In this tutorial, my aim is to show you how to SEO a website from scratch, with step-by-step guide that you can follow.

Before I begin, I want to say, “forget about how to SEO a website”. You never SEO a website. You SEO a web page. When every web page on your website is optimized for search engine, the website is considered optimized.

I’m not trying to play around with words. It’s important that you understand the difference.

Now let’s move on to the step by step guide….

Assuming you have a new website or blog, with a homepage and a couple of other content pages. Here’re what you need to do to SEO your website or blog:

1) Set your target

Remember this: You will never know where to shoot if you do not have a target.

In SEO, your target is your keyword phrase (aka anchor texts). You need to decide what keyword phrase you want to optimize for every web page that you wish to rank in the search engine.

Every web page, including the homepage, should be optimized for one (or at most three) keyword phrase. Be focused.

If you want to target more keyword phrases, you should add more web pages to your website, instead of trying to make one web page optimized for different keywords.

2) Get the fundamentals right

Check and make sure that the followings are correctly done for every web page:

- Keyword phrase found in title tag

- Keyword phrase found in description meta tag

- Keyword phrase found in the url (if possible)

- Keyword phrase found within the content

Read Free SEO Tutorial (Part 1) – The Fundamentals for details.

3) Build backlinks to the homepage

The strategies to build backlinks to the homepage is different from the strategies to build backlinks to the internal pages because of 2 reasons:

1. Some link building methods can only be used to build backlinks to the homepage. For example:

- Submitting your website to link directories

- 3 way link

2. Some link building methods are too tedious and it’s almost impossible for you to do them for all your web pages. For example:

- Press release

- Many other methods explained in SEO Link Building – Free SEO Tutorial (Part 3)

Regardless of how tough or how tedious the method is, do all of them for your homepage. You need to give your website homepage a backlink boost in order to build up your website authority as explained in Free SEO Tutorial (Part 1) – The Fundamentals.

4) Build backlinks to the internal web pages.

It’s almost impossible to build backlinks for every internal web page, unless you run a popular site with lots of people pinging and digging your pages.

So let’s be realistic.

Personally I will start with 5 internal pages and build backlinks to them.

I prefer to build backlinks to internal pages via just one method – article marketing. (I’m not too keen on other spammy methods).

Choose 5 internal pages, prepare 5 new articles, submit them to hundreds of article directories and build backlinks to these 5 internal pages. (Note: You should have done this for your homepage in Step 3. If not, make sure that you do it for your homepage too.)

If you have an account with ArticleMarketer, LinkVana and/or ezArticleLink (coming soon), life will be a lot easier.

Whenever time allows, find 5 other internal pages and repeat the process.

5) Be patient and spread your eggs

Search engines trust aged sites. Unless you buy an aged domain, there is nothing you can do about the age of your domain. All you can do is Step 1 to 4 and then….. wait, trusting that things will happen eventually. Like it or not, waiting is one of the most important process in SEO, that’s why it’s our Step 5!

In the mean time, if you are building niche content websites, continue to build more sites and rinse and repeat Step 1 – 4. Some websites will turn out to be winners while some may just survive. If you only plan to have one website and  intend to live and die with it, then while waiting, you should establish other ways to get traffic. The whole idea is to spread your eggs.

Related posts:

1. Free SEO Tutorial (Part 1) – The Fundamentals
2. SEO Case Study – Free SEO Tutorial (Part 6)
3. Common SEO Myths – Free SEO Tutorial (Part 5)
4. SEO Link Building – Free SEO Tutorial (Part 3)
5. The Power Of SEO Backlinks – A Classic Example
6. Common SEO Mistakes – Free SEO Tutorial (Part 2)
7. SEO Tutorial
8. SEO Article – SEO Optimize Your Website. Free SEO / Search Engine Optimization Lessons / Video. Need Help?
9. Step-By-Step, Do-It-Yourself, SEO Guide
10. Basic SEO Guide for Ecommerce Websites