Many SEOs and clients performing their own SEO ask what they need in order to perform SEO. It is actually quite simple and you really don’t have to be that technical to implement on page and off page SEO.

First you need an FTP program, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used to copy a file from one host to another over a TCP/IP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server applications, which solves the problem of different end host configurations (i.e., Operating Systems, file names). FTP is used with user-based password authentication or with anonymous user access. (via wiki-pedia)

I know this sounds complicated but all it does is allow you to transfer files from your computer to your web hosting server where your website is located. It is just as simple if you were copying files from a flash drive and putting them somewhere on your hard drive. The programming aspect of the website should be done by someone with extensive html coding experience, but you can add meta information and the proper html snippets of code to your website via FTP by just using a notepad application or a web developer software.

What Do I Need to Learn SEO

First off if you don’t have a computer and cable/dsl or better don’t bother reading any further, there is no reason for you to learn seo! Now that you have a computer, Internet access and an FTP program you are ready to perform SEO or search engine optimization. Anyone can sign up for a Google Account which then will give you access to all of their internet applications like AdWords, Analytics and AdSense. From their you can get the snippets of code to install into the HTML of your website. From here you will copy the code they give you and paste it into the HTML where they verify the code to give you access to:

Google Analytics– Analytical data compiled real time for you to view statistics of website traffic

Google Webmaster Tools– More analytical data which allows you to track links, set crawl rate, see what keywords are triggering your ads and even what pages aren’t working

Google AdWords– This will allow you advertise on Google search results pages for a CPC (cost-per-click)

Google AdSense– Adding this snippet of code will allow Google to show ads from websites using AdWords to share the CPC with you that the advertiser pays

These are just a few of the Google programs that will allow you to track the success as well as earn income or advertise using the Google Network of advertisers that you can use simply by having FTP access and very little html knowledge.

Submit your email address to SearchandRank and we will send you a Google Analytics “breakdown guide” at no cost, which is trademarked information and can’t be resold!

What to look for in a CMS (content management system)

1. Be able to optimize page titles, meta-description, meta-keywords and text content on each and every page to obtain unique pages.

2. Be able to optimize each and every image (alt attributes).

3. Have a page for conversions (static “thank you” page for purchases) need to install tracking code on each conversion page.

4. Make sure pictures and images are smaller, the larger the page the slower the load time and the lower the rankings because of it.

5. Navigation rollover scripts, other JavaScript-based code, and all CSS scripts should be taken out of the code of each page and put into external files to which each page of the site is referenced. Doing this has several advantages, but one of the most beneficial is that any site’s keywords and content all move up in the code, communicating their importance to the search engines and boosting the site’s relevancy ratings. In other words, this can boost search engine rankings by improving the code to text ratio of the page. This is a simple and relatively inexpensive thing to do, depending on the total number of pages in the site.

* Important *

o It can take a while for the search engines to index a site and the rankings to change for that site. For some search engines, the lag time between the work and seeing results can be as long as six months. Clients need to be patient and have realistic expectations (from sales) regarding the time frame involved with organic (the natural, non paid results) search engine rankings. If the business need for increased search engine prominence is greater than can be met with optimization alone, I recommend adding a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign to the marketing campaign mix to bridge the time. PPC campaigns such as Google’s AdWords can be set up in a matter of a few hours, allowing for immediate results.

Content Piece of the Puzzle (the design)

You get better results if you design with optimization in mind from the beginning. If you incorporate optimization into the very construction of your website, it is much more seamless and genuine than if you build your site and then try to tweak it for optimization. The most search engine friendly sites are straightforward sites built from basic, non-frame, non-Flash, HTML documents. Your site should also use basic HTML links (not links in dropdown flash menus or hidden in fancy animations) as these are most easily followed and indexed by search engines.

First, a site loaded with high-quality content of interest to site users will give them a reason to stay and a reason to come back. After all, the reason they came to the site was to find information. Second, you will receive the added benefit of serving up exactly what the search engines want – content. Search engines will have more information to store about the businesses and products; that information will translate directly into the ranking they give the site for related keyword phrases.

o Each page should contain about 200 words of text content increasing relevancy ratings and thus making optimization of the pages easier to monetize increasing the search engine rankings.

Prominence of Targeted Keyword Phrases – It is not enough to have your keyword phrase(s) somewhere on the web page, the placement and prominence given to them also affects your search engine placement. For example, leading off the site’s first paragraph with your keyword phrase gives it more weight than burying it half way down the page in the middle of a paragraph. Also, using larger font sizes and bolding the text can emphasize its importance and positively affect the page’s ranking for that phrase.

Using keyword phrase(s) in the <h> tags of the site will also improve search engine rankings. Specific use of just one type of header will not be as effective as using multiple <h> tags on the page.

Bounce Rates in Search Engine Optimization

I have just spent the last few hours looking at posts from the past few years about bounce rates in Google Analytics and I think that there is a lot of information out there that Google must laugh at.  In this post about bounce rates, he talks about how someone else says it better than he does and he passes on the torch to another useless post about bounce rates.  At least one truth from both of the posts is that a low % is a better %, however breaking them down into what they are for and what they can tell you is completely off kilt.

• Low bounce rate is telling you that people come to your site and at some point and time during their visit, go to another page. Meaning that a low percentage of the people that visit your site only visit the first page.  This doesn’t mean your home page necessarily, it could be a product page if you are an commerce site, or another post within your huge blog.
• High bounce rate means they came, they saw, they left.  No clicks to anywhere else in your site, just viewed the landing page and left.
• There is no time limit on how long a person can stay on the page before clicking to another page, if they click in and click out 2 hours later, it’s a bounce.

If your bounce rate is high, evaluate the type of site that you have, if its a blog, expect people to hit it and forget it.  That is really what a blog is for, to provide available information quick and easy.  That’s why you need to make sure that the content within the pages of your site are right to the point, don’t have too little or too much information.  You don’t want to misinform or bore your site visitors.

Bounce Rates in Pay-Per-Click

There are a few things to think about when you are looking at the bounce rates of your ppc campaign, you have to look at the possibility that your price is too high, product wasn’t really what the searcher wanted, or your page itself doesn’t have enough stickiness to keep them on the page.  When someone is shopping they are more likely to leave the site entirely to “shop around” rather than shop around the site that didn’t provide them with the content they were looking for.  Make sure that your landing page supports the words you are paying for, because even if they click on your site and bounce off, it still costs YOU money! Knowing what to expect before hand does make it easier to swallow, it still doesn’t take away the costs you are going to incur.  Good luck and happy bouncing.

All you need is FTP (File Transfer Protocol) access and you can install a simple code and let the tracking begin.  Install the code between the <body> and <body/> tags in your site.  If you have no clue what you are doing you may want to contact your hosting provider to give them the code that google analytics provides to you after you sign up your site.  Just send them an email that you want them to add it to all the pages of your active site, 24 hours later you will have some data and going forward you will be able to track each visitor to your site.  You can track, IP, city, network, browser type and more!  You can even track when a searcher lands on your site and proceeds to a checkout or maybe even a contact form.  You can track your month to month results to show where you were last month and where you are today.  See how many visits you got today, yesterday, last week or last month.  Look to see what is your most popular page, what page gets the most hits, or how many pages the avg. site visitor views before leaving the site.

You can use Analytics to really gauge how well your SEO campaign is doing, or your PPC program.  Bounce rate is a very important statistic of your site.  This tells you how effective the web pages in your site are for what they are being found under.  Meaning if someone was to search for blue widgets, and found your green widgets page, chances are they are going to leave the page to find a blue widget, giving you a bounce. More to come with bounce rates and how to use Google Analytics.