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vangogh
08-06-2008, 02:53 PM
I know search engine optimization (SEO) can be confusing to many people so I thought I'd offer some thoughts on how to approach the process to help point everyone in the right direction.

In the beginning people have a tendency to see it as looking for a magic formula, where if you use the right words in the right places and the right combination your pages will skyrocket to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Nothing could be further from the truth.

The way to approach SEO is to see it as part of the bigger picture of your overall marketing plan. Search traffic can be great traffic, but in general it won't come overnight. Understand it's a process and not a quick fix.

Surprisingly I find it helps sometimes if you actually take search engines out of your thoughts when optimizing. For example instead of wondering how search engines will see a link pointing to your site, think of how a real person will see it. If the link makes sense for a real person it most likely makes sense for a search engine too.

The basic principles of search engine optimization are fairly easy to understand. The details can sometimes be confusing and I'll try to put together some resources for you in another thread as soon as I can. For now I hope these basics will suffice.

Keyword Research
You want to start by researching the words your target market uses to find your services and products. Many people brainstorm a list of 10-50 words and phrases and think they're done. The brainstorming is just the beginning.

You need to take those phrases you brainstormed and use some keyword tools to expand your list and uncover what words people are really using. Often you're too close to your business to realize the words your customers use.

We all have a tendency to use industry jargon, because we're so familiar with out topics. Our customers don't use that same jargon. You want to find out the words and phrases your customers use.

Site Building
How you code your site and how you organize your content can play a large role in how well your site and pages rank.

You want to build what's considered a search friendly site and it's a good idea to be thinking of SEO when your site is first developed. At the most basic level you want to make sure your pages can be crawled and indexed by search engines. That generally means you want the links to your pages to be coded purely in HTML. Flash and Javascript menus might look great, but they trip up search engines.

If you do want to use a Flash or javascript menu system, make sure to also include an alternative navigation system for search engine spiders.

On-Page SEO
This is probably where most people think about SEO. On-Page SEO is about the words you use on your page. Once upon a time this meant heavy use of the meta keywords tag. That tag is too easy to spam and major search engines ignore it today.

It's ok to use the meta keywords tag, but don't expect any results. My own opinion is it's not worth the time it takes to fill out.

What is important is your page title. Your pages title is what's between the <title></title> tags in your code. Search engines do place weight on the words you use in your page title.

Rules of thumb:
Keep your page titles short
Use your main keyword phrase for the page and if you can a secondary phrase
If you want add your company name or URL to help brand your site.

While the meta keywords tag is essentially useless, the meta description tag can be very useful. It's less about improving your ranking and more about enticing clicks on your link when you appear in search results.

Your met description is sometimes used as the snippet below your link in search results and studies have shown they influence which links get clicked. Think of them as a mini ad and do use the keyword phrase you use in your page title.

I also like to use keyphrases in page heading. Page headings are the <h1>, <h2>,...<h6> tags. Use one and only one <h1> on a page. That's less to do with search engines and more to do with the structure of your content. Think of your h1 as the chapter title in a book. Each chapter has one and only one chapter title. Same for h1 tags on a page.

I try not to repeat the exact wording of my page title in my h1 headings. Use your main keyphrase, but vary the exact wording of your page title. With lower level headings try to use variations of your main keyword phrases.

After that just write your page content so it reads well for real people. If you keep the content of a page on topic you'll end up using the right keywords. If you can get your main keyword phrases for the page in naturally it's fine, but don't force them. It's more important to write the page for real people.

Link Building
Links matter. Search engines, especially Google put a lot of emphasis on who and how many sites link to you. At the most basic level a link is considered a recommendation by one page to another.

Not all recommendations are the same though. If you have a question about fixing the pipes under your kitchen sink advice from a plumber is better than advice from a lawyer. It's a similar situation with links.

Not all links carry the same weight. It's not about having the most links. It's about having the right links.

Analytics
You want to know what's happening on your site in order to improve things. An analytics application like Google Analytics can tell you a lot about how people are using your site.

You want to measure the results you're getting and then adjust based on those results.

One of the most basic ideas in SEO is test and measure, test and measure.

The above hardly scratches the surface of search engine optimization, but hopefully it raises some questions and sparks discussion.

Remember not to look for quick fixes shortcuts when it comes to SEO. Most people who struggle with search engine success struggle, because they tried to implement a quick fix instead of seeing the bigger picture.

Understand that search engine optimization is a process. You work on the process outlined above and then work through that process again based on the results you measured.

Hope something above helps and don't be shy about asking questions.