Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Getting Started
With Search Engine Optimization (SEO) even a small business Web site can compete with both local and international businesses for search engine visibility.
Specialization is The Reason
Small to medium-sized businesses often have the natural advantage of selling a specialized product or service. This specialization is what enables their business Web sites to compete effectively for search engine ranking.
Page Content is A Power Tool
An effective tool a specialized business can use to leverage search engine ranking is page content. If you don't have a large budget to spend on search engine ranking, think about what makes your business unique, and build your Web site page content around those themes, working with basic techniques using keyword phrases. Well-written and organized content on your Web pages, focused on your specialty, can yield an increase in your search engine visibility that is just as effective as costly paid-for search engine advertising.
SEO involves many factors, and results will vary among the major search engines. Some companies specialize entirely in SEO, online advertising placement, and the tracking of the results.
Below are steps for getting off to a good start with SEO by working with keyword phrases and helping search engines access your improved page content. Whether you do the work yourself or hire a professional SEO company, following steps One, Two and Three will increase your search engine visibility and get your long-term SEO strategy off to a great start!
Determine What Information, Products or Services Your Potential Customers are Searching For Online
When your potential customer uses a Web search engine to find the products and services your business offers, that person types in a set of words or phrases into the search box. These words and phrases are commonly called your site's keywords or keyword phrases. In order for your potential customer to find your site on the search engines, your Web site's pages must contain keyword phrases that match the phrases your potential customer typed into the search query.
Develop a List of Keyword Phrases
Keyword phrases can be up to 4 or 5 words. Search engines ignore "filter words" such as "a", "an", "but", "or", "nor", "for", and "the", and these words can be eliminated from your keyword phrases.
Determine the keywords that your potential customers may type in a search query - which may not be the same as keywords that people working in your industry would input. A good initial source for keyword phrases can be your company's printed materials - brochures and printed product information contain many possible keyword phrases. Another source is the questions your customers frequently ask, the terminology they use, and products or services frequently asked about.
Organize Keyword Phrases into Groups
For example, a plant nursery with an extensive selection of native San Diego plants could organize groups of keyword phrases on native plant themes by type of plant. Keyword phrases such as "native San Diego perennial flowers", "native San Diego annual flowers", and "native San Diego flower seeds" could form a group.
Create Web page Content Focused on What Your Potential Customers are Searching For Online
Search engines tend to include pages in their search results, and also very importantly rank them higher in results listings, if the pages have text content that revolves closely around the topic of the page and also closely relates to the words or phrase entered by the person doing the search. For instance, when a person runs a search for "native flowers of San Diego", search engines will tend to display Web pages with multiple mentions of "native flowers of San Diego" higher in the results listings than a Web page on a site that mentions "native flowers of San Diego" in the text just once. How high up a keyword phrase appears on the page also influences search engine ranking, see Include Important Keyword Phrases in Page Content Above the Fold under Step 3 below.
Develop Landing Pages Around the Topics of Your Keyword Phrase Groups
Prioritize your list of keyword groups, and start by developing a Landing Page on the topic of your most important keyword group. A Landing Page (also called a Destination page) is a Web site page focused on a specific topic that contains multiple mentions of keywords and keyword phrases in the text. This repetition will encourage search engines to rank that page high in results lists for those specific keywords and keyword phrases, and delivers content site visitors are searching for. Landing Pages provide useful information to viewers, who will hopefully then continue on and visit the other pages of your site. A Web site page written on a specific topic will naturally contain the necessary keyword repetition.
A simple way to create natural landing pages on your site is to create corresponding FAQ (frequently asked questions) pages for your products or services. Other options are product information pages or articles written about your area of professional expertise. Published articles can be included as linked documents. The PDF file format can be read by search engines if the file is saved with searchable text (a search engine cannot read an image of text).
Help Search Engines Access and Correctly Index Your Web page Content
Navigation
Make sure the important pages on your site are linked together. A search engine may not be able to follow Web site page links contained in non-HTML scripts such as Javascript or Flash, and a second set of links in HTML (commonly included at the foot of the page) is a good idea. Site maps are helpful for search engines as a way to navigate to all the pages on a Web site. Also, people who do a lot of research on the internet often go straight to the site map when they first view a site - it's a fast way to find what they are looking for.
Optimize Web page "Primary Text"
Two areas on your Web pages contain primary text: The visible page text, and the text contained in the meta Title tag (the content of the meta Title tag displays in web browsers at the top of the screen). Content in these two areas is considered primary text for search engine optimization because all the search engines index, and place significant weight, on keywords and keyword phrases found in these two areas.
Other Meta-tag content, alternative image text, and text contained in domain and file names are considered secondary text and are not indexed by all search engines.
Include Important Keyword Phrases in Page Content "Above the Fold"
Keywords that appear near the top of a Web page, often referred to as "above the fold", are considered to be more relevant to the topic of the page, and given more "weight" by search engines, than words that appear farther down. How high up a keyword is on a Web page is called keyword prominence.
If a Web page is lengthy, introducing information important to the page topic and placing descriptive links to information farther down helps both search engines and visitors to understand the page content.
Build Search Engine Friendly Pages
Currently search engines can sometimes have difficulty following the navigation links or indexing the page content of Web pages constructed with: Image Maps, Javascript, Dynamically or database generated content, Flash, and Frames. There are solutions that can be implemented in all these situations. If you have doubts about the ability of search engines to access your Web site page content, a web developer or a company specializing in SEO can review how your Web site pages are built, and make recommendations.
Avoid Search Engine Spam
Spamdexing, generally referred to as Spam, is the use of excessive or unethical techniques to achieve improved search engine ranking. Spam techniques can achieve top search engine ranking for Web pages, but these top positions are often short-lived.
A few common Spam techniques are: Placing keywords in meta tags that are not related to your Web page content, hidden or very small text, and hidden links.
A good rule of thumb to avoid having search engines consider a Web page as Spam is to ensure that all words in the meta tags or content, and any code or programming on a Web page should be intended to inform or benefit your site visitors.
DesignSanDiego.com can consult with you about SEO for your Web site, and formulate a plan to improve your search engine visibility. - mail@designsandiego.com