What's Your New Year reSEOlution: Top Ten reSEOlutions for 2010

You’ve tried several years before but this time, come January 1, 2010 your New Year reSEOlution is to be more SEOrganized, pay more attention to the detail, save on SEM spending and track those milestones once and for all. You’ve been ready since January 2007 but are so busy that you get off track and end up putting it back in the rainy-day pile for next quarter. Hundreds of rainy days later and you have no idea what your SEO program is let alone the basic concept of relevant keywording and linkbuilding. There are probably hundreds to thousands of FREE SEO tips you can incorporate into your internet marketing program. I’ve listed below a top ten list to help jump-start your 2010 New Year reSEOlution. Along the way, I’ve included a few helpful URLs that will provide you with many more SEO tips to choose from.

1. Review your SEO stats for the past 3 years, if possible, and analyze and incorporate SEO strategies and plans accordingly

2. Create a spreadsheet of your SEO program and include timelines, milestones and all the other relevant items. Make sure you update and review this sheet on a daily to weekly basis and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly; Don’t forget to leave plenty of space to add on to as you move down this list

3. Review meta tag keywords and make sure a comma is after each keyword and that the max is no more than 250 characters (including spaces); This is a common error that is overlooked, however, this can make or break you organic positioning

4. Incorporate keywords in your anchor text; this can take a very long time to complete depending on how many links are on your web site. You may want to segment and delegate this to several on your team and schedule updates on a regular basis

5. Update meta tag descriptions regularly, and make sure the characters do not exceed 200 (including spaces); Meta tag description is the snippet that is included with your organic search listing. The more creative and appealing your copy with relevant keywords that match your web site the better chances you have of being indexed more prominently

6. Review title tags and make sure you use 3 to 4 relevant keywords, repeating them each at least 2X but no more than 3X; Characters should not exceed 150 (including spaces) For example, a jewelry site might have the following title: "AnnHarringtonJewelry.com, discount diamond rings, diamond jewelry, diamond engagement rings, antique jewelry, modern jewelry" – note the web site URL address is 1st, then followed by the use of keywords "diamond" used 3X, "rings" used 2X, and "jewelry" used 3X, all relevant to this the web site; All following the SEO industry standard as mentioned in this section (see 1st sentence).

7. Maximize the social networks, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. For ideas on how, visit these 2 resourceful sites that have plenty of suggestions - searchengineland.com and seomoz.org

8. If you have many images, make sure you are incorporating image tags into your code otherwise you risk spiders and crawlers ignoring your site

9. Optimize your site map; I’m amazed at how many web sites are not optimizing their site maps; Yes you’ve had a site map since the web site was first created but is it optimized to include relevant keyword descriptions, etc?

10. Submit your site to reputable search engines such as Yahoo, DMOZ, Aviva, Business.com, etc.

Remember your 2010 new year reSEOlution program is a WIP (work in progress) and the more regularly you review, update and add to your existing SEO program, the more impact your SEO will have to your bottom line.

Wishing you and yours a healthy and prosperous 2010!

written by Gloria Buono Daly (c) 2009