SEO Newbie starting out

I have been put in charge of our SEO for the companies website and have spent the lastfew weeks reading as much as I can about SEO. The conclusion I have come up with is that no one really knows how it all works but the main aspects are

Keywords
meta description
Webpage content
Alt tags
Inbound/outbound links
anchor text
title tags
Site validation

there are probaly alot more but a the moment in my early days this is what I have worked out.

What I was after is if someone could give me some further reading and advice. Maybe point me in the direction of some sites that are deemed the best at SEO.

Cheers for any help

The most important one is the title tag, description tag and incoming links with the anchor text.

Akash

Some fast things to learn that should become habit [like getting dressed].



PLAN - start with obscure phrases continuously moving towards your most competitive phrases.

Every use of a "KEYWORD" aids all phrases that use that keyword thus you can acquire volumes of obscurely used phrases immediately [and never lose them] while you are always improving on the competitive ones.



IGNORE THIS PURE OBSOLETE RUBBISH



Obviously CONTENT development is important... it is best to attempt add new fresh pages of info 2x/week and progressively moving towards daily as your exposure improves.

In association with KEYWORDS your BEST BET is look for topics that are obscurely related to you AND ensure you internal linkage in your websites makes that "RELATED" clickable to pages that are less obscure [more competitive phrase being targeted



IGNORE THIS PURE OBSOLETE RUBBISH... all image elements should use alt as alt="" as it offers absolutely no ranking value [Unless image is a link. If a link add your phrase]



Extremely important BUT you truly need to advance plan how you are going to do this... a little of EVERYTHING [recips, paid, 3-ways, n-ways, 1-ways] is beneficial but if you do only one version you paint a big bulls eye on the website that you "MANIPULATE" using links and your return will decline over time.



Extremely important BUT don't use a single anchor or a mere few as this is a sign of MANIPULATION and again your return will be lackluster [or short lived].

PLAN target 100 or more phrases and as you use all 100 and need to start over select 50 of those 'more competitive ones' and do each...

and as you use all 50 and need to start over select 25 of those 'more competitive ones' and do each...

and as you use all 25 and need to start over select 12-13 of those 'more competitive ones' and do each...

and as you use all 100 and need to start over select 6 of those 'more competitive ones' and do each...

You have now created a natural link pattern that aligns itself with LSI.



To be clear we are discussing title element.

Less is more... Google will index the first 64-66 characters BUT really only the first 30 [rough approximation] are really worth alot of weight...

If BRAND name is important get that to the right of those first 30 characters

Never use the identical arrangement of words on any page - mix them up... NOTE: well the first 30 characters are weighty if you run out of unqiue title phrases - use all 64-66 characters.



Does nothing for ranks - DIRECTLY!

INDIRECTLY - it improves you insights 3-fold... which makes you a better more reliable SEO.

1. better understanding of the environment you advertise in and all its nuances.

2. Superior understanding of the website you are working with... the habit of validation is like knowing the good/bad habits of you spouse... after 1 day you know little but after 30 years you know it all.

3. your skills & knowledge improvements. If you could rank SEOs according to their skills & knowledge level - all the top ones know W3C recommendation & validation of... and the bottom feeder don't... [anyone can rank a page/site... few can keep it there without any effort]

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I continuously note here... SEO IS NOT about doing every little thing because it MIGHT help a little... it's about doing only those things that ABSOLUTELY CREATES BETTER RANKS... today that is:

CONTENT arranged appropriately so to appeal to the user...

A USER is:

A visitor - that could be a customer or a person that wishing to include a link in their source as it improves their market reach and penetration and the latter also aids you.

If you mean proper keyword research yes. If you mean the keywordsmeta tag, it is not even looked at by google and i dont think it holds any weight in the other majors.



Not so much for SEO really, as it does not help rankings in google at all. It is used to get snippets in search result listings tho, so I still reccomend using it.


These are all fine.



if you mean the <title> element then yes, it is definately important to make this well worded with your keyword(s) in it for each page. This should be unique for each page as well.



This has nothing to do with SEO. All major search engine spiders can read your page regardless as long as there is not anything hugely wrong with the code.

As you can see, you landed at the right place! WilliamC and Fathom rock! Read, read and read. Follow links in the signatures of posters that relate to SEO basics.

One of the top posters here, SEO_AM, with the shark avatar, has a great signature link which provides good information.

Go to www.keywordtracker.com for keyword research.
Download www.webceo.com to store your research and find where competitors get their backlinks.

For me, the hardest thing was to get over "assuming" things when it came to SEO. I assumed the meta description tag helped. I was corrected and moved on. I assumed certain keywords would work, until I researched them and found that they had virtually no history of traffic. Experience can be quite deceiving and cause you to assume that x+y=z. Experience, coupled with knowledge that you will gain from forums such as these, will bring results.

Look below for that link.

with all that...SEO is a continuous process and you need patience in doing it...Improve contents and link popularity...
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Cheers for the replys plenty of stuff for me to look at its
most appreciated.

Title tags, anchor text, and alt tags are under keywords because Title tags, anchor text, and Alt tags are used to declare the keywords used in the site.

Put your keywords in your content and description for you to top SEs result pages but do not stuff, unless your doing grey hat method.

You must have more inbound links than having more outbound links. Inbound links may help give more traffic to your site, sometimes it may place you on top SERPs.

Traffic is also a good factor on SEO, so if you want to create a content, do not do it for SEs, do it for humans instead. More traffic, more income.

Have you notice that most of your posts don't really say anything...

From your experience "WHY" are keywords the most vital for SE?

In my experience... pages that are totally blank and have no content do not do very well. Do you find this to be true also?

LOL, on a side note As I am no SEO expert, I can only share my experiences with my sites. I tried to compile them in the link in my signature. Hope it helps.

Well i had ranked full flash websites under competitive keywords and all i have to say is this: yes is true that is hard but all can be resolved with more backlinks.

In my experience, sarcasm can wit anyone into responding with an opinion!

You are truly a SEO expert. You always give us ideas and information regarding SEO. Thanks and more power.