problem is NOT the customer; it’s what you’re saying, how you’re saying it, and the expectations you’ve set for determining your site’s performance.
Alex on Dec 12, 2008 at 12:39 am
great information.. hope this will help my website to be se friendly.. thanks!
Terry Montague on Dec 14, 2008 at 11:23 am
This has been a huge help, I followed your tips when I started my virtual tour company http://www.regal360.com over 2 months ago. I also used other tools such as website grader and seomoz. My traffic is growing daily, my alex ranking is increasing steadily, and I have begun to get a nice increase in social bookmarks. Great information!
Regards,
Terry
Pflanzkübel on Dec 17, 2008 at 11:29 am
How can you know that my mom would love those tipps??? :)
18. I heard that a keyword-density of 30% is apreciated.
30. That´s true I have for my main website 10 edu links: it´s great!!!
Indian-Share-Tips.Com on Dec 25, 2008 at 1:53 pm
It is a nice compilation and I will definitely use the same at my blog providing free Indian share Tips to get the best Google rankings.
renantech on Dec 28, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Thanks for sharing this tips. This is great information about seo..
Martin on Jan 1, 2009 at 2:58 pm
one of the best lists of free SEO Tips in the web. Thanks. But…my mother dont understand your tips…
Brian on Jan 8, 2009 at 1:17 am
Great tips! We’re building our site, http://www.zibogo.com right now and it’s people like you who help us catapult our business right out of the gates. Thanks again!
jane on Jan 10, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I believe firmly that content is the king and at the end of the day quality content is the winner.
Drew Canole on Jan 15, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Dude, great list.
SEO Newbie on Jan 17, 2009 at 7:16 pm
the articles are very interesting. Hopefully the tips are useful for all those who read. Good Luck.
medical practice software on Jan 18, 2009 at 9:18 pm
I read this article about 2 months ago. I have applied the recommendation and brought my home page from PR0 to PR 4 in less then 60 days.
However, according to SEO analysers, AJAX did not hurt my web design. I use Richfaces and it seam to be SEO friendly.
Dr.V.P. Gopal Ragavan on Jan 24, 2009 at 5:04 am
This is great information about seo.
Thanks for sharing this tips.
search engine optimization jaipur on Jan 31, 2009 at 2:38 am
My FAQ is it’s all
Top tips for increasing traffic to you site or blog :-
Create an SEO Friendly Website for website ?
Use PPC Advertising ?
Swap Ads with other Ezines ?
Give Away Freebies ?
Become a Guru ?
Participate in Discussion Forums ?
Online Networks ?
**************************************************
50 More Tips For traffic
1. Conduct and publish surveys to your website. ?
2. Find joint venture partners that will send you traffic. ?
3. Start your own newsletter or ezine. ?
4. Send a free copy of your product to other site owners in exchange for a product review. ?
5. Sell or place classified ads on http://www.eBay.com with a link to your site. ?
relicpro on Feb 4, 2009 at 3:32 am
Great list here! I read tons and tons of articles, and you’ve just summarized them and more here in much less time.
Kudos.
optimizedbyruel on Feb 4, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Thank’s for the tips its a great treasure that I ever had. nice blog U
Jon on Feb 6, 2009 at 12:05 pm
in reference to the first tip: “If you absolutely must use… image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.”
If the image links have an “alt” tag with the name of think, does that count as a “text link”??
Richard V. Burckhardt on Feb 6, 2009 at 12:09 pm
It’s better than nothing, but ALT text is in NO way a substitute for keyword rich anchor text. And, as a follow-up, if you have an image link AND a keyword text link together, nofollow the image link. You want the text link to get the credit.
Tim Neumann on Feb 10, 2009 at 7:43 am
Thanks for a bunch of really useful advice. One thing to add though is the Google at least thanks to an API released by Adobe is able to crawl Flash content (with some exceptions). This is an interesting link for more information on the subject http://www.flashnseo.com/ .
Emily on Feb 10, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I was wondering what format should be used for tip #49.
Example: Tree Image or Image Tree
Richard V. Burckhardt on Feb 10, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Actually you can use more of a description for an image, but in your case I would use “tree image” or “tree picture” of even “picture of a tree.”
Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 on Feb 11, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Hi I am a Newbie blogger ….Thank you for this very wonderful tips..
I gonna Apply this tips to my blog…wow..
Webmaster on Feb 13, 2009 at 2:19 am
really very nice tips. we are also use in our site and see improvement in Google ranking. our site list- Repair Outlook Express , PST Recovery,
adam on Feb 13, 2009 at 2:21 am
Outlook Recovery, SQL Recoveryand last Microsoft Access Recovery
Heidi on Feb 15, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Why in point 27 would you put the link and text nav below the fold? I would have thought above?
Thanks
Chennai Web Design on Feb 27, 2009 at 4:32 am
Very huge list of tips. every seo newbie’s have to bookmark this page.
technology guy on Mar 1, 2009 at 6:51 am
Those were some real amazing tip…
However I would be obliged if you could help me howo to redirect my pages for www !
hetalsagar on Mar 1, 2009 at 8:15 am
Yeah, This is really cool article. What I would like to know is “Can More traffice to your site can increase you page rank, if we use google analytics link at bottom ” ?
Ryder on Mar 3, 2009 at 5:57 am
There is no doubt it’s a good article but i want to is there any other way to promote site successfully? and what is the most effective step to be taken?
james on Mar 4, 2009 at 5:33 am
Really a great post for seo’s.
anonymous email on Mar 7, 2009 at 1:21 am
Really great tips.
Thank you
James Walker on Mar 8, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Awsome tips, I am trying to SEO my blog, these helped a lot
Thanks
Martin on Mar 9, 2009 at 7:16 am
Nice tips ! well SEO is like a magic, we need good incantation to make it work, I think I will use some of your tips to mine ;)
well and don’t worry about some comments, there are things we can’t be 100% sure about in SEO
thank you for sharing you own experience !
Deepak Jadav on Mar 10, 2009 at 6:23 am
I have read your share article it’s Excellent tips for SEO. I am also SEO all the tips is here it’s really helpful to for my self improvement in SEO fields..
khanhpt on Mar 13, 2009 at 11:51 am
very nice, thank so much ;)
Vishal on Mar 18, 2009 at 5:24 am
I regularly read your SEO tips before starting any project. Every one should make a checklist of the things which you have mentioned. I got success in many of the projects just by following your tips.
Thanks & Regards,
Vishal Gupta
Bee Media on Mar 24, 2009 at 5:53 am
thanks for sharing I like your article and I enjoy reading your post..
thank you for additional knowledge and Idea..
Pranav Prakash on Mar 25, 2009 at 7:48 am
Thanks for sharing these tips. My favorite line is “Feed the spiders”. You are a SEO guru, no doubt.
Make Money Online with a 17 year old kid on Apr 1, 2009 at 12:28 am
Hello Richard, Its really hard to get reply from you through email. So I did not mail n about copying your content on my blog. I copied it but linked to this post in the first line of the post with your name. Is that okay? Sorry but I am new in this field and its damn tough for me to write new content daily myself.
Regards
Laksh
Jacks on Apr 1, 2009 at 1:38 am
No Doubt about the 55 Tips. But i was wondering as how it is possible that Google could consider “Whois Guard” as Spam. As i feel its the owners rights to prevent his own details to be shown or not against his privacy.
Richard, could you kindly get back to me regarding this.
Lemy on Apr 1, 2009 at 2:21 am
Nice and Great tips…
What about the system you’re using?
we still need a system to market the products in several ways.. and for best, the
system will do your business on autopilot,
so even we don’t touch it anymore, it still can generate some cash for us…
One of the system i’ve know is this :
=> http://AutopilotProfitsSystem.com
Hope this help..
Lemy
Syed on Apr 1, 2009 at 4:29 am
Very nice tips..
Kayla Tahzan on Apr 1, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Hi! How are you today? Introduce, my name is kayla tahzan from indonesia. I want to ask for support on you. Because, i was at Seo Contest held by http://www.pogung177.com with keyword “Kampanye Damai Pemilu Indonesia 2009″ on google. I really hope you are willing to insert my banner in your blog, just for a while. this is Seo Contest until completed, mei 1st 2009.
Madhu on Apr 9, 2009 at 2:13 am
I didn’t realize the value of Social Bookmarking until recently.. Good tips! Thanks.
HE on Apr 10, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Nice to see a useful list of SEO tips, that’s “Free”.
Nice Job! Thanks Richard.
TMP on Apr 10, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Thanks a lot for this amazing list Richard.
Your blog does have an impressive search ingine ranking so you must know something .
vicky on Apr 11, 2009 at 7:07 am
Is it possible for non technical person to successfully work on a website and improve search engine rankings with these tips?
thanks
LIVdb on Apr 20, 2009 at 11:59 am
Really great list, I learnt some new tricks for making my content work for me on the web.
Thanks,
mouse pads on Apr 24, 2009 at 7:20 am
What about the system you are using?I don’t know.
Lou @ EarningFreeMoney.com on May 7, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Wow these are great tips!! No wonder your on the top of Google searches!!
Aman on May 8, 2009 at 1:40 am
Wow… gr8 article.. I am gonna implement in my blog as well. Thanks a lot. :)
export import data on May 15, 2009 at 7:39 am
Nice tips. I already implement all these on my site. I have used RSS for my news section, which relay works well http://www.cybex.in/Rss-News.xml.
SmartLocalShoppers.com on May 15, 2009 at 10:49 am
Search engine optimization is no longer for online business. We have helped many local business get organic search engine traffic to their local store promotion page on http://www.SmartLocalShoppers.com. We also apply the long tail keywords on every single web pages and of course, Google map integration as well. SEO is not just for marketing company to generate a great traffic to their customers web site, local company doing their own marketing works are aware of that too.
Print Local Coupons! Shop Local Stores!
ErikElsea on May 16, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Thank you for such a great post. I have several ideas for my own website that I am going to implement immediately. Thanks!
kenya safari on May 20, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Wow what a list of helpful tips - we are going to use some of the tips to ensure our safari holiday company gets great listings for all our keywords!
SEO-MAMA on May 23, 2009 at 2:12 am
It is a breat article. It will help me in my work.
Thanks.
sanjolia on May 28, 2009 at 7:30 am
Great stuff I will implement it on my website
Utopian Web Strategy on Jun 6, 2009 at 1:41 am
A very comprehensive list. Thanks for taking the time to provide us with a great guideline.
Gayatri on Jun 15, 2009 at 12:20 pm
wonderful tips, SIMPLE, NON TECHNICAL LANGUAGE, instead of the usual software jargon that sounds like Greek.
Marka Tescil on Jun 17, 2009 at 12:13 am
Great list! Simple and nice tips.
WEBSITE TEMPLATES on Jun 17, 2009 at 4:44 am
USEFULL TIPS TNX
Joyce on Jun 18, 2009 at 3:39 am
That is fantastic arctile. Please visit my blog. Http://postfreeads168.blogspot.com
Christine on Jun 23, 2009 at 10:55 am
Thanks for all the great tips! I plan on putting these into use immediately. Much appreciated!
Richard V. Burckhardt on Jun 23, 2009 at 10:59 am
FYI -
I have expanded the list quite a bit. You can see the updated list on my blog. Just click on my name.
Thanks for all of the great feedback!
Frugalocal on Jun 23, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Probably the most comprehensive list I’ve seen, good work!
Armig Esfahani on Jun 28, 2009 at 1:18 am
Great post! as Marka Tescil said.. simple and nice.. and a rich one… bookmarked…
HGardner on Jul 1, 2009 at 11:10 am
Can’t wait to use these tips.
jairaj on Jul 3, 2009 at 5:15 am
I m newbie in seo last five months.
Here I learned something new.
These tips are ” Superb” for me easy to understand and applying in website.
Thanks and best of luck to your writing.
Jonah on Jul 4, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Funny, the website on SEO did exactly what SEO is supposed to do, helping me to learn more about it, and pulling me to the most relevant one. Great website, very informative. BTW, due to you responding to your critics after the fact of writing the article, you built your credibility with me as a true expert on the topic. Good job proving your own words true.
younexus on Jul 7, 2009 at 12:33 am
This article is really good. It is comprehensive and helpful. Surely we will recommend to our customers who want to promote their websites.
Thanks for writing this good stuff.
Jeremy on Jul 7, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Great SEO tips! Now I know how to promote my blog. Will follow this 55 tips.
ed hardy on Jul 10, 2009 at 11:58 pm
May I suggest some of the tools we’ve developed?
tiffanys on Jul 11, 2009 at 12:26 am
that seems interesting! thanks a lot!
links of London on Jul 11, 2009 at 12:49 am
thanks for the tips!
Louise Greenup on Jul 12, 2009 at 6:49 am
Thanks for using plan english. Good tips.
Dropship on Jul 13, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Great content is the most important thing in my book, but I have seen Google list a brand new site really high for a competitive keyword. I think it is all up to how Google feels that day.
Christian Audigier on Jul 15, 2009 at 3:20 am
great tips:) and interesting when come to pleasing MOM!!!
cool dunks on Jul 16, 2009 at 3:57 am
great,55 tips will bring us a lot of favor, i will move on.
dunks on Jul 16, 2009 at 3:58 am
helping me to learn more about it, and pulling me to the most relevant one. Great website, very informative
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