Organic Search Engine Optimization Checklist for Experts

(Discovery Updates - priority first)

Goal: Permanent Top Rank at all organic search engines
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Commitment: I work on effective SEO, whenever I can. [Thy I Statements & Work Priorities help]
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#1. I recommend creating content for one new or existing inside webpage every 15 days, for each site maintained. What is important is that your web pages have original content. Link exchange pages lack this because the title and description of the outbound urls are mostly duplicate content. On your link swap pages, words should be added to the top describing the theme of the content. When you are done filling your existing pages, one entirely new webpage should be created every 15 days.

Tip A: Offering a useful service or resource is the best way to get free backlinks, according to Matt Cutts, SEO SPAM worker at Google.

Tip B: Useful service(s) and resource(s) include: Respectable outgoing links, a poll created at micropoll.com, a Bookmark Us javascript, offering news updates, a certified "Seal of Approval" button from a good site, a Google Custom Search, an article on the History of your theme, a site map for users, a disclaimer, a dictionary on your site's theme, a chat room like one created at meebo, a youtube or similar video, Google Gadgets, secrets, and easy to find Contact Us link. Respectable outgoing links: A dmoz.org page, a directory.google.com page, a wikipedia.org page, another well-known web page on your site's theme.

Tip C: I recommend creating and maintaining two site maps. One for Google Sitemaps in XML form and one for visitors.

Tip D: The creation of one new web page should be counted as two fresh backlinks. The new page must have at least three hyperlinks to other webpages at the same site.
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#2. Keywords: A good start is determining your site's relevant keywords, using this Keyword Suggestion Tool and by visiting other popular sites with your theme. I keep record of popular keywords phrases each good page should contain. Semi-naturally, I fill pages with half of these keywords, then I rotate in the others when it is easy to do.

Tip A: A keyword density analyzer (after Submit, "Keywords found on page") can be used. A goal for this tool should be to understand how many times keywords should occur on a page.

Tip B: 97% of your site's pages should have no keyword that is mentioned more than seventy times or more than 5% of word density, to avoid having redundant content for users. There is a good possibility that keyword stuffing is an SE algorithm penalty according to Matt Cutts, SEO SPAM worker at Google.

Tip C: 95% of your web pages should also have its main keywords mentioned at least 2.5% of word density. The reason for this is that each page gets good search engine ranking with its main keywords.
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#3. One keyword phrase should be used, for your page's 1st top engine rank goal. Your page should contain this phrase two times exactly plus two times close to the phrase. Ex: "Search Engine Optimization" twice on your page and "Search Engine" two more times.

Tip A: Beginning SEOs should focus on keyword phrases with a low to medium search volume. Phrases high in popularity can take a while for top ranking because of competition.

Tip B: A chosen keyword phrase should be used as 30% of backlink titles, and three to ten other supporting phrases for 70% of titles. When most of these get to top twenty at one engine, I like to, gradually, choose additional keyword titles. I don't like to work on over fifty backlink titles for one webpage, to avoid a possible SE algorithm penalty.

Tip C: A backlink without a keyword title should be equal, in SEO effectiveness, to one with a title. Ex: A banner with your backlink.
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#4. Three or more quality backlinks placed on two-plus different sites, per your one site, every week is required. Placing three backlinks, in one week, into only one site (home and inside pages) is probably not enough to improve your site's engine rankings.

For new backlinks, I use the following Techniques, most efficient first:

   #4.1 An efficient way to quality relevant blog, forum, social-network, article posting, and link exchanges: At Google, I search for a keyword phrase, I choose a web page, then link:__ search at Yahoo. The next step is to click Inlinks. One of the drop-down menus will "Show Inlinks Except from this domain." The highest quality web pages are the Site Explorer search results at the top. Quality blog and forum comments including your backlink are good. I like to catalog all social sites that do not take comments, then avoid these. After I complete work on a Yahoo link:__ search, I catalog the url I just searched, to avoid working on the same results at a later date.
   Tip A: When your site has hundreds of different backlinks, a search for link:yourwebsite at Yahoo can help. What you can look for is the possibility of adding an additional backlink on a different page in these results. When searching for more free ad space on social-network sites, site:thesocialsite.com keyword will show more good hypertext-matching backlink possibilities.
   Tip B: I use two Microsoft Word documents, to organize all my site's backlinks. One for link exchanges and one for all other backlinks (forums, blogs, directories, etc). I like Microsoft Word because it allows me to color the font of every other data set, for easy viewing, without line-breaks. I resize Word to about 30% of my screen size. The other 70% fills-up the internet browsers. I use abbreviations like NW for not working, Nnf for no nofollow, NF for not found, Rcpl for reciprocal, Pw for password, and "waiting" for new backlinks not added yet. I list link swaps in alphabetical order, with the link listed at my web site first, then my abbreviated page(s) their backlink(s) is on, then the reciprocal(s) mine is on. The reciprocal should be placed at the beginning when it has the same url as the listed, to save space in the word-processor. I place all sites to avoid in a notepad document, alphabetically. I refer to this, before working on any url.
   Tip C: When visiting sites, I bookmark web pages that I can work on later. I work on only one or two of the backlink building techniques on this page at the same time. They are (1) posting, (2) link swaps, (3) buying at popular directories, and (4) other. Lack of computer memory and speed comes into play when too many programs are open at one time. I change the words in the bookmark label for theme organizing because I have different sites.
   Tip D: I recommend adding around five relevant web pages, from this Yahoo link:__ search, to your quality pages, then sending the webmasters a link exchange offer. [Thy Link Swap Scripts help] I take their link down after one month with no response. Doing this should land a quality backlink with 30% of the sites. Reason Why only Five: It minimizes possible email SPAM complaints. A backlink (link:__) search will show multiple web sites maintained by the same webmaster. When completing a link swap agreement from these, more can be easily created through a safe email reply.

   #4.2 It is safe to buy directory listings. I use lists found at the top of organic listings using keyword "directory." Two I like: Strongest Links and Inbound Link Quality Directories.
   Tip A: When submitting a site, I look for "deeplinks." These additional backlinks should be inexpensive. A deeplink is your site's inside page.
   Tip B: Before working on these, I make sure my Pay Pal balance can cover all the purchases. $400 should do for every 1 hour of work on directories. I am not stingy, some of these backlinks could end up being the best your site ever gets.

   #4.3 Posting to Blogs, through a direct visit, using Thy Big DoFollow List! I minimize posting to sites that use nofollow in: 1) The "a href" attribute of my link (<a href="http://www.domain.com/" rel="nofollow">Text Link</a>), or 2) The <head> <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"> </head>. Based on what I know, acquiring nofollow backlinks does not help any rankings. However, after watching Two Question about Nofollow and Does Google Value Its Own Links at Google Web Central, it is possible to redefine rules of the nofollow, after establishing a special nuance with Matt Cutts, head of SEO issues at Google.

   #4.4 I Post to Forums through a direct visit, after searching for "keyword forum."
   Tip A: Before registering, I like to View > Source of a page to see if other users have signatures with no nofollow.
   Tip B: I post link exchange requests showing other webmasters what inside pages I am offering for backlinks.

   #4.5 The other way to relevant quality blog, forum, and link exchanges: Simply searching an engine for your site's popular keyword phrase. Joining Yahoo and Google groups will create backlink possibilities!

   #4.6 At an engine, searching for: "your site's keyword(s) here" "Allowed HTML tags <a". What will come up is sites that allow postings using standard html <a href > code.

   #4.7 .govs and .edu backlinks: How have other webmasters successfully built these?

   #4.8 Google's Matt Cutts has more backlink building techniques.

Motivational Tip: Building good backlinks accounts for a big chunk of the reasons for high keyword rankings. SEO Reasoning Ratios Why a Website Ranks High for Keywords shows this.

Tip A: It is ok to get as many new links as you can. Matt Cutts: Is there such thing as building too many links?

Tip B: Improving BL quality: I count four new links pointing to a page that is listing my link as one new BL. I count eight new backlinks that point to a page pointing to a page listing my link as one new BL. This only works when avoiding search engine crosslinking penalties. One technique: Posting and making friends at forums will create hyperlinks pointing to your profile page that is listing your link.

Tip C: 30% to most of a site's BLs should point to its inside (non-home on www) pages.

Tip D: Most inside pages at the same site should point to each other. In other words, it is a must that your inside pages contain hyperlinks to one another. A link to one or two of your inside pages can be placed on your home page and on half its inside pages within the main content.
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#5. Updating content on your main page frequently is important for organic rankings. For less important sites, I would update them whenever (naturally). Examples: MyStrongestSite.com, My2ndStrongest.com, My3rdStrongest.com each get an update every 3 days or sooner. My4thBest.com and My5thBest.com each get an update every 7 days or sooner. My6thBest.com gets an update every 21 days. MyLowTrafficSites.com get updates when I notice they contain an outgoing link not working.

Tip A: Updating your description meta tags to reflect page content is good to do. Improving something about the first 200 words in the main body should be habitual. Adding one new sentence to the main content is possible. Deleting, adding or changing one url is good. Updating an additional web page, at the same site, will also help organic rankings. Changing a title meta tag every 6 to 24 months is good.

Tip B: The Links menu in IE browser can be used to organize due updates. Bookmarks can be renamed, using a right click. I use abbreviated words and the due date of each site's next update. I then work in an orderly fashion.

Tip C: The person worthy for the job of updating a site is the one who has potential or already works on creative writing in the site's theme. All other necessary job functions like using your web site's hosting software and learning HTML should be easy.

Yet I will put them in charge of the duties of the temple and all the work that is to be done in it. - Ezekiel 44:14

Motivational Tip: Updating accounts for a big chunk of the reasons for high keyword rankings: Reasoning Ratios Why a Website Ranks High for Keywords shows this. If you maintain a 3+ year old site with 1000+ semi-unique backlinks, then more frequent updates could increase organic traffic within ten days. [Thy Do It Yourself lists more "If you maintain, then within" scenarios, under Google Algorithm Boost Guesstimations.]
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SEO Checklist
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#6. Creating additional web sites [Thy Affordable Hosting] will give you the opportunity to see if you can create another high organic hitter with SEO. Also, creating Free hosting pages and blogs at other (non-owned) urls will allow for safe crosslinking.

Tip A: I recommend owning around 10 sites hosted on 3+ different servers. Any additional sites should be free. If you are the only webmaster, I would not maintain more than 15 sites. A site must be updated (attended to) to be of high SE quality. Also, I would focus on acquiring three-plus BLs a week per high engine hitter first. I know this BL focus works from my visitor stats at Google Analytics.

Tip B: The best way to go about maintaining more than 15 sites is to hire an extra webmaster(s). I maintain over 40 sites, 19 I bought and the others I picked up for free. However, it is too much work for one webmaster. The free sites I maintain are hosted at other (non-owned) urls. They include blogs, groups, and subdomains. I picked these free sites up after determining they can get high organic rankings with SEO work. Non-owned sites are likely lower quality when the index page is not branching-out to your page.

Tip C: Before signing up for a free webpage, I would check other pages at the domain to see if they come with built-in pop-up ads. Then, I would avoid these. These pop-ups are found by searching for the domain (tripod.com) at an engine, then visting the results (free addresses in SERPs).

Tip D: Crosslinking with your owned sites at the same hosting company is risky. I like to avoid a big engine algorithm penalty that could occur when crosslinked sites are turned off and on at the same time.
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#7. This web page, Thy I Statements, Work Priorities, Google Webmasters and Yahoo! Search Indexing should be top-priority reading. Also, at YouTube, any videos on SEO can be helpful. When you find a new idea, could you let me know about it? I can talk, through email.
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#8. Links not working should be minimized because no one likes to be sent to a url not found! I manually run through all my outbound links and copy paste to notepad the bad ones. After a few days, I remove those sites that are not working for a 2nd time.
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#9. The use of pop-ups must be minimized. I notice that sometimes using target="_blank" in the <a href > code will instruct the internet browser to treat it as a pop-up.
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#10. Only the smallest banners, in byte size, should be placed on web pages. This helps speed up a site's load time.

Tip: Google's free Picasa can be used to edit images. Features good for SEO: Cropping, then minimizing byte size under File > Export Picture to Folder > "Resize to." Images cannot be resized in height or width (no stretching or shrinking) in Picasa, keeping all pics' high quality.
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#11. The bytes (equal to keyboard characters) of html write-up should be minimized. This helps maintain fast loading pages. Traffic Stats > Average Load Time shows the % of sites that are slower. Also, at Google.com, after clicking View Source, there are few to no carriage-returns or unused spaces.
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#12. Outbound links that ended a link exchange, should be removed whenever there is time. Outbounds with a PR 0 Home Page should be first-priority. I keep a list of sites to avoid for those who end link swap agreements. I then refer to this database before spending time creating another link exchange.

Tip: There is a possible engine algorithm penalty when a site has too many (over 50) outbounds on pages. Also, I would only remove outbounds after the other webmaster removes your backlink.
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#13. The amount of images, on every web page, should be minimized, to keep a site fast.

Tip A: All images should be named using a relevant keyword(s). Any image names (web address locations) that are being used on other websites should be kept on your server (not be deleted). This is done by copying the image, then creating a different name for the duplicate. After doing this, there will be two of the same images in your hosting server but with different addresses (names).

Tip B: All-to-most of a site's images must be saved into its own hosting server. This will help keep your site's speed contingent on one server.
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#14. Your site's hosting server should be fast. This is for user friendliness.
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#15. Title meta tags, on all web pages, must contain minimal amount of hyphens, commas and stop words (a, if, the, then, and, an, to, etc). Description meta tags, on all quality pages, must reflect the content and contain minimal amount of the @ symbol.
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#16. Good <h1>, <h2> and bold tags are a must.
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#17. To optimize a site's speed, Google recommends using Mozilla Firefox Web Browser & Firebug Add On.
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#18. Your sites' hosting services should be on automatic renew. If you own a bunch of sites, your big renew charge must clear your available credit card (or other method of payment) amount. Also, it is important to update your credit card, right before it expires.
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#19. Logging SEO work can help to guesstimate the causes of a site's higher rankings. Why not go out on a limb and do something on this checklist that you have not done?
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#20. Maintaining link swap and other Email Scripts in notepad helps streamline work. I would only send emails that are professional. Adding your name and contact info at the end of these looks good.
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#21. An author meta tag will increase the odds of coming up in a search for your name. Example: Use <meta name="Author" content="yournamehere"> between the <head> </head> tags. This tag could give a site higher engine algorithm score because its author's name is in the public eye, a condition of trustworthiness cultivation.
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This SEO Checklist can be highly effective, when used with Thy I Statements & Work Priorities.