URL versus Keyword Factor
The number one factor for optimizing for a specific keyword is…the keyword must be present in your domain name(example: directory.com)In this example, directory is the keyword and the URL. Obviously it will be hard to find such a good domain name. The rule is to keep your keyword towards the beginning of your URL as possible, while using the least amount of characters in your domain name. At the same time you will want to give your users a easy to remember domain name, so they can return to your site in the future.
Keyword presence in the URL is crucial for achieving high rankings in a search engine’s results.
If you and your competition have the same amount of backlinks the person with the keyword in their domain name will probably achieve greater success.
Meta-Keywords
Example:< META name=”Keywords” content=”keyword1, keyword2, keyword3″>
You must not forget to include a Meta-tag encoded in your HTML. Ensure you’ve chosen keywords that are relevant to the content of your site. Avoid repetitions as search engines can penalize your rankings. Move the most important keywords to the beginning to increase their prominence.
Text Heading on your page
Example: <H1>KeywordintheHeading</H1>,<H3>Keyword#3</H3>, etc.
It is important the keyword is present in the very first heading tag on the page regardless of its type. If the keyword is also used as a first word, you will raise its prominence.
Body Text (The main area of your webpage that has text).
The basic rule is no less than 1200 to 1300 words on a page. So the next rule is to include your keyword no more than once per paragraph; a paragraph consisting of 3 to 5 sentences. Your keyword should be spread evenly throughout your page and at a 2% to 6% density. It also helps if you include the keyword close to the beginning of the first paragraph. Keywords should not be repeated one after another.
Extra emphasis by search engines is put on keywords when you underline them or make them bold, thus helping higher rankings for these keywords.
Keyword Density
Use a keyword density report tool to make sure your keyword is not repeated too much or not enough on a specific webpage. Rule is 2% to 6%.
Image ALT Tags
Example:<img src=”image.gif” Alt=”keyword” height=100 widths=200>
Include at least one of each of your keywords in your image alt tags, but never more than three with the same keyword. It helps to look at your html and make sure your keyword rich alt tags are as close to the top of the code as possible, but not directly repeating with no code in between.
Inbound Links
Example: <Ahref=”#xxx”>keyword</A>
Inbound links are links that are pointing to another page within your website. These keyword rich links can be important to some search engines and therefore also for the rankings of the destination pages.
Link Popularity
This is the number of links from other website pages to your page that search engines are aware of. In general, the more links that point to your page, the better your page will rank. However, a large number of links is not the deciding factor that helps your site get to the top of the results pages — the quality of those links is of greater importance. Placing your link on high ranking subject relevent sites like your own give a greater importance to your site by the search engine’s and with time to your rankings.
If you went out and spent thousands of dollars buying links on high ranking subject-relevant sites you will eventually see the results you desire. The biggest factor against you would still be time. For most people the factor is the capital it takes to place links on these types of sites.
Backlinks
To determine your site rankings, search engines take into consideration theme relevance of those sites linking to you. If the linking sites have something in common with yours (keywords in the BODY, titles, descriptions of the linked pages, etc.), your website gets better chances to gain high positions for these keywords.
(DMOZ.org)
You should really consider getting your site listed in the DMOZ directory. Some search engines will not give your site a decent evaulation without it being indexed.
Yahoo Directory
This is similar to the ODP — Google relationship. The Yahoo! directory is regularly crawled by the Yahoo! robots. A new site has a greater chance of being included faster in the Yahoo! search engine if there is a link to this site from the Yahoo directory.
Articles
Using blog or article site’s can help you build backlinks
(eg. Blogger.com)
(eg.ezinearticles.com)
If you would rather have somebody do the work for you there are plenty of seo services available.
