Last year, I joined forces with JoomlaBlogger’s Kristoffer Sandven to give you 5 quick tactics to jump-start your Joomla! website’s SEO. This year I want to share with you 5 great and super-easy to read SEO guides that will enable you to gain a better understanding of what SEO really means and how you can use it to get great traffic to your site for free. So, without further ado, here goes...
I. Search Engine Land’s Periodic Table of SEO ranking factors (infographic).
- This is the mother of all SEO infographics. It offers a condensed view of everything that you need to address when optimizing your website for SEO: http://searchengineland.com/seotable
II. The Periodic Table’s companion Guide to SEO
- The periodic table is great, but everyone agrees that it needs to be accompanied by a clearly-written outline that can give you the context you need to understand how to put this guide to work. So, here is the table’s companion Guide to SEO which will not disappoint: http://searchengineland.com/guide/seo
III. The Web developer’s SEO cheatsheet (infographic).
- This one is by far my most favorite resource. I have been using it for quite a while now and it has helped me drive great results for my SEO campaigns, without fail. Keep in mind though – it is a bit dated and is due to be updated by SEOMoz any moment now.
- Even though a minor portion of its elements have been changed by Google’s latest algorithms, the Developer Cheat Sheet is still a great resource that will help you gain a leg on the competition when you do your own SEO and when you talk to your website customers:
http://static.seomoz.org/user_files/SEO_Web_Developer_Cheat_Sheet.pd
IV. SEOMoz’s checklist for the small business/SEO newbie.
- A great step-by-step guide outlining exactly how to start, and implement, your SEO program
- You can actually print it so that you can put check marks against every step you have completed to track your progress. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-beginners-checklist-for-small-business-seo
V. And last, but not least, the WordTracker’s 8-part keyword basics series.
- This guide offers a great overview of why selecting the right keywords is of paramount importance for your SEO efforts. It is written in an easy to read and understand language and unveils important advice regarding finding the keywords that are most relevant to your business and that you have great likelihood to rank for. It also explains how to include these keywords on your pages, as well as how to research competitors in order to gain insight into their keyword tactics. This invaluable free series will give you the essence of what SEO is all about (SEO begins with keywords!) and will enable you to understand the hardest part about SEO – why you need to invest in keyword research, how to do it, and how to benefit from it. I highly recommend it: http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/keyword-basics-part-1-how-search-engines-work
Hoping that the above resources are useful, drop me a note ane let me know if you have any questions or recommendations.