I hear a lot of bloggers complaining about how confusing and difficult search engine marketing can be, but the truth is, it really is not that hard.  They are researching a lot but run into a ton of technical jargon, weird graphs and other metrics that are difficult to read and really don’t provide the true substance of what is needed to be done.  So I wanted to make this post real quick for a lot of the beginners out there and outline a couple of basic philosophies you should be employing in your search engine optimization efforts.

What a lot of those SEO sites don’t tell you, is that the real key to being successful with your online marketing and SEO efforts is EFFORT.  Nothing will happen overnight, unless your spending big money on Pay-per-click, which is NOT SEO.  You need to put in days and days worth of time writing content, creating profiles and blogs, setting up networks and starting relationships, and a whole lot more online.  This will usually take a year or two to really see the efforts start to pay off, especially if you are doing it all alone.  Outsourcing can be a very good option if you are still working a 9-5 job or what not, but be warned, there are a ton of scammers out there and it can be very difficult to find quality outsourced work.

The Basic SEO Philosophy for  2011 and Beyond:

Create unique, keyword rich and targeted content that can be distributed throughout the world wide web, gaining you inbound links that point directly back toward your website’s domain

What are some various types of content that can generate backlinks?

• Text based
• Images
• Videos
• PDFs
• Powerpoints
• whole lot more, just look

What are different distribution methods for your content and backlinks?

• Social Media
• Blog Commenting
• Press Releases
• Guest Blogging
• Video Marketing
• Profile Building
• Forums
• Web 2.0 Creations
• Directory Submissions
• Article Marketing

What are the best “rules” for success Post-Panda?

• Write your own content, keep it unique
• Stay on topic and write content that matches your keywords/industry
• Look to create back links from related websites
• Communicate and get involved with sites in your industry
• Use social media sites to build relationships and network

What is the best overall SEO campaign strategy Post-Panda?

• Diversify! Diversify! Diversify!
• Relevance
• Higher Page Rank the better
• Unique content + links = more weight
• Contextual back links > low content/no content based back links

What types of anchor text should you use?

• 60-80% keyword targeted anchor texts
• Mix in natural anchor text – > “click here” “home page” “here” “link” “website” “webpage” and such
• Do not spam anchors, try to use different varieties of the keyword terms and phrases for best results

Backlinking Tips

• Make sure to build inbound links to deep pages as well
• Choose the inner pages that convert with visitors or are primary features of your company site
• Link less to inner pages/posts, but the more the merrier

Please feel free to add any questions or concerns about your current SEO campaign below, and I will take the time to give a quality response that will help you move forward and find success quicker.