Basic SEM.

I'm a noob to SEM, how do I do it...

[Dabrowski]

ok, I've done my site, it's all shiney and new.

Now how do I get Google to notice it? What are the best ways? I've heard of META tags, doorways, keyphrases, and something about linking, but I don't know entirely what these things are, or how to incorporate all this.

Can someone please give me the quick basics so I can get started?

[edited by: Dabrowski at 8:09 pm (utc) on Dec. 7, 2007]

[King_Fisher]

D-Ski, A senior member and a Noob, how can that be?

You probably have forgotten more than I ever knew about SEM, etc.

Just wanted to kid you a bit :o)

With that said I will step aside and let the real pros advise you!

Good luck with the new site!...KF

[Dabrowski]

A senior member and a Noob

LOL! I know a lot of HTML/JavaScript/Perl! Don't really participate in the other forums though, I don't really know enough to help anyone, apart from in Foo of course!

[encyclo]

The basics? How about A Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone - 26 steps to 15k a day [webmasterworld.com].

[Dabrowski]

Thanks Encyclo, I thought there would be something like that on here, I'll have a read and post again if I have any further questions.

[Dabrowski]

Wow that is a good read. I've spent the last day restructuring my sitemap to improve linking and depth, and am just doing some keyphrase research now to see what other content I can squeeze in.

One thing I still need to know though are the syntax for META keywords and META description.

I've also heard of META areas too, is this relevant? Some of my business areas are real-world and I don't want people contacting me from 300 miles away for it!

Can you put more than one keyphrase in a META tag (as long as it's relevant to the page also)?

I've also heard of doorway pages with regard to SEO, but nobody in the thread mentioned them, I still don't know what they are, but I'm assuming they're bad otherwise I suppose Brett would have included them.

I have planned several 'departmental' subdomains, like sector1.mydomain.co.uk and sector2.mydomain.co.uk. The other thread says to stay away from 3rd level domains, but is almost 4 years old. Is that still good advice?