I had no knowledge of html or Search Engine Optimization strategies, yet in three months I managed to get my site to a Google Page Rank of 4 as well as achieve top positions in the search results for a number of my keywords.



When I first looked at my source code it was like trying to read a foreign language. You can view your source code by opening your site in your browser, right click on the actual web site and from the menu that appears click on View Source. A Notepad window will open showing you the source code that miraculously transforms into your website when viewed in IE (Internet Explorer) or other browser.

This fascinated me and to try and figure out how all this worked I would have my site open in my browser and the source code open in Notepad and select to study, for example, the first paragraph, then I would locate that paragraph in the source code to find out how this was written. Then I would do the same for an image to see how that was written. Gradually I was able to translate the source code into an understandable language.

Obviously to make actual changes to your site, you do need to access your web space in your hosting account and I would strongly advise you to make a backup of your site before you make any changes, as this will allow you to go back to your original site if you make a mistake. Believe me when I say it is extremely easy to make a mistake with html, just leave out an inverted comma or a greater than sign and your site can go haywire or a link will simply just not work!! I would also advise you not to work on your html if you are tired, as it does require concentration.

I spent some time viewing videos that taught me basic html and I then felt I knew enough to be able to start making changes to my site as well as optimizing it for the search engines. As long as you have a backup of your site prior to making any changes, you will not break out in a cold sweat when your site opens up looking like somebody has scrambled the source code! This has happened to me and it only takes a couple of very minor errors to throw the site into total disarray.

The way I was working of course was not the ideal route to take and it was incredibly time consuming, but being a newbie I knew no better but I was determined to learn. This all changed when I came across an incredible e-book entitled Search Engine Optimization Made Easy. I followed this easy step-by-step guide and I put literally everything in the e-book into practice and at the next Google PR update my site was rewarded with a PR4. Optimizing my site is now ongoing as I am continually fine tuning and adding more content to my site to increase my rank in the search engine results and by doing this my knowledge and confidence grow and the errors decrease!

I certainly am no html expert and tend to work with the copy and paste method. I do not use an html editor I work with the html in Notebook. So my next step is to learn how to use an editor as I am sure it will speed things up even further and make it much easier to correct errors.

Being able to optimize your site does not require that you be a SEO expert, I have proven that newbies can do it too! I think a lot of people tend to avoid it due to fear of messing up their site, but as long as you have a backup there is nothing to fear.

There are great advantages to optimizing your web site as you will hugely increase your presence on the internet, attract organic traffic, which is targeted and free, and ultimately generate more web income.