Quick note: As I’m writing these posts, I refer a lot to WordPress as it is my publishing platform of choice. One of the reasons I love WordPress from an SEO standpoint is because of how well I can talk to Google and the other engines. XML sitemaps, ping notifications, ya know just more reasons you should be using it.

I‘m a visual person, so a lot of times when someone takes an idea and paints a pretty picture for me, I catch on instantly. With that being said, try to picture this.

What’s Happening Behind the Scenes is what Matters

Now remember, we’re talking about creating killer content for the search engines, not your readers. Forget about how pretty your site looks for a moment. You know, the fancy Twitter badge, cool logo and tricked out colors that you love so dearly. You’re now a mighty search engine spider or bot and you’ve just landed on one of your most recent posts. Does the content look like you need to be Bear Grylls to survive? Or is it tightly constructed with a nifty road map?

From start to finish the search engine spiders need to crawl through all the content. Without it being laid out in nice Semantic Web Markup, it’s sayonara. It’s adios. It’s later dude. It’s peace out. I think you get the point.

So what Exactly are the Search Engines looking for?

How about Semantic Web Markup for $1,000 please.

What’s Semantic Web Markup? Simply put, it’s what gets your site humming the way Google likes it. What you’re shooting for is to lay out your content to the search engines by using XHTML tags (<title>,<h1>,<h2>,<h3>,<strong> and so on.) When these XHTML tags are used properly in a clear, well-organized manner, you’re golden.

In other words, the search engine spiders are doing something like this as they “spider” your content:

The spiders initially come to your site from the <title> of your post via the search engine results. (having a compelling & keyword targeted <title> tag is a absolute must.) It then hits the headline of the post (which should be an <h1> tag) and ask’s, “is this relevant?” Moving along, it then crawls through the contents of the post looking for sub-headlines, bolded keywords, lexical keywords, keyword density, etc.

TIP: For your sub-headlines be sure to use <h2> tags or <h3> tags. Don’t ever have more then ONE <h1> tag on the same page. This goes back to presenting those XHTML tags in a hierarchical model.

Then of course making its way to the posts ending. It arrives in hopes to see the same keyword or phrase that originally pointed it there. Bolding the keyword again always helps.

TIP: Bolding the keywords you’re focusing on, does in fact tell the engines — “Hey, these keyword(s) or phrase(s) are more important. Be sure to write that down.”

For the most part, if your running a platform such as WordPress, this is pretty much taken care of to an extent. But there are plenty of Free & Premium themes that don’t execute this in the right way. Yes, you most likely paid $80 bucks for a premium theme and they used an <h2> tag for all your post titles instead of an <h1> tag. Oops!

And in case you didn’t know, besides the <title> tag, the <h1> tag is one of the most important tags on the page for the search engines. Go check if your theme is setup this way and make changes if necessary.

In conclusion, here’s a few things to Consider when Publishing New Content

1. Give each post or page a unique title.
2. Give each post or page a unique description.
3. Never have more than ONE <h1> tag on the same page.
4. Bold the keywords or phrases you’re targeting.
5. Use synonyms or lexical keywords to reduce keyword frequency & reinforce the keywords you’re targeting.

• (All in One SEO plugin for WordPress works great for 1 & 2 if you’re using WordPress.)
• Use the the Thesaurus to find synonyms.

I sure hope you’re enjoying the Rockstar SEO Series. Don’t be afraid to chime in or leave feedback on this subject. Remember to Follow JR Farr on Twitter or Subscribe to my RSS Feed so you don’t miss a post!

Previously in the Rockstar SEO Series

• How to Use Social Media to Boost SEO

Follow up to this post:

• Creating Killer Content that your Readers Love

A component of the Rockstar Marketing Series – Custom crafted by JR Farr.

SEO is changing constantly & this my friends, is SEO for today’s world… 2009.

Changes are always taking place within the webmaster guidelines, search engine algorithms, etc. which ultimately shifts our SEO techniques. In fact, a big change happened in 2006 when Social Media started making waves.

Not too long ago, SEO (search engine optimization) use to consist of stuffing keywords into your sites content while completely negelecting keyword density & frequency. Writing quality content & keyword density was an after thought and the internet was already being polluted at such a young age. This same technique is still being practiced today and sadly, the pollution of ridiculous content continues. *Sigh*

Let’s change that.

Right now, most are still trying to adjust to the new web 2.0 phase, so you need to make sure you’re adjusting your SEO strategies as well. That’s exactly what Rockstar SEO will cover.

The Techniques You’ll Learn – On Site SEO & Off Site SEO

When executing proper SEO campaigns or techniques it is actually split up in two different types.

• On-site SEO & Off-site SEO

Nowadays, because of Social Media, I believe a big part of your SEO success is actually what’s happening “off your site” (off-site seo).

Often times, most people think SEO success only comes from what SEO strategies you’re deploying “on your site”. Yes, this is a large part to your success but it’s only some of the ingredients to the SEO stew. A few on-site strategies to consider:

• Well Structured Content
• Semantic Web Markup
• SEO-Friendly URL’s
• Unique & Fresh content

We’ll go into these in future parts of this series

So… What’s Next in the Rockstar SEO Series

This Rockstar SEO Series is for today’s world, 2009. With that being said,  my plan is to talk about best strategies right now and how to leverage the new “Web 2.0″. Here are more topics you’ll be sinking your teeth into. These aren’t quite set in stone… yet, so don’t hold me to them.

• How to use Social Media to Boost SEO.
• Creating Killer Content that Search Engines Love
• Creating Killer Content that your Readers Love
• Never underestimate the <title> of your posts.
• Social Media and How it Effect’s SEO.
• Semantic Web Markup
• Unique & Fresh Content

Check back soon for new posts on these topics as this series gets underway.

How do I hop on this Rockstar SEO Series train?

What do you have to do to get your hands on this series?  Pretty simple really. Just follow me, JR Farr on Twitter or simply subscribe to my RSS Feed and witness some insane content about to be published right in front of your eyeballs. Not too painful right?

What do I get out of this?

I’m providing this quality content because I believe in providing more value then you consume. I’m putting myself out there and sharing my knowledge because this is my passion. You’ll see it through my series and on the chance you’re diggin’ it… I just want you to share it with everyone! Oh and comments are nice too