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Internet Marketing Course -
Search Engine Optimization
80/20 To Do List™ - New Site
Continued from Page 1
- You should find that the entire key search phrase and/or iterations
of it are included in each of the three major page areas outlined
above. Accurately record this data for each key search phrase.
An excellent utility to perform this task is to use a Keyword
Density Analyzer. The Keyword
Discovery service supplies a keyword density analyzer
as part of its basic subscription package. There are also free
Keyword Density Analyzers available on the Web – just put in
that phrase into Google and you’ll find one quickly.
If you selected your key search phrases correctly, then you
should see some familiar "faces" in the high ranking returned
results - direct competitors, non-competitive sites covering
the same type of info as your site, etc. If you do not see these
type of sites, then you should re-evaluate the key search phrases
you have chosen as representative of your site's product, service
and/or content.
- Small Site: The overall effort with a small site should
be to get the Home Page ranked in the top 10-30 search results
in Google for one of the 3-5 key search phrases already
researched.
Be sure that the Home Page's 3 major components (title tag,
meta description tag and first 250 visible words on the page)
each contain the key search phrase at least once and
as close to the beginning of each component as possible.
Make sure that the number of times that key search phrase appears
on every part of the Home Page is in line with the total number
of times that key search phrase appears on the most competitive
pages for that phrase in Google.
Also make sure that EVERY other page on your Web site links
back to the Home Page using a link that has the key search phrase
as the VISIBLE text in the link (the text Web surfers actually
see on each of your site’s Web pages).
The content of the Home page should align as closely as possible
with the key search phrase chosen for the Home page.
Large Site with Multiple Sections: Follow the steps outlined
above for optimizing your Web site's Home Page, and then create
an "Information Page" for each key search phrase. Be sure that
each of this page's 3 major components (title tag, meta description
tag and first 250 visible words on the page) contain the key
search phrase at least once and as close to the beginning of
each component as possible.
The content of each of these pages should align as closely as
possible with the key search phrase for that page and, ideally,
the content is truly informational in nature. When the searcher
lands on the optimized page after performing the search, s/he
should immediately feel the information on that page is closely
related to the underlying reason for performing that search.
One of the easiest ways to accomplish this, especially if you
are writing your own content, is to write about something that
you are both knowledgeable and passionate about, and an "information
page" is the perfect form for that type of content.
Also, when you read the section on Reciprocal
Link Programs, you'll see that in order to get other
Web sites to link to yours, you must offer information that,
in the opinion of other Web site owners, will be of value to
their visitors.
- Keep the structure of optimized Web pages as simple as possible.
These pages should look and feel like other pages on your Web
site, but, if possible, they should not contain long JavaScripts,
etc. JavaScripts can prevent a Web page from being crawled efficiently
by the search engine spiders.
Note: The best way to accomplish this is to turn the JavaScript
code into a separate JavaScript file (a ".js" file), name the
file, save it on your Web server, and then "call" that Javascript
file whenever you need to run that script on any or all of your
Web pages. Calling the file is done with one line of code on
the Web page in a very similar way that a separate graphics
or photo file is called to appear on a Web page.
- The file name (the "URL") of each optimized Web page should
include as much of the key search phrase as possible. Use hyphens
between the words in the phrase (ex. "used-buick-car-parts.html").
For the “Home Page” of a “small” Web site, ideally you have
secured a domain name for your site that contains the key search
phrase for the Web site. If this was not possible, then you
can use the following strategy to name that page: on your Web
site, create a sub-directory or sub-domain that is named using
the key search phrase for which you want to optimize that page
(I suggest using hyphens as described above to name this sub-directory),
then name the main or Home page for that sub-directory/sub-domain
“index.hml” as you named the Home page for your overall Web
site, and optimize the page for the key search phrase. Example:
this “Web site”, the Internet Marketing Course, is actually
located on the Web site “DaveIngalls.com” in the sub-directory
“internet-marketing-course”.
Note: There is no evidence that this page naming strategy improves
the page's ranking in the major search engines, but at a minimum,
for long keyword phrases, using hyphens helps the visitor
easily read the keywords in the URL. And, if some Webmasters
who you contact as part of your reciprocal
links program link back to your site using the page URL
in the visible text portion of the link instead of the keyword
phrase you asked them to use, then you still have your keyword
phrase where it can do the most good!
- If possible, save the optimized Web pages as static
HTML pages (pages not served from a database). If they are served
dynamically, be sure that the resulting URL (page file name)
is identical each time the page is served and that it contains
standard alphanumeric characters.
- Integrate each of the optimized Web pages into your
site as completely as possible. On a large Web site, each optimized
“Information” page would fit into a different section of the
Web site and act as the introduction to that section.
Product line introduction pages are usually very good candidates
for becoming this type of optimized Information page. They tend
to be very specific and usually already contain at least one
of the key search phrases for your site.
Be sure to include hyperlinks on these optimized Web pages
that link to and from all of the most important pages on your
site (Home Page, Site Map/Index, Contact Us, About Us, etc.).
These links should be simple text-based hyperlinks, not JavaScript-based
roll-over links or links embedded in an Image Map - these types
of links can not be followed by crawler-based search engines.
- You also need to add a "Site Map" page to your Web
site. A Site Map contains a detailed outline of your site's
pages (similar to a Table of Contents) with a hyperlink to each
major Web page on your site. In order to maximize the positive
impact of adding search engine-optimized Web pages to your site,
it is critical that a Site Map page exists, that it be up-to-date
and that there is a link to the Site Map page from each of the
optimized pages. (See my Site Map
Web page as an example.)
- A word about your optimized Home Page: If you place a Flash
"movie" introduction on your Home Page (the "index.html" or
"default.html" page), make the flash movie an element of the
Home Page accompanied by optimized visible text as described
above. Search engine spiders do not understand Flash code and
therefore can not "crawl" (index) a site whose Home Page only
includes a Flash presentation.
- Manually submit/re-submit your Web pages as follows:
- Home Page:
Submit it to the major crawler-based search engines:
Google, MSN, and Yahoo (follow directions for submitting
to Yahoo Express). Submit to second tier search engines
as time permits (ex. Ask, FAST and MyWay).
Submit it to the major directories: Yahoo (see submitting
to Yahoo Express above), LookSmart and Open Directory (dmoz.org).
Submission to major search engines: go to
each site's home page, find the "Submit a Site" link and
follow it to a short form that requires you to enter the
URL of your home page and (usually) your email address.
Submission to major directories: enter your
1-2 top search phrases into the Yahoo, LookSmart and Open
Directory search boxes and note which categories
are returned with the highest ranking. Click your way to
the highest ranking category that best matches your product
or service and follow the "Suggest a Site" link on that
page to submit your Home Page. When you submit, be sure
to have a site Description ready (of the appropriate length
for each directory) that contains your 1-2 top key search
phrases and put your number one key search phrase
in the directory Title field, if possible.
If you are a business, no matter of what size, you must
use the "pay for consideration" option with Yahoo
("Yahoo Express"). The Open Directory listing is
free, but can take several tries over 3-6 weeks to get listed.
Submissions to Yahoo cost $299.00 (Yahoo has made this an
annual fee for business entities!), so choose your
category carefully and have your site description optimized
BEFORE you actually submit your site.
Why pay this fee with no guaranty that your site will even
be included in Yahoo? If your site is legitimate,
you will get your site reviewed and listed in both directories
in less than 1 week (unbelievably fast compared to what
it used to take!) and remain there virtually forever. The
importance of a listing in Yahoo is at least 2 fold--(1)
Yahoo is used by an incredibly large number of Web surfers
to find information AND (2) a listing in Yahoo is viewed
as a very valuable link to your site by several major search
engines. This helps drive the ranking of your site higher
on crawler-based engines like Google that put increased
value on a site that is in the Yahoo directory. One last
point about Yahoo and Google: Google regularly visits the
New Listings section of Yahoo and almost immediately crawls
all newly listed Yahoo sites. (This may change now that
Google no longer supplies Yahoo's crawler-based search results.)
A LookSmart listing is important because this directory
is not only used directly by a large number Web surfers,
but it is also used as the default directory by several
second-tier search services on the Web.
In my opinion, from a SEO perspective, you must register
your site with Yahoo, but LookSmart registration should
be viewed as an option and done only if you can afford it.
For example, it is by no means mandatory to be in the LookSmart
directory to achieve an excellent ranking in Google. You
are much better served spending the time and energy required
to get your site listed in the free Open Directory (a key
Google resource) than paying for a listing in LookSmart.
- Other pages to submit: Optimized “Information”
Pages and Site Map
Submit it to the major crawler-based search engines:
Google and MSN. Submit to second tier search engines as
time permits (ex. Ask, FAST and MyWay).
Do not submit these pages to Yahoo, LookSmart and
the Open Directory.
- You now must constantly monitor these search engines and directories
to make sure that the pages submitted have been (a) indexed
AND (b) rank in the top 30 results. Once per week is a reasonable
frequency.
Products such as WebPosition
Gold can be used to automate this procedure. When using
a product like this to determine page ranking, you must be prudent
in your use of it. Several of the engines and directories (Google,
in particular) have asked that products like WebPosition Gold
not be pointed at their sites. Why? These products query
the search engines just like regular users would, so they use
up valuable search "bandwidth". That in turn slows the engine
queries made by actual visitors, thereby diminishing the quality
of the search experience, particularly during peak use hours.
To be on the safe side, run WebPosition Gold once a week and
schedule it to run when the engines are experiencing their lightest
traffic (2:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Eastern US time, for example).
That's what I do!
You can get a free trial version of WebPosition Gold by clicking
on this hyperlink to WebPosition.
- Start an aggressive, targeted Reciprocal
Links Program - this will ensure the long-term success
of your Search Engine Optimization program.
- It's also time to get your site immediate attention on the
search engines by doing some well-targeted Search
Engine Advertising.
Want to Learn More About SEO?
Try "Search
Engine Optimization for Dummies" by Peter Kent
Search Engine Optimization
- Return to SEO Start Page
Search
Engine Marketing - Return to SEM Start Page
Copyright © 2001-2008 Dave Ingalls
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