Eleven Things You Must Do For Website Search Engine Optimization

Identify the correct keywords

What do you want to own in terms of search results? This requires a focused effort to identify those words, that when searched, yield a successful outcome for you and the visitor. Keyword identification plays the MOST IMPORTANT role in identifying your SEO and Pay Per Click (PPC) costs as well. Obviously, the more competitive a keyword, the more time consuming and expensive it will be to gain the results you are looking for. This is not easy, and a competent SEO company can help you define and analyze the right keywords for you to use. But it doesn’t stop there. Every month, you need to review your keywords, what kind of clicks you are getting and refine and change on an ongoing basis.

Build content that matches those keywords

The key factor that Google and other engines access is what they describe as “relative content,” the differentiator for websites. This dates back many years when Google decided that building their successful business model required search results be helpful to its customer/visitors and determined content analysis was the key to driving their business. Websites that have relative

content for the searcher show up higher than websites that are just “selling” something.

Content management and refresh frequency

Gone are the days when you could build a website and sit back and watch the traffic flow in. In an effort to once again improve the search results and overall customer experience, and eliminate old or outdated information or dead links, updating the content frequently is critically important. That’s why

you see things like blogs and other content-related elements playing a larger role in websites.

Inbound links, or “link popularity”

Another factor Google considers important as a way to judge whether a site is “worthy” of their consideration, is to determine how many other sites are linking to it. Initially, many SEO companies just went out and created thousands of inbound links in what are called “link farms” all over the web and

claimed victory. Well as you can imagine, Google changed their metrics. Today, in addition to measuring the number of links, Google also measures the quality of those links. Providing quality links is one key differentiator between what IDEAS4 does and what many of our competitors do.

URLs and keyword URLs

Another factor given consideration is the actual domain name you use and whether it includes one or more of the keywords you are seeking. Additionally, the .com vs .net and .org also makes a difference today. In addition, if you have more than one domain pointing to your main domain, you lose points for your natural search as Google assumes you are trying to trick it and discounts those

names.

A Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaign

If you think search engines separate the results of the natural search from their PPC revenue stream, think again. We have seen first hand that when you have a PPC campaign in place, your rankings will improve. Stop the PPC campaign and your rankings drop.

Other factors -

There are a number of other factors that are important to include in your SEO strategy that are “standard operating procedure” for well-prepared websites.

These factors include:

Developing a website site map, one page on your website, linked from your home page footer that displays links to all of the pages on your website. The site map makes it easy for Google and other engines to locate and crawl all your pages quickly and easily.

Submission to all key search engines and directories (Google, Yahoo, DMOZ, etc) - You need to make sure you visit all the top search engines and find the link to “submit your site” to their engine. This will ensure that their web crawlers - called "bots" visit your site (make sure everything else is in place before you do, so your ranking will be higher.)

Age of the domain name and years registered

If you have a new domain name that you recently registered and have it registered for only a year or two, the search engines consider you a “newcomer” and will value your site lower than a site that is 10 years old and is registered for 10 years. They figure an older site with a commitment to a long-term registration will have more value to their audience. This is one of the key ranking factors for your site.

URL naming conventions

There has been much talk about the use of the “?” in a url page name, meaning the website uses a database to display pages. Some of the smart SEO people I know insist that using .html and published pages without the “?” ranks higher than other pages. Most content management systems publish pages on the fly generated instantly from the database. This limits the search engines' ability to crawl the pages. Make sure you have a CMS that actually publishes pages and does not generate them on the fly.

Business location

When you perform a search, you have probably seen a list of 10 businesses that show up next to a Google map and wondered how they got there and you did not.

Here’s the secret:

Google lists businesses from the center of the city outward. If you are in a suburb, you have little chance of being included on that list. The best solution is to change your online business address to a post office box downtown. That way, you are considered in the center city and have a much better chance of being listed on the first page next to the Google map.

Generating (Quality) Traffic

Anyone can generate double or triple the traffic to a website - that is not hard to do. But what you really want is an increase in qualified traffic. Success of any SEO campaign is judged primarily on these three facts: (1) Are you generating more web traffic, (2) Is that traffic of high enough quality that a contact is made from the website and, (3) Is the contact is a “qualified lead?”

Doing the hard work up front in keyword analysis, reviewing your website design and its functionality, and interviewing key company executives and staff to really understand the type of prospects who generate the best revenue, is what ultimately leads to better search engine results.

In addition to increasing the quality of the traffic, you must also increase the quality of your website branding, design and functionality to match or exceed your competitors’ sites. If the traffic comes in and they do not like what they see or read, you have wasted resources and time.

SEO is not a one or two month hit ‘n run program. It is a constantly evolving process that needs monitoring on a monthly basis to ensure quality results. It may take up to a year or more for your rankings to start moving closer to the first page.

The mini-site

OK, so you have a great product or service, but you have a domain name that does not have anything close to a keyword in your domain. For Google, BobsTrafficCones.com will come up higher in a search for traffic cones than BobsTrafficCalming.com. What do you do?

Enter the mini-site. Mini sites are content only websites about one specific keyword on your list. This content-rich site must contain content that is unique and updated on a regular basis - monthly or at least quarterly. This information resource is just what Google is looking for to give their users a good experience and this benefits your business as well.

All the same rules listed above also apply here too. Meta tags, title tags, domain age, etc. Now your goal is to go out and find domain names that match your keyword to use for each mini-site.

As a rule of thumb, .com’s are better than any other TLD (top level domain), but if they are not available, use what you can find or decide to pay for a .com keyword domain. An entire industry has emerged around the buying and selling keyword domains, so if you are in a competitive field, medical, real estate, etc, your domains might be expensive. But to get around it, be creative in your approach. If Bobstrafficcones.com is not available, try bobs-traffic-cones.com (or .net or .info). Find a way to get your keyword in the domain name; this is critically important.

Next, build your mini-sites. You can build them by hand, use blog software, find a mini-site generating system - whatever. Remember, you are going to need to update the content from time to time, so ease of use with minimal time investment is an increasing important factor. Keep the design simple and easy to navigate; this is not about great design, it’s about content, content, content.

Now for the kicker....

On each page, design an ad for your business that links back to your main site. Put it somewhere obvious but not too many times. That way anyone interested in your services will be able to find you and no one else. Plus, because the site has great content, your main site will begin to rank higher because your inbound link from the mini-site is a high quality link. See how all that works?

One thing to keep in mind as you build this - and it’s important - is place your mini-sites with a domain host that is not the same as your website. At some point Google will figure out that the minisite is something you built and will discount the links. Use a cheap hosting service like godaddy or other $5 a month host. Don’t pay any more because all you need is a place to park your site. You will use low bandwidth because it will mostly be text files. And you don’t need e-mail accounts or other add on services the hosting company will try to sell you.

Tracking and Monitoring

We use Google Analytics and other site traffic management tools to evaluate website traffic and flow, and a web-based traffic analysis system called Web-Stat which monitors and tracks traffic as well. At IDEAS4, we use both because Google’s reporting, both on its PPC and Analytics, has not always been 100% accurate.

You should be monitoring traffic and continually making refinements to keywords, landing pages, site content, Meta data and more to continually improve search results over time.

Things To Check Off As You Build Your Website

Below is a checklist of the things you must have on your website to be “perfect.”

Top 11 Positive Factors

1. Keyword use in title tag

2. Anchor text of inbound link

3. Global link popularity of site

4. Age of site

5. Link popularity within the site's internal link structure

6. Topical relevance of inbound links to site

7. Link popularity of site in topical community

8. Keyword use in body text

9. Global link popularity of linking