DIY Search Engine Optimization
Getting the SEO Basics Right!
Although the workings of Google’s algorithm and search engine optimisation (SEO) may seem like a ‘black art’ at times, and sometimes it is, there are some basic SEO guidelines that can go a long way to building a strong foundation for getting good rankings in the major engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.
So here we go…..
THE SEO BASICS
1. First Things First
Domain Name or Website Address/URL
If you don’t already have a website, then you are strangely in a perfect position, as picking a domain name is VERY important. Search engines these days are placing more and more importance on the words in the domain name, such as www.Traffic-Tactics-Guide.com, and also your directory and page name structure, such as : www.conrad-jooste.com/internet-marketing/using-social-marketing-for-massive-traffic.
So if you are just starting out you need to ensure that not only does the domain name contain your main keywords but you should also do some keyword research, more of that below, before you buy your domain.
If you already have a domain you may want to look at purchasing a number of more relevant domains and simply forward or redirect these to your existing site.
2. Optimise
Keyword Research
In this phase you are doing research around your keywords or key phrases to find out the numbers of searches that people are submitting on them and the related phrases in the search engines so as to find what the high volume terms are and how competitive they are (i.e. although you may have a huge number of searches for say ‘lower back pain’ you will also find that there are hundreds of thousands of pages competing for this search term). Most of the time keyword research turns up some keyword niches that you may not have been aware of, for your business, where there is a large amount of search engine traffic and very few competing sites/pages.
There are some great tools out there but the two that I would suggest in order of preference are:
1. Wordtracker (gives you a Keyword Effectiveness Index [KEI] - i.e. the competitiveness rating mentioned above). There is a free trial available.
2. Google - Free to use.
Ideally you should be doing this step before any content is written but given that most businesses will already have a website with a number of pages then once this phase has been completed your existing pages will need to be rewritten and potentially combined or split out into several pages for each main keyword.
Content Optimization
Based on the above analysis you should write or rewrite you content with your main keyword/s sprinkled throughout your home page text to ensure that you have the optimum keyword density needed for good rankings.
Then for all your other keywords you should dedicate a page to each and link them from the home page.
You should also ensure, especially if using JavaScript menus for navigation, that you have a sitemap page or something similar linked to ALL your lower level pages. The sitemap link MUST be on your home or index page. Even better is having links to all your pages using the appropriate keywords.
Title, Meta Tags & H1 Tag
You absolutely have to include your main keywords in the title of your page but ensure that it’s not longer than 60 characters. This is what appears in the top blue bar of users browsers (see below). Unfortunately in most blogs it’s partly auto-generated for you.
The HTML code for the Title tag looks like this and needs to be in the head section:
<head>
<title>Search Engine Optimization & Web Usability</title>
</head>
The other ‘Meta Tags’ that you want to concern yourself with are the ‘description’ and ‘keyword’ tags. Although these aren’t as important these days you still want to put something meaningful in the description as this is what search engines display when your site comes back in the results pages, again using the keywords from the keyword research phase.
The ‘keywords’ tag should contain all your keywords separated by commas…..but don’t go over board and don’t spend too much time on this one.
The ‘H1′ which stands for ‘Heading 1′ gives the search engines an indication of what you primary business is about so again you have to have your main keywords in the H1 tag. The search engines place a LOT of emphasis on this so make sure you get it right.
3. Promote
Website Submission
OK….so you are now ready to submit your site as your content has been optimised. What I am finding is that you need to do a bit of manual and automated work in this area as due to some automated tools the search engines and directories are forcing uses to enter certain codes which makes it impossible for tools to do this work.
To start you’ll want to submit your site to the Open Directory Project - the ‘Mother’ of all listing sites and where a number of search engines get their ’seed’ results.
I have been using a tool called IBusinessPromoter which does a lot more than website submission but it’s really good in this area as you can do some submissions automatically and some semi-automatically. It’s also fairly inexpensive.
Reciprocal & 3 Way Linking
One of the most important SEO items that you want to spend some time on is getting links into your site, specifically from other relevant sites. What I mean by ‘relevant’ is other websites on the same or complimentary business or service. The search engines need to build a picture of ‘what you do’ and there is no better way than having links into your site from similar sites. Unfortunately most sites will require a reciprocal link which means you will need to create a ‘links’ page on your site.
NB - It’s very important in how they link back to you. What I mean by this is what are the words that they have in the actual link to you, called anchor text. So for instance if you are a physical therapy center called ‘Scott’s Therapy’ specialising in Myofascial Release you wouldn’t want to use your company name but rather the key phrase you want to get ranked for - like this: Myofascial Release.
It’s also important to NOT have ALL your links with exactly the same key phrase as the search engines think this has been manufactured and isn’t natural. So you want a 50% : 30% : 20% rule where you alternate how people are linking back to you using your main key phrase 50% of the time and a couple of others to make up the 30% and 20%.
What is 3 Way Linking?
Some webmasters own multiple sites and try to build up one of their specific sites by offering link exchanges from their other sites. In doing this they add a link to you on their other site and get you to link to the main site they are trying to build up.
3 Way Linking is becoming more popular as it has more credibility, if from relevant sites, than reciprocal linking as it looks like sites that are linking to you and you are not linking to them while you link to a 3rd site in return……BUT you need to be careful with this as if used incorrectly it could be seen as trying to manipulate the search engines.
4. Tracking & Analysis
How does that saying go…..”If you aren’t measuring you can’t analyse and therefore can’t improve”
You really need to have some way of tracking what users do on your site. You need to know where traffic is coming from and why. Which search terms are being used….which also then gives you the converse -> which ones are not. Where users are entering you site and where they are leaving - click path analysis. All this wealth of information, once analysed, paints a picture of what’s going on with your site and how effective it is at the goals that you have set (i.e. converting visitors to clients).
There are some expensive tools which large companies use such as WebTrends and then there are some great tools that are fairly inexpensive such as OneStat and then the FREE stuff - Google Analytics - which I think is more than sufficient for most businesses. I use this for a number of my clients and all it takes is to add a little bit of code onto your pages.
Well that’s it for the SEO Basics.
If you would like to know more or have any questions please contact me on conrad@con-struction.net