Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) can be confusing for even the most knowledgeable bloggers and web designers. Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of SEO taken from their article on SEO:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site.

If you’re confused about what SEO is and what it means for your site, don’t worry. A quick Google search will produce numerous articles that can help you understand SEO (I recommend starting with Wikipedia’s overview of SEO first).

But here’s the good news! You don’t really have to understand SEO to start improving your web site or blog (although understanding it certainly helps). Free SEO tools like Website Grader can help you understand where changes to your site are needed to help improve your site’s SEO.

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TYsTIPS.com has been up for less than a week and I really haven’t done a whole lot to “optimize” my site. Instead I’ve been concentrating on writing good content - since good content is ultimately the largest factor in any successful website. After writing 8-10 good posts I felt it was time to submit my site to Google and other search engines (I didn’t want to submit my site early before I had at least a handful of helpful articles - otherwise I might give first-time readers a poor first impression). But before I submitted my site, I needed to make sure it was optimized for search engines (at least as much as possible).

I turned to Website Grader to run the first SEO report for TYsTIPS.com. Website Grader generated this report which shows that I have a long way to go before my site is “optimized”. The nice thing about Website Grader’s report it that it breaks everything down into categories and subcategories. This structure provides you with a checklist-type view of all the little things you could be doing to help your site’s SEO ranking.

I knew before I started TYsTIPS.com that things like descriptive post titles and alternate text for images were important SEO factors, but I didn’t realize that things like having a domain registered for more than a year were important. Also, Website Grader makes sure you don’t forget to submit your site to free sites like del.icio.us (pronounced “delicious”), Technorati, digg, and DMOZ directory.

Even if you’re an expert on SEO, it’s easy to forget some of the things that you could be doing to help improve your site. Website Grader doesn’t let you forget.

If you haven’t concerned yourself with SEO before, run a Website Grader report on your site to see what you could be doing to improve your search engine ranking. Website Grader is free - you don’t even have to provide your email address if you don’t want to, but if you do they will email a link to your final report for your reference. If you’re already an SEO expert and you’ve been doing everything under the sun to improve your SEO, run a report anyway - you may have forgotten something.

Note: If you’re using WordPress, there is also a plugin called the All In One SEO pack that allows you to tweak your WordPress blog and your posts to help optimize them for search engines. The last time I glanced at the site it said that the plugin is no longer supported, but I’m currently using it which means it works on WordPress 2.5.1 (currently the newest version of WordPress).

I hope this article helps! If anyone has advice on other helpful SEO tools (preferably free), please leave a comment with a link. Thanks!

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