I was helping out with a bit of advice today on an SEO network for Hoteliers where the sales manager responsible for their own SEM and SEO acvtivities was looking for a few pointers….. describing himself as an SEO Virgin.

Many SEO “virgin’s” don’t know some of the first steps to having the search engines take you seriously.

So Class101 for aspiring SEO practitioners is …. make sure the site is listed in the DMOZ.org index - Google and all the main search companies pull data from the DMOZ. If you are not listed, find the category which your competitors are listed in, and then click the submit site link.

The other place to ensure you are listed is the Aboutus.org which is gaining favour with lots of institutions. A simple way to add your site to these is by going to the Whois database and look for the Aboutus link - it instantly pulls info from your site once you click on it and then allows you to register and add as much data as you like:
http://whois.domaintools.com enter your domain here and then look for the Aboutus link on the left.

I do highly recommend the above book by the way! The link of the image gives more info on the book within Amazon’s website…It is not written only for those folk building new websites, it is an ideal reference to keep dipping back into and following tips to keep ontop of your site’s search position (aka SERPs).