How to build a niche site - episode 2: SEO

Welcome to part two in my series on "how to build a niche site". In episode one we talked about the best ways to build content for your niche site. In this episode I'll be explaining my approach to SEO'ing my site ww2db.com

Part 2: SEO

One of the reasons why ww2db's Battle of Iwo Jima article is popular is that it is currently #4 on Google when searching for the phrase "Battle of Iwo Jima" (and it is done without over-saturating that article with keywords!). Naturally, a little search engine optimization, or "SEO", did not hurt.

The term SEO carries such a mystique; some people even pay top dollar for consultants to tweak their sites.
Yes, these professionals really can do a lot for you, but there are basic things every website owner should do, niche or not, to help you get the most out of search engines. First, make sure you have good meta tags in the header section of the site's HTML code. Not all search engines use it, but some do. Again, just like content, don't overload with keywords. Keep the information in there concise and to the point.Having hundreds of keywords in there probably would probably hurt you in the end, actually.

Titles
Then, take a look at the title of various pages in your site. If you take a look around ww2db, you will notice that the article name is being shown as the title on the top bar of your browser. This is also what will appear on search engine results. Make this title descriptive, particularly in the first 10 words, so that it will draw users' attention.

HTML tweaks
In terms of HTML, there are small tweaks that helps a little, too. For example, the "World War II Database" site name is enclosed in H2 html tag, and same goes for all ww2db article titles. This gives that little push at search engine to let them know what the article's main topic is.

Alt text for images
Last but not least, I also made sure most, if not all, images have ALT parameters. This is one of those places that you can build up your keyword density without decreasing the quality of your content. The result? At the time of this writing, search engines collectively bring more than half of ww2db's visitors. Search engine traffic represent the bulk of new visitors, and each one of them represent an opportunity for me to recruit a repeating visitor.

Steve's note - read up on accessibility before deciding on a path to take with alt-text. Alt text is a great way to add in keywords but for accessibility you should always represent the image as best you can.

I hope this brief look into SEO was useful for a few people, tune in tomorrow for my third episode in this series where I'll be talking about link-building.

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