Peter Kent - SEO For Dummies

SEO For Dummies, 7th Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019918161

ISBN 978-1-119-57957-1 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-57959-5 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-119-57960-1 (epub)

1. Chapter 4
2. Chapter 14
3. Chapter 15
4. Chapter 18

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 22
22. Chapter 23
23. Chapter 27

Welcome to SEO For Dummies, 7th Edition. What on earth would you want this book for? Cant you just build a website and let your web designer get the site into the search engines? All web designers and web design firms say they can do that for you, after all. Or cant you simply pay someone to do a little SEO work for you? SEO firms and consultants are as common as beer vendors at a baseball game. If you have a website and youre not getting emails from SEO companies, youre in a tiny minority!

Well, unfortunately, its not that simple. (Okay, fortunately for me, because if it were simple, Wiley wouldnt pay me to write this book.) The fact is that search engine optimization is a little complicated. Not brain surgery complicated, but not as easy as Sure, well do the SEO when we build your site. (No, you cant trust your web developer to do this for you; they all offer the service, but very few understand SEO! In fact, web designers and developers hate it and only offer the service because all the competition claims to provide it.)

The vast majority of websites dont have a chance in the search engines. Why? Because of simple mistakes. Because they trust firms that shouldnt be trusted. Because the people creating the sites dont have a clue what they should do to make the site easy for search engines to work with. Because they dont understand the role of links pointing to their site, and because theyve never thought about keywords. Because, because, because. This book helps you deal with those because and gets you not just one, but dozens, of steps ahead of the average website Joe.

This book demystifies the world of search engines. You find out what you need to do to give your site the best possible chance to rank well in the search engines.

In this book, I show you how to

• Make sure that youre using the right keywords in your web pages.
• Create pages that search engines can read and will index the way you want them to.
• Avoid techniques that search engines hate things that can get your website penalized (knocked down low in search engine rankings).
• Build pages that give your site greater visibility in search engines.
• Get search engines and directories to include your site in their indexes and lists.
• Turn up the search engines Local search results (you know, on the little map that often appears).
• Get into the product and shopping indexes.
• Encourage other websites to link to yours.
• Make the most of social networking and video.
• Keep track of how your site is doing.
• And plenty more!

I dont want to assume anything, but I have to believe that if youre reading this book, you already know a few things about the Internet and search engines. I presume that you

• Have access to a computer that has access to the Internet.
• Know how to use a web browser to get around the Internet.
• Know how to carry out searches at the webs major search engines, such as Google and Yahoo!

Of course, for a book like this, I have to assume a little. This is a book about how to get your website to rank well in the search engines. I have to assume that you know how to create and work with a site or at least know someone who can create and work with a site. In particular, you (or the other person) must know how to