Advice on SEO - 10 Free SEO Tips

Jill Whalen of High Rankings fame has her updated advice on SEO - a top 10 list for better rankings.

1. Do not purchase a new domain unless you have to.
2. Optimize your site for your target audience, not for the search engines.
3. Research your keyword phrases extensively.
4. Design and categorize your site architecture and navigation based on your keyword research.
5. Program your site to be “crawler-friendly.”
6. Label your internal text links and clickable image alt attributes (aka alt tags) as clearly and descriptively as possible.
7. Write compelling copy for the key pages of your site based on your chosen keyword phrases and your target market’s needs, and make sure it’s copy that the search engines can “see.”
8. Incorporate your keyword phrases into each page’s unique Title tag.
9. Make sure your site is “link-worthy.”
10. Don’t be married to any one keyword phrase or worried too much about rankings.

If you’re an SEO, I would really suggest hammering home that last statement. The biggest disparity between a successful or failed consultant-client relationship (as far as managing expectations) has to do with watching the SEO campaign as a whole or just a few keywords. Algorithms change, sites drop and keywords shift. It’s part of the game.