1.  SEO Friendly HTML

The html of your website is very important for search engines.  Editing HTML is the most ‘easy’ of the three components in my opinion, takes  the least amount of time, and is the only seo component that actually has some closure at some point in time.  The key focus on the HTML is to make sure it is SEO-friendly; but what does that mean?  More often than not it means fixing HTML items that are actually hurting your SEO strategy rather than helping.  The most common issues I see are too much javascript, a flash-only site, weak title tags and meta descriptions, use of graphical text in headers rather than HTML text, poor setup of navigation elements, empty alt-tags, spamming or trying to trick the search engines, very slow load time (large graphics are usually the culprit), and more.  The good thing with ‘fixing’ your HTML for SEO purposes is that once its done you don’t have to worry about it too much except for a few extra minutes when you add new pages to your website.  This step usually requires an SEO expert who has HTML knowledge and maybe a specified HTML programmer or web developer if necessary.

2.  Content for Search Engines AND Visitors

After you have patched up your HTML the next step is to ensure you have enough useful information/content/copy on your website.  You should note the emphasis on ‘enough’ and ‘useful’.  If you only have a three page website with a few paragraphs yet you offer hundreds of different products or services how would you expect the search engines to really understand what your website is about?  Once you have identified the core content your targe audience is seeking make sure it is put up on your website.  After that stage the door opens up uto endless possibilities of methods you can produce relevant and useful information for your current and future clients.  Some simple ideas are adding a blog to your website, adding a press release or news section, setting up a FAQ, having a client testimonials page, have a photo gallery with a description of each photo, post reviews of other products or services that are relevant to the industry you are in, setup a monthly industry newsletter, and more.  Content development should never really end unless you start to get thousands upon thousands of pages which most people do not achieve easily. This stage will involve an SEO expert and some good copywriters or strategists.

3.  Link Building

Link building is probably the most critical and overlooked strategy of SEO.  It is also the most difficult and avoided because of its difficulty to achieve.  You have total control over your HTML and copy on your website; you can update and add those to your hearts content.  However this is not the case with incoming links to your website.  You have no control over who links to you and how they link to you; unless you happen to own some other websites.  There are  many different strategies to gain links to your website and the most successful is link baiting; but also the most difficult to attain.  Link baiting is creating something so noteworthy, sought after, or impressive that other people link to it from their websites or blogs naturally – without you even knowing it.  Other methods of link building include directory submissions, viral  video distribution, commenting on blogs, buying links, link trading, social media bookmarking, etc.  This is the most difficult stage of SEO and  also never seems to end, I have not found a website yet that has ‘too’ many links (unless they are bad ones)~

SEO Components Summary

Remember to focus on HTML, Content, and Link Building and your SEO campaign should be successful.  Ignoring one of these three components can hold you back from your true potential to success.  I recommend tackling them in that order (easiest to hardest) and focusing on seo copywriting and link building on a regular basis after the HTML is squared away.

The website is http://www.linking-service.com/. I ordered just 20 links to test their service. The website I was getting links for was focused around web design services.

This service promises “…When you buy links from us, you are getting quality; this is more than most services can say. If your website is important to you, rely on the quality one way links and permanent links that we offer.” Well that is pretty much blashemy on their part. The link quality was absolutely horrible; most on pages that had not relation at all to web design.

Keep in mind the website I was getting links for was a ‘web design’ business. Some of the websites they obtained links on were related to oil careers, anti-aging products, printing, die casting, and more unspeakable unrelated industries. I could not find one website that was really relevant to our industry.

They also promise “All of our text links come from different website markets from relevant pages that have less than 50 outgoing links. While this may not sound important to you, when it comes to search engine results this is beneficial. It goes along with the high quality that we offer every customer.” Yet many of the pages where we had obtained links from had hundreds or more of outgoing links, not less than 50. They also were not ‘relevant’ websites in contradiction to their website text.

Bottom line, don’t try this service out, its a total waste of money. I didn’t expect much from them considering the cost, but it was worth a shot! Too bad it was ‘too good to be true’.

Here is a sample list of websites they obtained links on:

http://www.rss-to-javascript.com/p/Our-Partners___147,,,Categories-14.html

http://www.webmaster-link-exchange.com/sublistings-cat-7-page-1.html

http://home.nestor.minsk.by/build/links/interiordesign.html

http://www.printfellas.com/links/Graphic_Design.html

http://www.oilcareer.com/lma/directory.php/Other_Amazing_Sites/Other_Amazing_Sites.html

http://www.geld-links.de/sub_29_1

http://beyondthesidewalks.com/directory/books.html

http://www.kineticdiecasting.com/resources/browse.php?id=19

http://www.anti-aging-revolution.net/p/Resources___155,,,Categories-24.html

If there are any services out there you were thinking about trying let me know and I may try them out and post a public review on it.