Web Promotion SEO Search Engine Optimization Tips

Search Engine Optimization Made Simple

Very few topics have inspired as many tangents, as much false information . . . incurred as much abuse as search engine optimization. With the few shreds of information search engines reveal about their actual methodologies, optimizers struggle to get that extra edge over the competition, armed with esoteric theories of keyword density, precise meta-tag length, optimal internal linking, and just about any other detail that a search engine might happen to factor into its rankings. Before you find yourself scrambling to create ten more content-less pages to avert that worst than death curse of decreased PageRank, try to take a look at the big picture. Barring design factors that may not be search engine friendly, a strong foundation based on four factors will give your site good success. These factors are the holy grail of optimization:

1. Get relevant links to your site anchored to keyword rich text.
2. Write focused body text that targets specific keyphrases or that is focused on a specific topic (This occurs naturally when someone is communicating useful information. This can be a problem because a lot of businesses don’t have anything useful to say. Be detailed. Be helpful. This can naturally accomplish what automatic text generators try to accomplish through keyword density and keyword proximity calculations).
3. Write concise titles focused on useful keyphrases.
4. Be patient. You may not be using the best strategies, but you’re using strategies that work over time. Continue to get links and create more content.

Find the Words

Before you can write good, keyphrase-focused body text or titles, you need to find the phrases users search. For good keyword suggestion tools, search Google with (surprise, surprise) “keyword suggestion tool.” Digitalpoint.com has an excellent tool that compares Wordtracker and Overture keyword results. Judge from the search volume how competitive each word is (not even close to the best method, but it’ll have to due). Be specific. Pick words with large search volume and search with geographic terms if you serve only a specific area. From the list of keyphrases, start thinking about the topics you’ll want to target. Find a few phrases for each page in your site. Remember to focus on phrases and not separate words – make sure these phrases appear in your body text.

Titles

HTML titles go between the title tags in your site’s code. Write short titles that use one or two keyphrases. Don’t use the name of your company unless you are trying to brand the name. Include location if you target certain areas, and make sure your pages repeat this location information in the text. Your body text should be written to fit the phrases in your title.

Body Text and Navigation

Be specific about what you are talking about. In your navigation don’t use generic linking text like “home” or “about us.” Use specific phrases. Instead of “home” use the name or category of your main service/product, and make it obvious from the context that this is your main page. Instead of “about us” use a phrase like “A (main product/service) Company.” This communicates more information to the user and includes a keyphrase. Where appropriate, make the same type of substitutions in the body text. Use variations of nouns and verbs, including plurals and different conjugations.
If you can, use the heading tags (h1, h2, etc.) to write text titles. Try to communicate as much as you can in text – search engines don’t see the text in images, or fancy media like Flash. Alt tags are useful, but search engines don’t put as much weight on them as visible text. In general, whatever has a greater chance to be seen by the user is going to get greater weight from the search engines (Except for those things produced by JavaScript, or Flash, or written into an image – use common sense).

Build Links

It is remarkably easy to get your site indexed by the search engines – just submit to some of the many free directories. To find some of these directories search for “free directory list” in Google. Be careful to read submission guidelines, and be very careful about what you submit to large directories like DMOZ. Generally, titles should not be a list of keywords. Most directories only want your homepage and the “official title” (somewhat ambiguous term) of your site with a short description. Descriptions should be factual, and they should be written in complete sentences or meaningful phrases. Some optimization companies will rip you off by charging you money to submit your site to the major search engines – this is a waste of time. Start building links, and the search engines will find your site naturally, submitting makes no difference in your rankings.
It is important to get links from sites that are related to yours. Write webmasters requesting a link, find niche sites that offer free submissions, write articles for sites that allow you to put down a signature link, or post comments in forums that allow you to put down your signature.
If you exchange links, be careful who you trade with. Get listed wherever you want without fear of penalty from the search engines, but be careful who you link to. Your site can get penalized for linking into bad neighborhoods spamming the search engines.

It Never Ends

Expand your site and continue to tell people about its content. It’s an ongoing process. The older your site gets, the more credibility it can gain with the search engines. Keep your content fresh. Check the search engines to see what they have indexed (search site:www.domain.com). Be patient and keep up with search engine changes


Web Site Development and Internet Marketing
Web Site Promotion SEO Search Engine Optimization

I actually got into a shouting match with a so-called project manager for a web development company. The project manager in question wanted me to believe that SEO requires going to a SEO "specialist" since it requires a lot of insight into keyword density, reciprocal links, fancy metatags, and all other kinds of "old school" garbage. This is from a project manager who built my company site using a table-based layout and didn’t have a clue on what "web standards" really are.

Problem is that none of these techniques are all that effective and you end up spending more time and money that what is really necessary. I’ve spent countless hours reading all kinds of articles on how Google and other search engines work. I’ve tried out all sort of software programs like Addweb and other SEO tools. In the end I have found that pretty much all of it is absolute garbage.

Wanna know what the real trick is? Simple!

First, know your audience and target your content by writing clear, concise verbiage that has plenty of different keywords and phrases pertinent to your site embedded in the content. Well written content goes a long way cause that’s what will be indexed by the search engines. If the content isn’t there for people to find, how do you expect others to find you? Keep it relevant and you can’t go wrong.

Second, build your site to adhere as closely to the most current standards as possible. Knowing what browsers the majority of your visitors use will allow you to know what direction to take. The most important thing is that all content be symatically correct: headlines are headlines, lists are lists, and tables are used for tabular data (you wouldn’t use a bunch of tables for layout would you?). There’s a reason why current web standards place such a high importance on the separation of content, design and function. Let your HTML describe the content, your CSS render how it’s supposed to look, and your javascript tell your site how it’s supposed to behave. This one thing will allow your site to have a greater emphasis on content and a great degree of accessibility all at the same time. After all, your biggest "blind" user is Google!

Third, utilize programs like Google Sitemaps (http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/) to help search engines better index your site. Google Sitemaps is a great way to ensure that Google is able to index every page on your site. It also helps accelerate the timeframe it takes to get your site listed.

Fourth, get your site listed on as many other relevant sites as possible. If your site is about golf, see if you can get your site listed on some of the more popular PGA related sites. This will give your site a nice boost in popularity...especially if you are actually receiving click-throughs from those sites!

Lastly, keep your content fresh and updated! Google and other search engines do place some emphasis on how often a site is updated. If a site is relatively stale and hasn’t been recached in a while then search results won’t be as relevant anymore. Only makes sense to keep your site new and fresh!

These are just a few of the common sense tips I use on a regular basis. Granted, there’s alot more to it...but these few tips as well as the ones mentioned by davemod will most certainly get you on your way to boosting your sites viability on the search engines.

Good luck!

Jeff

I totally agree. I tell all my clients roughly the same thing (I usually break it down into three key areas: Content, Links, and Design), and all too often they give me that look that makes me think it would just be easier to babble a bunch of meta mumbo-jumbo the next time and do whatever I think is best. Then when I suggest they rewrite their content with the aid of a thesaurus to vary common words and phrases, they tend to start complaining.

Ditto can be a great SEO tool as well. If you atomize your content into shorter pages (so that all text is closer to the top, and therefore more important) and then aggregate it using Ditto (so as to combine key phrases from titles, authors, etc. into another page that is indexed separately), you have multiplied your search results potential without actually adding more content. This is a pretty standard structure for blogs and whatnot, but it can be used for any type of site (as well as variations of the same idea, such as paginating long articles, etc.).

I also find that adding randomized or rotating or updated external content makes search engines consider the page to be "fresh" every time they come back to check on it.

SEO indeed is not a black art, but it does take an investment in time and effort to do all the grunt work that needs to be done. And great copy is worth it’s weight in gold if that factors into your strategic plan. Given that a good copywriter coached with some parameters that relate to SEO efforts can be a wise investment as well.

There is an argument to be made for some of the more sophisticated analytics and tracking tools that would be hard to justify the cost of for a single site, but that doesn’t apply 80%+ of the time.

To borrow from the horse’s mouth (Google):

Sites with more content can have more opportunities to rank well in Google. It makes sense that having more pages of good content represent more chances to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs). Some SEOs however, do not focus on the user’s needs, but instead create pages solely for search engines… Google is willing to take action against domains that try to rank more highly by just showing scraped or other autogenerated pages that don’t add any value to users. Companies, webmasters, and domain owners who consider SEO consultation should take care not to spend time on methods which will not have worthwhile long-term results.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
March 16, 2007