Website Building: Best practices for SEO and user interaction

[pharcydeabc]

I'm a noobie when it comes to SEO, with my knowledge coming from a few books and blogs.  What are some of the best practices that you use when building a website for SEO and for user interaction?  I've read about the following, but am not sure if they are still relevant.  Also if you have any other suggestions, they would be appreciated.

-Phone # above fold line.

-A call to action above fold line on each page

-An HTML sitemap

-Terms & Conditions (supposed to create credibility in Googles eyes)

-NAP in the footer of each page

-Optimize each page for 1 unique keyword

Are these correct and is there anything else that I'm missing?

[pharcydeabc]

I read in the article that Google takes into consideration, the popularity of your page.  This meaning that your website has a very low bounce rate.

I run a photo booth rental business for weddings and other social events.  One of the features that comes standard with every package is that all of the photos from the event are hosted on an online photo gallery.  We currently give the guests a business card at the event with our website address and on the website they can click a link that takes them to their online gallery, which is hosted on www.smugmug.com.

I wanted to see if there is a way that we could keep the traffic/visitors on our website longer vs. sending them to www.smugmug.com.  I also would like to see if there is a way that they can incorporate social media sharing, such as Google+ to share our website with their friend and family.

It seems that with the online gallery it's a great way to drive traffic to our website and also take advantage of social media platforms.  However, I just can't put finger on how to best go about this.

[pharcydeabc]

Thanks, just spent the last hour and read the entire article. Very easy to read and just enough info to get me started.

[Saijo.George]

This is probably the best place to start : http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

I am not a big fan of HTML sitemaps , I would rather put my effort in to internal cross linking from content and an xml sitemap which is submitted via web masters tools

You might also want to look in to using schema.org to markup your Phone # and address ( if you use them )

If you are using address , you might also want to look in to GeoSitemaps

[bronxpad]

You should also have an XML Sitemap, make sure your site is search engine friendly, meaning careful with javascript and flash.

Make sure you have alt descriptions for images.

Depending on your site you can have more than one keyword optimized per page but don't go over board.

Loading time is important. Less than 5 seconds is important.

Create lots of unique quality content for your site and market them heavily on all social networks.

Create a Privacy Policy

Links in footer are not a good idea.

Hope this helps.