In this edition of OK to Make Money Online, let us take a look at Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO seems to be the hotbed of conversation on the net these days. It is really simple and yet seems to have such a mystique about it. Why? It is really not an art.

Most web sites do not focus on keywords or keyword optimization. The website authors do not do the proper keyword research and so the pages and the site are not keyword optimized. Then when Google spiders the site what does it find? A whole bunch of keywords but very little uniformity, and if by accident there is some keyword uniformity, what is the keyword? Worse yet the keyword or long tail keywords don’t even pertain to the main subject of the site.

Take most sites: they are all over the place with the subject matter. One article may be about shoes, another about clothes and on the same site cooking utensils. So how does Google rate the site and what ads does it display? We have to help Google out here and in response, they will rate your page higher in page ranking.

We need to make your site single purpose. So let’s say you have a site that covers many categories or subjects. We need to break it up into niches, with each niche having a single subject or keyword. Then Google will be able to correctly categorize your site by keyword. So: one subject per niche.

With a list of topics or categories in hand, we need to create a website of each. The hard part is going to be the URL name. This is the one area where the name is important. So how do we determine the best name? By using our keywords. But wait you don’t know what a good keyword for your subject or category would be? OK, let’s ask the expert: Google. You can use the tool Google uses to sell ad space under Adwords, Keyword Tool. With this tool you can input your subject, category and Google will return a list of the searches that people have entered and the keywords they used.

After you have completed your research and have determined the best keyword, it is time to find a URL that will contain your new keyword. Go to Blogger and see what can find. When you find a URL with your keyword then start using your keyword on every page and in every article, including the Privacy Page and the About Page. When you have completed your first website, go on to the next and do the same till you have covered all your categories or keywords.

Take any articles that were already on your old site and rewrite them using the appropriate keyword for the article. Make sure you use your keyword or phrase in the title, opening paragraph, body and closing paragraph. Copy that article to the new website and publish it.

If you have pictures or graphics on a page, make sure you work your keyword into the picture information area of the HTML code. This will assure the spider that the picture relates to the article or keyword topic. However, be true to your readers. Some of the black hats will put up any old picture so they can imbed the keyword text. Remember, at some point you want traffic, and you want your readers back. Don’t given them trash; give then something they want to come back for.

Some people think this is keyword stuffing, but it’s not if you keep your keywords down in the article to 1-2 percent of your word count.

Review of the rules: make sure your site sticks to one topic, make sure you research your keyword or long tail keyword, and use your keywords in every article and page on your site to make money online. Then as always, get as many backlinks to your site as you can (i.e. traffic).

Michael