I was doing some research on what a good SEO strategy would be and was looking for a basic step-by-step guide that would provide me what I wanted to know in 5 minutes or less. Don’t get me wrong, I know that SEO is a complex subject but I wanted to understand the high-level steps so that I would be clear on exactly what was involved. I found the motherload. It is listed at the SitePoint Forums. They have a whole FAQ that focuses on SEO and lists the following steps as the high-level things to consider:

I was doing some research on what a good SEO strategy would be and was looking for a basic step-by-step guide that would provide me what I wanted to know in 5 minutes or less. Don’t get me wrong, I know that SEO is a complex subject but I wanted to understand the high-level steps so that I would be clear on exactly what was involved. I found the motherload. It is listed at the SitePoint Forums. They have a whole FAQ that focuses on SEO and lists the following steps as the high-level things to consider:

Before you write one line of code:

* Do keyword research to determine what keywords you want to target

While constructing your website you should do the following:

* Use markup to indicate the content of your site

     o Optimize your “title” tags on each page to contain 1 - 3 keywords

     o Create unique Meta Tags for each page

     o Use header tags appropriately (H1 > H2 > H3)

     o Use “strong” and “em” tags if appropriate

* Optimize your URLs

     o Use Search Engine Friendly URLs (for dynamic sites)

     o Use keywords in your domain (http://www.keyword1.com/)

     o Use keywords in your URL (http://www.example.com/keyword2/keyword3.html)

     o Use dashes instead of underscores to separate words in your URLs (keyword2-keyword3.html)

* Optimize your content

     o Use keywords liberally yet appropriately throughout each page

     o Have unique content

     o Have quality content

* Use search engine friendly design

     o Create a human sitemap

     o Do not use inaccessible site navigation (JavaScript menus)

     o Minimized outbound links

     o Kept your pages under 100K in size

* Design the navigational structure of the site to channel PR to main pages (especially the homepage)

* Create a page that encourages webmasters to link to your site

     o Provide them the relevant HTML to create their link to you

     o Provide them with any images you may want them to use (although text links are better)

* Make sure your website is complete before launching it

Immediately after launching your site you should do the following:

* Submit your site to all major search engines

     o Google (Use a Google SiteMap)

     o Yahoo (Use the page list option)

     o MSN (Finds your site via incomming links)

     o Ask (Finds your site via incomming links)

* Submit your site to all free directories

     o DMOZ (also powers Google Directory)

     o JoeAnt

* Submit your site to relevant directories

     o Find more at ISEDB

* Begin a link building campaign (attempting to get keywords in the link anchor text)

     o Put a link to your website in your forum signatures

     o Reply to relevant blog posts (Don’t spam please)

     o Submit articles to relevant websites

I am going to refer to this for any site that I create going forward, and ensure that I have followed it for any of my sites that I am using now.