from searchenginejournal. Everyone loves a good 
tip, right? Here are 
55 quick tips for search  engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking.  Well, not my mother, but you get my point. Most folks with some web  design and beginner 
SEO knowledge should be able to take these to the  bank without any problem.
1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps  or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the  spiders to follow. 
 2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique  content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase. 
 3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of  quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if  there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t  want the link. 
 4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of  the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one  with a higher PR. 
 5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page  of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put  it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household  name, your business name will probably get few searches.
6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content  to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to  your site in the eyes of the search engines.
 7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword  phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to  “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link. 
 8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your  location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help  you get found in local searches.    
 9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your  web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a  retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut  it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images. 
 10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links,  image ALT attributes and even your domain name. 
 11. Check for canonicalization issues – www and non-www domains.  Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other  words, if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then  http://domain.com should redirect to it. 
 12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is  index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your  links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go  to http://www.domain.com/index.html.
 Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and  always link back to your domain. 
 13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t  link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at  all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.   
 14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm,  .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is  concerned.  
 15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s  regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your  site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site. 
 16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog  because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week  with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers. 
 17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single,  good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor  quality links, which can actually hurt you.  
 18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff  your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many  times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count  this against you rather than for you.  
 19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text  around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other  words, surround the link with descriptive text.  
 20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure  you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative  notoriety could affect your own rankings.  
 21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership  information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a  potential spammer.  
 22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag  independently from your blog title. 
 23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.  
 24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link  building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking. 
 25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out.  That will encourage others to link to you. 
 26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content.  There can be a difference between unique content and quality content.  Make sure your content is both. 
 27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that  is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the  fold.  
 28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at  all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and  zines. 
 29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the  links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links. 
 30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search  engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are  looking for sponsors. 
 31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good  content. 
 32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to  optimize the page for several keywords at once.
 33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action.  Make sure your call to action is clear and present.
 34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes  daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.  
 35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link  to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your  content.  
 36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a  blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from  the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket! 
 37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your  posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title  and description.  
 38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place  keyword rich captions with your images. 
 39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can  rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to  keyword text, headings, etc. 
 40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by  the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much  better than relying only on an XML Sitemap. 
 41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search  results: 
 (1) Log out of Google
 (2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar  
 42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are  golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more  weight. 
 43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link  navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages),  but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of  it. 
 44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when  moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new  domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that  users can gradually get used to the new URL.
 45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you  understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the  better you will be able to compete in search. 
 46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the  crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster  Central account. 
 47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just  come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video  sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few. 
 48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The  search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of  the video for the query. 
 49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions  and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those  words. 
 50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central  account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so  allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.  
 51. Add viral components to your web site or blog – reviews, sharing  functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.  
 52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news,  social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.    
 53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache  date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for  “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer  the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is  more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much. 
 54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are  concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the  correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your  preferred page in your sitemaps. 
 55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to  find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a  “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status  shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and  used consistently throughout your site. 
 Richard V. Burckhardt, also known as The Web Optimist,  is an SEO trainer based in Palm Springs, CA with over 10 years  experience in search engine optimization, web development and marketing
Source : 
Search Engine Journal