SEO, Where To Start?
The question that I seem to get most often is “How do you get a site found on Google?”
I believe that Google likes it better if they discover your site through their own efforts rather than having you submit to them. This is my own opinion, but I have seen cases where a brand new site that I made and linked to from my own site was spidered right away (2 days) and another that I didn’t link to only submitted took several weeks.
The difference is minor. “How do you get a site found on Google?” is the wrong question. The right question is “How can I get higher rankings on Google?” There may be a small bit of difference as to how your site is treated by how the search engines find you, but there is much more more difference in how you are treated after you’re found. If your site never changes you will be ignored, but if there is something new to see on a regular basis you will be rewarded. It may take a while for you to see the results, but they will be there.
When I am asked where to start with SEO I always say, go right to the horses mouth. Read Google’s and Yahoo’s Quality Guidelines. These are the closest things that you will find to an official rule book. By understanding the positive and negative things the engines look for, you can better understand what your trying to accomplish.
