As part of my plan in setting re-setting up this blog, i would like to put up a series of posts about SEO. i’ll share my thoughts, techniques, as well as real life experience that i’ve gained in the past few years working in the related industry.

In case you’re curious, yes, i’ve spent money (or leveraging Ah Yap’s resources) in buying those SEO guru’s secrets (mostly are useless though…); i’ve been reading for long hours until my eyes hurt so much; and yes, i do have first hand experience in ranking high, and dropping hard from the top position in search engines. i dont claim myself as guru (I AM NOT!) but SEO is still one of the major parts in my internet business and i live with it for years.

My intention of doing this is simple (since these stuffs are valuable, and commonly known as secrets) – to create values for this blog. i’ve been throwing rubbish (crap contents, duplicated stuffs) all around the Internet and i think its time for me now to create something valuable for good karma.

So, here it goes.

SEO stands for search engine optimization.

It simply means the process of improving a site ranking in search engines. as there are multiple ways to get into rome, there are multiple ways to make positive return on SEO works – in general, SEO-er are normally categorized in black hat, white hat, and the majorities grey hat. common sense, black hat refers to those who use unethical ways (so-call); white hat refers to those who use the legal way (again, so-call); and grey hat refers to those who stand in the middle of black and white.

To be frank, i don’t give a shit on what’s wearing on my head, all i know is i need my website to rank well, and rank well long on the search engine.

SEO can be a small or huge part in your internet marketing campaign. but without doubts, it is a part that must be in your internet marketing plan if you wish to maximize your website’s revenues.

Works involved

I believe SEO works are different from webmaster to webmaster (or SEOer) – different work flow, different techniques, different believe, and of course, with different target in the mind. For myself, here’s are the core work involved with SEO:

1. Keywords research
2. Competition analysis
3. Basic on page SEO
4. Overall site structure design
5. Link popularity
6. Website basic maintenance (with doubts)

I’ll go into these works one by one on the coming series, hopefully i can have you onboard as i go thru them.

Some basic terms

To the experienced, this section is crap – you don’t need it at all; for newcomers, some brief explanation for the basic glossary are necessary to keep you away from being lost. these are the regular terms that most probably i’ll use.

• SE abbreviation of search engine
• SEO abbreviation for search engine opimization
• SERP abbreviation for seaarch engine result page
• Bots, SE bots, spiders SE programs, used to ‘harvest’ content into SE database
• FFA free for all – webpages that allow anyone to add links
• On page/on site things in your site, within your control
• Off page/off site things outside of your website, partly controlled by you
• Outbound links links at your website pointing to other websites
• Inbound links links pointing from other’s websites to yours
• Deep linking inbound links that point to your webpages other than homepage

Hmmm, what else are there… i am not sure. i might left out some, in case you are not sure about the terms, i suggest you to refer here: Webmaster World Glossary. the list is more complete, edited by professionals, and are better organized.

Recommended reading

Okay, you want to read more. let’s see what can i suggest.

Uhhmm, most will tell you to read Matt Cutt. for google, try this one: Google Search News on webmasterworld – lots of gold inside, but as well lots of noise and silly rant. also, i enjoy Jill’s writing a lot, you can get them here at High Rankings. for the starter, SEO in wikipedia should be a good quickie. and of course, SEO Book is among one of the must read.

Wrapping things up
As the starting post of the series, there are not much of how-to and direct guidelines pointed in this post. but at least we are making a start here, aren’t we? for beginners, understanding some basic terms would be meaningful. so, are we getting one (small)step closer to the top ranking? i hope so!

Chill up and welcome aboard!
I look forward to have a pleasant flight with you in the SEO world.

Moving on in this SEO 101 series…

• SEO101: Keyword Research
• SEO 101: Competition & Market Analysis