What you wish you would have known...

Search engine optimization tips

[chanda7]

I'm relatively new to SEO, learning as I go.

What I've learned in the last couple of days that I wish I would have known:

1) You can find out how people are reaching your site through your server's access logs. If the access logs don't give the full stats, you can run a CGI script to get the info. (I always thought cookies would be required for something like that)

2) Web Position Gold and other auto-rankers are banned from use on Goggle with dire consequences (unless using the Google API license).

Anything you have learned since being a newbie that you wish someone would have told you?

[KevinC]

Don't focus on only a few keywords, look at the bigger picture.

[JohnieWalker]

SEO is no easy done-and-forget-it game

[walrus]

Yeah, I started with a frame based website then found out there are all kinds of little issues that come up I could have avoided in a no frames site.
Also if you use tables for layout there are a couple rules to follow for them to be read by spiders properly.You can probably find a post on that here somewhere,i would have spent more time learning and using css as well if i knew about that then.

[ogletree]

Rank checkers have no penalty. I have been running one every day for over a year and have never had any problem. The only possible penalty is that you can no longer search Google with that IP. There is no way for them to know what sites you are looking for.

[willybfriendly]

traffic!=$;
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
many niche terms are better than a couple of big ones. Spread the risk to avoid the vagaries of algo changes.

WBF

[Mr Bo Jangles]

why do I get 404 errors with willybfriendly's urls?

[willybfriendly]

A semi snuck in on the end of them

WBF

[Mr Bo Jangles]

oh, duh, sorry I didn't look very hard.

[nuevojefe]

Besides wishing someone would have told me to visit this board 2-4 years earlier....

I'd say to try to build each site like a franchise. Basically outline each job necessary to make the site succeed and write a manual for it (without going overboard). When you achieve success (wishing you good luck!) with it this will allow you to delegate some of the work responsibilities to someone else and move on to your next project.

[mincklerstraat]

If your site uses dynamic url's, avoid the situation where url's with different parameters point to the same page (like with forward=1 and back=1 parameters); keep as much as possible to 1 url points to 1 unique page scenario. (actually, this is just from experience, and I haven't really noted it on these boards)

[george123]

if the young ones could realise some easy thinks .....USE PURE HTML,AREAL HELVETICA,H1 H2 UNDERLINE ITALIAN BOLD.INBOUND LINKS FROM OLD PAGES 3+ YEARS OLD PR6-7....UNIQUE CONTENT....thats the way to the top

[george123]

PLUS BRAINS

[rich42]

I've been doing SEO for a long time - but only recently started to have good luck. here's what I've been doing differently:

target lots of keywords and their variations - even the less popular ones.

you never know which one's you'll manage to get a good ranking on - landing in the top 10 for a whole bunch of low-traffic terms can add up.

content, lots of content (several pages a day). if you can't figure out what to write about - look at what other people are writing and write about that. Check Google news for any new stories on your topic - and do your own summary / link to the article.

pagerank / incoming links are important - but if the contents not on your site - you generally won't rank for it. however - vice versa is also true.

Really important:
Title
Incoming anchor text
H1 / H2
Keyword in 1st paragraph
Keyword in body multiple times

Not so important:
Exact keyword density
Outgoing links to other sites
HTML to text ratio

Make an excel spreadsheet and track all your keyword positions in Google. I use Keyword Ranker to automate this.