When it comes to SEO (search engine optimisation) it is far more important that you get the basics right than it is you learn the latest ‘killer trick’, that is likely to either not work, or if it does it will be shut down by Google at the next update.

The basics of SEO will ensure that you are able to get your sites ranking for good words, and it will put you ahead of many site owners, even those that claim to be SEO gurus, but don’t really understand what it is that they are doing.

The SEO Basics

So what are the basics that you should understand?  Remember is that search engines want visitors to have the best possible experience, so they are looking for information that will allow them to know what their users can expect and if it is worthwhile.

They use complex algorithms to make these decisions.  It is what gets put into these algorithms to effect the outcome that matters to us.

Backlinks.  The search engines view people linking to you as proof that your site is worth viewing.  A good guide is to say that the more links you get the better, and ideally from trusted sources (spammy links carry far less weight).

Speed of loading.  If you page takes forever to load then it will be penalised for it by the search engines.  As we said they want users to get a good experience, and waiting for a page that takes forever to load is not that sort of experience.

Keyword selection.  You need to be able to select keywords that get searched a lot, and that have low competition.  The free Google Keyword Tool is great for finding search numbers, and Google itself to find the competition.

Keyword usage.  Having a great keyword is not enough.  You need to ensure that it has good saturation levels in the article, that there are a lot of related keywords and that the keywords also turn up in the title and header codings so that the search engines can tell that is what your site is about.