SEO Must Haves

Tonight I attended a “Search Engine Optimization For Entrepreneurs” seminar put on by the Okanagan Valley Entrepreneur Society (OVES).

OVES - Okanagan Valley Entrepreneur Society

It was a great talk and the discussion exceeded my expectations. There was a packed house and the discussion format was a moderated Q&A with 3 expert panellists:

    Chris Pinkerton – Digital Marketing Strategies
    Muriel Archibald – Search Engine Optimization and Positioning
    Daren Wride – Search Engine Marketing

The Top 3 Keys for good SEO (Search Engine Optimization ie. improving how you rank on search engines such as Google and Bing) that were discussed tonight confirmed what I already suspected:

SEO Must Haves

  1. Relevant High-Quality Content
  2. Quality Incoming Links from Relevant Sites
  3. Regularly Updated Relevant Content

Notice that the common theme in improving your SEO is to be RELEVANT!

Search engines such as Google are wising up and are no longer fooled by keyword stuffing (overuse of keywords which aren’t relevant to your content), paid links (paying sites to link to you), or other artificial “black hat” (spammy or unethical methods of trying to increase your page ranking) tricks.

By the way, a fourth key element which is not always at the top of everyone’s radar, but was brought up tonight by the panellists as another must have for good SEO, is:

    4. Keyword Rich Relevant Title Tags

Some other important points that were emphasized tonight were:

  • SEO takes time
  • be as authentic as possible
  • stay on top of it
  • define specific goals and targets
  • create a niche market
  • make your site authoritative on your subject

I learned a lot tonight (10 pages of notes worth!) and it just makes me want to learn more. If you would like to find out more about the seminar I attended or the panellists, visit the event Search Engine Optimization for Entrepreneurs info page on the OVES website.

Feel free to contact me if you’d like to set up a consultation on your website and help improving your SEO. If you have any suggestions or observations, please comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

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Filed under: Design, Tips.

2 Responses to “SEO Must Haves”

  1. Thanks Kendra for sharing an informative post on SOE which I usually perceive as some giant silent mythical pyramid creature in some other universe to me! 8 )

    • Kendra says:

      Thanks Kerryn! I also find SEO to be a gigantic topic. I learned a lot at the seminar which mostly taught me that I have a lot yet to learn!

      One other useful tip that we received that night was to make our links count. It’s much better for your site if people link to you using keywords than if they link using generic meaningless words such as ‘click here’ or ‘visit site’.

      Notice that in my article all of my links (except the contact me one) have key words in them which are relevant to the content I’m linking to. Links like those help the page ranking of the sites I’m linking to because they help search engines figure out what those sites are about.

      Keyword rich links are also very helpful to seeing impaired visitors who are using a screen reader. While an ambiguous link such as “view” may leave them unsure of what they are clicking on, an informative link such as “watercolour art by Kendra Dixson” will let them know where a click might take them.

      A lot to learn, but when it’s one step at a time, it’s fun to try and implement it. :)

      Kendra

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