SEO basics for a designer?

[Michael]

Hello!

I've been learning web design (not development) for the past 2 years in my spare time as a hobby. I know how to design the graphics, design a layout, put it all into code so that It looks nice and integrate that design into a wordpress theme - should the need arise. However, I want to start building websites as a source of income on the side and I have to admit that i do not know anything about SEO. I would feel like a cheap car sales-man if I didn't provide at least the very basics of SEO for a customer, so I feel that that is something that I should know how to provide (even if it is very basic). I know how to declare my document as XHTML, which is about it. I know virtually nothing of metadata tags, google localization (or whatever it may be called) or how to get my site listed on search engines period.

If you can direct me to the very basics, or enough to not rip off my clients when it comes to my services, I would be most appreciative.

Thank you for reading my question! And Thank you in advanced for your answers!

[Doodled]

Go through this step by step guide:
http://howtoseo.link2light.com/how-to-se...ebsite.php

It will give you the bare bones of what you need to know when you are building a website with SEO in mind.

Really SEO is so fundamental at the moment that it needs to be integrated into the design rather than left as a separate process afterwards so if you are going to progress as a web designer you have to get your head around Search Engine Optimisation asap.

All too often I take work off web designers because they say "SEO isn't my role" and I end up both building the site and doing the optimisation so be warned ;-)

[Abbe]

If you are using wordpress then you can use a very useful plugin called All In One SEO. You can get a handful of knowledge after reading its tutorial

[Fiona]

SEO is much easier than web designing so it won't take a lot of sweat to master it. You can find many tutorials on the web. But I will particularly tell of the important of on-page SEO.

[Zachery]

You can do SEO by yourself if you have few knowledge otherwise you can hire freelancer or SEO provider. You need more and more backlink to do good SEO for a website. You need to make quality do-follow backlink. Backlink may come form various ways.You can get them by forum posting. You need to create anchor text. You can make social bookmarking. You can get them from article marketing which is posting article on article sites.

[Garrett]

If you are unfamiliar with the term search engine optimization then you have not had web pages for very long. If you have a web page then the search engines recommend that page when someone is browsing and uses the keywords that are related to your pages. Search engine optimization is the way that will help your website to be optimized for the search engines, so you will be found easier by your clients, and get ranked higher for your profitable keywords.