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Ever since I started writing for Rated Hot I've been waffling on about how important search engines are to every Webmaster. I've talked about a whole bunch of different things you should consider when it comes to search engine optimization but I don't think I've ever given absolute beginners any tips.

So it's time to change all that and without further ado here are four search engine optimization tips for beginners. Most of these will apply more to those who build free sites but, if you build galleries, you may find something useful in here too.

Page Title
Let's start right at the top with the page title - that's the text that appears right at the top of the browser screen in the blue bar. Now lots of people in mainstream and adult have the same title at the top of every page but that's a total waste.

Lots of people confuse this title with the title of a book or an article and it can be like that ... but it doesn't have to be. Instead you can call each individual page on a site whatever you like but there are two fundamentals to keep in mind.

One is that you should incorporate your important keywords and keyword phrases into the title. In fact that's all you need to have in your title if you want. The second fundamental is that you should at least try to make the title appealing to surfers while still building in those keywords.

Not many people look at that title way up at the top of the page when your site is open in a browser but the search engines look at it and that title is what they show when they display your page as a result of a search engine query. By having a different title for each page you can use different keywords and keyword phrases and so improve your search engine listings.

Keywords and Keyword Phrases
I have talked about this one before but it is definitely worth mentioning again. Undoubtedly, even though you might be a newbie, you will have heard of keyword density. Basically that's the number of times you include a keyword or keyword phrase in the text on your page.

There was a time when people would stuff their keywords and keyword phrases into the text of a page so that a percentage of the text on a page was those keywords. The percentage required for success varied depending on which 'guru' you talked to and sometimes the text was so stuffed with keywords it didn't make much sense but the important thing was to get those keywords in there.

Well this SEO legend in her own lunchbox is going to tell you to forget about keyword density. If it was ever important, and not just the product of someone's imagination, it certainly doesn't isn't important anymore.

Instead of stuffing the keywords and keyword phrases into your text simply incorporate them naturally and you will have a much better chance of ranking for those keywords than you will if you try to achieve some magical percentage. You'll also retain your sanity for longer too.

Something similar goes for keyword phrases. People search for some very strange search strings and webmasters feel that they have to incorporate those search strings into the text on their page exactly as they are searched for. Trust me on this one, you don't.

You don't have to incorporate weird and twisted keyword phrases into your text at all. Instead look at the words that go to make up those odd keyword phrases and weave those individual words into your text in a perfectly normal way and you'll start to rank for those strange search terms.

Alt tags are important
Don't forget to add keywords and keyword phrases into the alt tag for every image that appears on your web pages. Now I've seen some crazy people fill those alt tags with repetitive keywords to the point where there's more text in the alt tags than there is on the rest of the page.

Avoid doing that, these days it's a sign of desperation. It did work at one time ... many years ago ... but it doesn't work now. At the same time as you're avoiding stuffing your alt tags with keywords you should also avoid repeating the same word or keyword phrase over and over again in every alt tag.

The more you do that the more you look as though you're trying to spam the search engines and the result will be nothing like you were hoping for.

Internal links
How many times have you seen internal links displayed as gallery one and gallery two? That's something we all did years ago but now you should try to be more creative. Call each of those links something different that incorporates key words and relates to the theme of the page they are point to.

At the same time, if you have to have a link back to your index page - and that's not something you should really have on an adult free site - then for goodness sake don't display the link as 'home'. Be more original, think of a keyword that is important to you and has some relevance for the surfer and use that instead of the word 'home'.

So there are four search engine optimization tips for beginners. I hope you find them useful and apply them to your sites because they will make you more competitive.