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Search Engine Optimization
In order for your website to be found by Google users, proper SEO measures have to be implemented into your website. I’m going to cover the basics of the essential techniques to be used on any website.
Don’t expect to become an SEO expert after reading this. As a matter of fact, I’ll understand if you think this is too much information and you’d rather let someone else worry about it. But if you’re one of those people that likes to do everything themselves or just wants to be able to understand this stuff a little bit better… read on.
Link Popularity
Link popularity is the long (and never ending) process of getting your website’s link on as many quality websites as possible. Why? Firstly, they don’t call it the “Web” to make it sound scary. Websites linking to one another is what makes the Internet into an online web. Without other websites linking to yours, how’s the spider ever going to find you? And that’s exactly what Google and the other search engines send out – spiders (sometimes called “bots” for robots). Google sends out its army of web crawling spider programs to search out the web to see what’s out there and brings that information back to Google. The more links you have out there – the more times Google will find you.
Now it’s true that more links are better than fewer links, but more relative links is much better. For instance, putting your rock band website’s link on twenty random websites that have nothing to do with music will get Google to “crawl” your website. Unfortunately those links won’t convince Google that your website has a strong enough relevancy for the search results of “rock band”. If you put your band’s link on twenty music related websites, Google will definitely raise what’s known as your “ranking” in the search results.
A good place to start looking for websites to link from would be any companies that you partner with, affiliate yourself with, or just do business with. Politely ask them if they wouldn’t mind exchanging links with your website. I say exchange because they’ll most likely want you to post their link on your website – it’s only fair. If they know anything about search optimization, they should be glad to do it.
Other places to try:
- online business directories (ex: business.com, citysearch.com)
- local business directories (ex: local.yahoo.com, maps.google.com)
- organizations or groups your company belongs to (ex: chamber of commerce)
- directories that pertain to your field of interest (ex: lawyers could list on a lawyer directory)
Additionally, you can leave your link behind on blogs and forums that you visit that are related to your business. Don’t try selling yourself or spamming by leaving dozens of posts on one site. Actually participate in the blog and provide relevant, helpful feedback on the topics being discussed. Most will let you include your link or email. It’s a great way to leave a calling card and start a reputation of being helpful and informative.
There is also the social website scene. Websites like Twitter and LinkedIn are great for networking and getting your name out there. They can require a lot of time, but they are free services.
If you have the ability or resources to put out press releases, that would be another beneficial way to get your name out there. There are also websites for posting press releases online – so don’t limit yourself to just newspapers.
Always include your website
in everything you produce.
That includes press releases, business cards, print ads,
radio spots, direct mail, emails, etc.
If you’re having trouble finding places to link with, then check out your competition. In the Google search box type “links:companyname.com” (replace companyname.com with the actual domain of your competitor) and click Search. It will give you a list of all the web pages that Google has found that contain your competitor’s link. Many may be internal links within their own website but the rest will be from other websites. Go to these websites and see if you can exchange links as well. If anything, it should at least give you more ideas on how to find more websites to link with.
Keywords
Keywords and Key Phrases are what people type into search engines. Your goal as a website owner is to get the search engines to find your website if your content matches these key phrases.
First you have to decide what those key phrases are. Then you have to incorporate them into your content and into your code without going overboard. And stay away from generic terms.
Take me for example. If I focused just on the key phrase “website designer”, Google would just throw me into a pile of thousands of web pages it will find talking about website designers. If I focused on “WordPress website designer”, that would shorten the pile I’d be tossed into. But if I really wanted to rank high on searches, I could get even more specific with “WordPress website designer from
Massachusetts”. Now that will probably limit me to mostly local searches, but it will definitely get me ranked higher for such a specific search.
Keep in mind that Google crawls your whole website (hopefully) but treats each page of your website as a separate entry in its vast database. This is why you’ll be taken directly to the page for “Grandma’s Secret Strawberry-Blueberry Muffin Mix” on the 1,000,000 Favorite Recipes website if you searched for “strawberry blueberry muffin mix”. Google associated your search with that specific page and directed you to it as opposed to their home page. After all, you wouldn’t want to be brought to the website’s home page just to have to perform the search a second time, right?
Because search engines work like this, you have to treat each page as if it were an individual website. If you have a page that talks about computer keyboards, make sure it mentions “computer keyboards” at least three times in the text. Also make sure it’s in the Title and Description Meta tags. If you have images of the keyboards, include the phrase in the file names (computer-keyboard-01.jpg) and the Alternate tag (computer keyboard).
If you shorten the key phrase to just “keyboard”, then Google could confuse it with “electric keyboard” or “music keyboard” or “keyboard lessons”. So stay as consistent as possible. But don’t go overboard and repeat the phrase in every sentence. Your copy will seem unprofessional and unfriendly.
Title
The Title of your post or page is normally used for the Title Meta tag for that page. You’ll see it displayed at the top of your browser program. It is also used by Google in the search results as the clickable text. This shouldn’t be too long as you’ll notice Google won’t show the whole line of text if it doesn’t fit. A few of your most important keywords or phrases should be a part of the Title when ever possible.
Description
The Description Tag is also used by Google in the search results. Again it shouldn’t be too long as Google will only show so much. Without this Google usually grabs the first sentence in your page and maybe some text from further within your page. By entering your own description you improve the quality of what Google finds and what appears in Google.
Expanding on what I said earlier, you should treat each page as an individual just as Google does. Avoid using the exact same keywords, title, and description for each page. If it helps, think of each page as a person. You can use some of the same words to describe each but there should definitely be something unique about each one as well.
Ex: Babe Ruth, Brad Pitt, and Abraham Lincoln could each be found under “famous American male”. But only one would come up under “American president”, “pennies”, and “tall hats”.
