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Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place. This looked like a good place.
Thanks
The post John directed you to is the most comprehensive guide you can possibly find, but since you're rebuilding from the ground up there are a couple of things you should probably look at first so you won't have to make changes later.
First, do some basic research and decide on the most important keywords and keyword phrases for the site. For that, spending a bit of time in our Keyword Discussion [webmasterworld.com] forum will help you get your list. Then, base your pages and navigation around those for maximum results. It's basically emphasizing one good phrase for each page.
Then, since you're doing the site with PHP/SQL, do a site search for how to deal with dynamic pages so your URLs will be search engine friendly.
Most of the questions you'll have over the first few months will probably concern Google, so it's a good time investment to read through the Google Knowledge Base [webmasterworld.com]. It's also a good way to become familiar with the terminology, which helps with finding information that's already here, both with reviewing the individual forum posts and using the site search.
Then, as you have time, do some surfing to find on-theme sites to exchange links with. Inbound links are important for ranking, and also help in other ways. There are some good tips and strategies in the Link Development [webmasterworld.com] forum.
This forum, Search Engine Promotion, has had some discussions that cover the basics, so it's a good place to start. There's a lot to read, but you'll find it very worthwhile once those nice rankings start to come in.
Google page rank (PR)
- important factors affecting it are primarily number of inbound links from quality sites, the link text that's hyperlinked to your site and high profile keywords in your site, including domain name, title, content, h1 text somewhere, alt text of images etc.
Google update
- once a month, usually in the last week of the month
- related to this is the Google dance, everflux and freshbot results, basically webmasters getting twitchy about minor changes in Google results.
Google toolbar
- get the one with advanced features to see your page rank and that of your competitors.
Alexa
- gives a 'traffic rank' for a site - the lower the number, the higher the traffic if you believe their sampling technique.
Overture keyword suggestion tool
- and there are some others too
Google penalty/white bar/banned site
- what might happen if you do something Google doesn't like
dmoz.org (ODP)
- submit your site to the most appropriate category
- when the current problems are sorted at the ODP, the database gets transferred to the Google Directory and lots of minor sources too. All good for the traffic.
Reciprocal linking
- you link to me, I link to you.
On-theme linking
- that's supposed to be better for your ranking, i.e. your site and my site are on the same topic.
SEO
- search engine optimiser - lots of them around here.
SERP
- search engine results page - how well you rank for a particular keyword this month.
Froogle
- new Google toy listing shopping sites and generating much giggling and excitement around the Google forum.
Keyword targeting
- find less competitive keywords at first and optimise your site for them, see how you do in successive Google updates for those keywords. When you get a bit bigger with more links, try competing for the more competitive keywords. You'll need around 60,000 incoming links to compete for the search term "health" but far fewer to compete for the term "painful spot on nose".
Server logs/webstats
- you can see how you're getting along with page views etc. One of the most important things to look for is what keyword phrases people use to get to your site. Can you optimise for those keywords so that you come up in the top ten rather than seventeenth?
Ok, that's all I can think of for now. Hope that helps.
You're already off to a brilliant start with the fabulous contributions above.
In addition, this thread should cover just about all you need to know to get an initial, yet quite comprehensive grasp on SEO...
New To SEO [webmasterworld.com]
