The title of the post you’re reading is “What Is SEO and How Do You Do SEO?” — right? Well, even that title is an SEO technique: guessing what people will search for and crafting your title around it. I also linked the title to itself; that’s part of SEO too, even though linking a title to itself in the same article doesn’t mean much. I showed it as an intro example. By now I think you’ve got the gist. Let’s look at what real SEO is.
SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” In my own translation: optimizing your site with words Google likes so that you become integrated with search, i.e., your site answers searches. Instead of explaining SEO in depth, let me cover what you should do on your site to handle SEO.
First, you have to think ahead about what people might like and what’s going to be a hit. On top of that, think about how people use search engines — more precisely, what words they search and how — and tune your site’s vocabulary to that. For me, SEO is mostly a word game plus a connections game. For example: say Windows 9 just dropped and Microsoft published a download link, and you want to share this on your site. If you title it “Download Microsoft’s New Operating System,” you’ve lost your visitors from the start. Everyone is going to literally search Google for “Windows 9, Windows 9 Download, Full Windows 9 Download, Full Windows 9 Download, Windows 9 Requirements.” Titles like those will jump to the top of search and the trending searches. You need to think “which title is going to be a hit for this thing about to drop?” People don’t like confusing titles, like “Take a Step Into the World of Innovation With Microsoft Windows 9 — Download Windows 9!” — 70% won’t read to the end. But “Windows 9 Full Download” instantly catches attention. Both simple and clean.
On top of that, your titles should be interesting. For example, “Windows 9 Features” will get demand, but “Things You Don’t Know About Windows 9” will pull more attention. That’s up to how well you can play with words — the more you stretch the language, the more SEO benefits you’ll squeeze out.
Another topic: WordPress plugins. This part is for WP users. If you’re on WP, there are some plugins you should use. First on the list, All in One SEO Pack. With this plugin you can present your articles to Google in a nicer way.
Next, SEO Friendly Images. This plugin extends SEO to your images. Speaking of images — let me clarify how to do image SEO. You apply SEO to an image through its filename. If you upload images named like image002.jpg instead of burakbayram.jpg, don’t expect any image SEO. You have to name your images descriptively.
Another, and the most important: Google XML Sitemap. With this plugin Google indexes your site faster and your posts go live ahead of everyone else’s. The video below explains setup and usage.
Another thing: when you mention older posts inside a new article, link to those older posts. These backlinks matter a lot for SEO. But don’t do it like this: “You can check it from the link here.” Instead do: “You can check it from the post titled Google XML Sitemap.” — that’s what Google likes. If you link the word “here,” you’ll start ranking for the keyword “here,” which is useless. Use the actual title of the linked post.
Another tool for faster indexing: pinging services. These can dramatically speed up your indexing. I’ll share a list of ping addresses for you to paste into WordPress Admin Panel > Settings > Writing > Update Services. You can get the list from my post titled WordPress Ping Address List.
Another big factor: permalinks. With WordPress, by default it looks like siteaddress.com/?p=123. For Google’s sake, transform it to siteaddress.com/2012/04/25/example-post.html. To do this: WordPress Admin Panel > Settings > Permalinks > Custom Structure → paste /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%.html. Just don’t forget to grant write permissions to the .htaccess file.
Another branch of SEO: backlinks and sponsored intro posts. You can buy do-follow backlinks from some sites. Tip: when buying links, decide which keyword you want to rank for. My domain is “Senin İnternetin,” but I try to buy backlinks for “Education Set” or “Video Tutorial,” because I know that the word “Education Set” will bring me more visitors. Sponsored posts you can also pay for. Or sign up to forum sites that allow sponsored posts and share intros there.
Finally, I recommend directories. You can submit your site to every directory, but the most important one — Dmoz — you absolutely should try. I covered why in my post titled Why You Should Submit a Site to Dmoz.
We’ve reached the end. Here’s what I can tell you about SEO: every change you make to your site is, in a way, SEO. Peace be with you! Stay well!
