SEO Best Practices Version 1

Written by Jack Knollson | 31 December 2009

Success from search engine optimization requires a long-term committment that many marketers are not willing to make. Keep these high-level goals in mind and the rest will fall into place. Original Publication Date: January 24, 2008

1. Provide Deep Content – (Long Tail Organic)
Experts say that if you could make a big website with deep content, this strategy would be the best for SEO. Then they dismiss the idea as impossible and go on to discuss tricks for small sites. If you have a complex offering with many details, the best SEO play is to write about everything in detail. The more content you have, the better.

2. Design for the Crawler Too – (Website Optimization)
User experience is important, but if no one finds your site, it won’t matter. Every page should be designed to help the crawler. And, since crawlers are designed to look for things that people will like, pleasing the crawler usually pleases the people.

3. Nurture Website Popularity – (Community)
Popularity is at the heart of the Google algorithm and the key to success. You can try to trick the crawler, but the best practice is to provide objective, valuable content that others will visit, link to, copy, and use.

4. Follow a Process – (Programs Over Campaigns)
There are two processes that count. The first is the process for adding and updating web pages as often as possible. Search engines love this behavior and will reward you for it. The second is to follow a process from first contact to final sale. Track it, improve it, optimize it, and you will make money.