If you build it, they won't come. Below is over 10 years worth of information and links I have collected on SEO that has really helped me with various clients and projects. Bookmark this page if it helped you.
Add Facebook, Google + and Twitter Easily
Social signals are a huge part of SEO now. Here are links to the important buttons to use.
Web Developers SEO Cheat Sheet
The title of the link says it all. This is an excellent tool for any
web developer looking to understand the code behind SEO.
Search
Engine Guidelines
Take some of the guessing out of what you should and should not
be doing in regards to search engine optimization on your website.
Header Tags
In Googles words "One way Google's algorithms determine the context of
content on a page is by looking at the page's headings. The way
semantic markup is used throughout a site, including h1, h2, and h3
tags, helps us to understand the priorities of a site's content. One
should not fret, though, about every single H tag. Using common sense
is the way to go." I interpret common sense as meaning, use em when you
need em but dont use when it does not make sense for the page.
Google Says Link "In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by
increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages."
For me this is one the most relevent sentences Google has out there.
Quite simple; Get links!
How many links does Google allow? | Google Says "So how might Google treat pages with well over a hundred links? If you end up with hundreds of links on a page, Google might choose not to follow or to index all those links. At any rate, you're dividing the PageRank of that page between hundreds of links, so each link is only going to pass along a minuscule amount of PageRank anyway."
(link:www.example.org) - Will list a selection of the web pages that
have links pointing to the Example.org home page.
(SearchTerm inurl:www.example.org) - Searches for the search term
within a domain you specify.
(site:www.example.org) - Lists a sampling of example.org pages
(site:example.org inurl:example.org)
(site:example.org inurl:/path/somedirectory/) - Limited to one domain
and a directory within that domain
(site:example.org inurl:?this=that&car=sedan)
(site:google.com filetype:html) - Search for a specific filetype within
a site
Hidden Text / Content
Googles perception of hidden content is really based around the
websites "intent" and "accessibility." It's ok to show and hide content
if you are doing it for the right reasons ie. not trying to trick
Google.
Google Report Card
Google's SEO Report Card is an effort to provide Google's product teams
with ideas on how they can improve their products' pages using simple
and accepted optimizations. These optimizations are intended to not
only help search engines understand the content of our pages better,
but also to improve our users' experience when visiting our sites.
Google - Technology
Here is a glimpse of some key technologies and technical principles
behind Googles products.
Google Sitemap
Let Google know about your new content or updates just as soon as they
happen. Do not build a webpage without it. Yahoo and MSN have adopted
this as well.
» Google Sitemap Generators - A list from Google of
3rd party sitemap creation tools
» Word Press Add on for Sitemap
» Sitemap Tool - A free sitemap creation tool.
Best Place To Put Ads
Take it from Google, they know better than most anyone else in terms of
the best place to put advertising on a webpage. They also go into the
best place to put advertising on a forum.
Google Website Optimizer
A real game changer in my opinion in terms of radically improving the
conversions for a sale page. I've used it with great results. It more
than works.
The best placement of Ads on a webpage:
The best placement of Ads on a forum:
Trellian Keyword Discovery
KeywordDiscovery compiles keyword search statistics from over 180
search engines world wide, to create the most powerful Keyword Research
tool.
Aaron Wall Videos
Some very educational videos on search engine optimization by one of
the internets foremost leaders, Aaron Wall. Great way to get started on
learning how SEO works.
301 Redirects
Learn more about 301 redirects and how to do it the right way as well
as impacts on SEO.
25 Online Tools for Freelance
Marketers
Effective marketing doesn’t happen by accident. Targeting the right
customers and crafting a message that’s not only eye-catching but also
creates sales is both an art and a science. Checkout this great list of
effective tools.
Hittail
HitTail is the only product that reveals in real time which keywords
people use to find your website. When acted on, they can increase the
natural search traffic to your website.
Seomoz
Ranking Factors
An excellent resource on all the many factors that go into a web pages
rankings. Many of the industries top experts weigh in here to give you
some great pespectives. A must read for anyone looking to do search
engine optimization on their website.
Search Engine Forums
Great place to learn, ask questions, and get insight into all sorts of
stuff! Some even rumor Google operatives hang out there.
Neat-O-Backlink Tool
A cool free tool that lets you check the number of backlinks to your
website as well as the anchor text used.
Rich Snippets
"With rich snippets, webmasters with sites containing structured content—such as review sites or business listings—can label their content to make it clear that each labeled piece of text represents a certain type of data."
Schema.org - Google Schema.org FAQ
"Schema.org is a collaboration by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! to improve the web by creating a structured data markup schema supported by major search engines. On-page markup helps search engines understand the information on webpages and provide richer results. A shared markup vocabulary makes it easier for webmasters to decide on a markup schema and get maximum benefit for their efforts."
Additional information - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/schemaorg-a-new-approach-to-structured-data-for-seo
Some great quotes:
"Essentially, your user engagement metrics must validate your rankings." - link
"Time + Trust = High Quality Indications for relevance" - link
"You can't cry about your rankings when you didn't deserve them in the first place, and honestly you never deserve rankings. You earn rankings, and often lose them. It's part of the love, joy, and pain that is SEO." - link
Some important ranking factors:
After doing this since 1995 here are some of my opinions on important ranking factors.
Content is King - Be the absolute best for your topic and the rest will follow. This has been true from day 1 that Google existed.
Time on site
Multiple Page views
Bounce Rate
Search Engine Directories To Submit To
* Ranked by order
Seocompany.ca
A great list of search engine directories for you to consider
submitting your website to.
Strong Links
Another list of search engine directories for you to consider
submitting your website to.
Local Search:
Local listings are a great way for any new business to get established
for local search within the major search engines. This should be a
requirement for any business trying to attract local business. My
recommendation is that you fill out as much info as possibly allowed
and check in on the listing frequently. Utitlize any statistics and or
user metrics local provides you to improve your interaction with
visitors. If anything changes within your business such as new
offerings update your local listings immediately. The best part is that
local listings are totally free (for now at least)!