Where to start?

How do you start in SEO/SEP/SERPS etc?

[KMxRetro]

Hi all,
I have run several websites, but have never really had any success with them. I'm looking to get into SEO as this seems to be the key...obviously! :)

Can anyone tell me where to start? I've done all the old META tags work and ALT tags, but are there any real "by-the-hand" step by step tutorials out there?

Thanks all,

[tigger]

The best place to start is here, read everything, lock yourself away in a room with enough food & drink to keep yourself going for a week and that should give you a good grounding.

And I would start here [webmasterworld.com...]

[tennismaster]

KMxRetro,

I started a few months ago, and have learned a lot from
this forum.
My site is now in top 5 positions for my keywords, and I
have seen big increase in traffic.

If I was starting out now though, this is what I would do.

Start by doing keywords research BEFORE you build site and
buy domain name. This is where I went wrong, as my domain
name does not contain my keywords.
When you have found 3 or 4 keywords to target,
get a domain name with at least one of them in
ie blue-wigets.com.
Next build the site keeping in mind your keywords, and put
them in the text as much as possible.
Also make sure the keywords are are in the header tags on each page.
Next TITLE and DESCRIPTION this is very important,
and it took me several different combinations,
before I cracked it.
Make sure the your keywords are in both as much as possible.

After the site is up, spend a lot of time getting Links to
your site, making sure that the Link back to your site
includes your keywords in the `hyperlink` part.
(You will probably have to put up a links page on your site.)

Finally, keep checking your log files daily.
You will find other keywords
that people are using to find you,
that you probably never thought of.
Use these new keywords on another
page on your site, and try to get that page well ranked.

This are just my experiences, and other will probably disagree, but if you need any more info just sticky mail me.

TM

[Jack_Frost]

Here is another good place to start for soemone new. It gives you more of an overview of how everythign works and then this forum gets into all the specifics.

[searchenginewatch.com...]

There are a few other sites like this, but Danny Sullivan's site is fairly well respected.