by Murray Lunn

Created on: September 17, 2010

Search engine optimization is a collection of techniques and methods to help improve a websites overall search engine ranking. Although many "experts" have lead you to believe it's difficult and requires a specialized team of people working on it 24/7, you can actually do much of the basic SEO work in-house and on your own time.

Most SEO companies or individuals selling the services will aim to confuse you with cloak and mirror tactics often having you agree to sign into contracts for very basic work anyone with a few hours (or after reading this article) can accomplish. If you're the DIY type that doesn't mind playing around with HTML files or plugins, this article is for you.

The following articles will teach you the basic SEO techniques to gain you more traffic:

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Step 1: Keyword optimization

Before you touch a single line of code, you must understand how search engines factor your website and content. Despite an immense amount of various factors the fundamental technique to create a search engine friendly website is through the proper selection of keywords.

There are two types of keywords:

 - Short

 - Long-tail

Although many other websites have already claimed short keywords (such as Dog Training), you still have the benefit of going for the long-tail. Long-tail keywords are longer keywords and phrases that focus into a topic (such as Dog training for golden retrievers).

As the above explanation tells, you should do a considerable amount of research into the keywords that are related to your website's niche - the topic of the website. Using Google Free Keyword Tool, plug in keywords related to your niche and copy down all those that apply or ones you'd like to rank for; you'll be using these keywords throughout the rest of the steps.

Step 2: Title tag and meta description optimization

The second most basic (and important) step in increasing your traffic through SEO is the title and meta tag. The title and meta tag are what display within search engines when you type in a specific keyword. By crafting a keyword optimized title and a description which peaks a searchers interest, you'll be able to reach higher search rankings and increase your click through rate.

With your keywords in hand, you will want to craft each page of your website with a unique title related to the content on the page.

For example, here is an example of an SEO friendly title:

 - Dog training tips for golden retrievers | Example.com

As you can see, the

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