Search Engine Optimization

Clients are always asking me "How do we get listed on the search engines?"

If this article is too confusing, click here for a basic to-do list in preparing your website for search engines.

The first step is to optimize your site, the second is to submit it, the third is to have other sites link to it. Here is what I've learned over the last several years about search engine optimization. These steps are a good start in how to optimize your website. At the bottom of this page I link to other search engine optimization resources. By optimize I mean making sure that when a search engine reviews your site they will learn exactly what your site offers.

First of all, I need to point out that you don't want just anybody coming to your site. You want to attract your target audience. If you have thousands of people clicking to your site everyday, but none of them are interested in what you're offering, it's a waste of bandwidth, and may raise your hosting costs. What that means basically is that the more traffic your site gets, the more your host will want to charge you for hosting it. Ideally you want people coming to your website who are interested in what you have and offer.

How do search engines work?
Search engines send out automated "spiders" (robots) that crawl through the web (internet) and gather text found on different sites. They gather up all the text found on your site. They follow links on your opening page to get to the other pages on your site.
These web crawlers cannot see pictures or movies or applets or flash. They cannot listen to music. They cannot answer questions and press "submit" buttons, or play games. They can only pick up text. This is why it is so important that the text on your site contains clues that will tell your target audience "I'm here and I have what you're looking for". If you sell blue ping pong balls, but nowhere on your site is there text that states "blue ping pong balls" then the search engines will not know that you have them, and will not list your website when someone types "blue ping pong balls" into the search engine.

There is all sorts of text on a website. (All sorts of places where you could write "blue ping pong balls.") There is text that a person visiting your site can see, and also behind the scenes text put there primarily for search engines. Each search engine places a different value on the different kinds of text present, so it is better to have a well rounded site and address each area to the best of your ability. A little further I'll explain each of these areas but first I want to point out some design pitfalls.

Designs that discourage search engines
Because search engines only work by going from link to link and gathering text, certain website designs discourage search engine optimization.They are:

Flash sites, sites designed with frames, sites that have pictures only without text, and sites that have navigation that is an image map, javascript driven, navigation through a form submission or with query strings.
If you don't understand what that list means, don't worry, you don't have to unless you are your own web designer. Talk to your web designer about it, and just keep in mind that websites need text and straight forward navigational links.

What does is mean to optimize the text on your site?
This is key. You need to start thinking about what your target audience puts into search engines as search queries, and how you can include those search terms or key phrases in your text. If those search terms are in your text, the search engines will list your site when those queries are made.
What I mean is, when your ideal client pulls up google.com and types in "the item that they are looking for" does the search engine know that you have that specific item? They won't know unless you have that item described in your text areas.

You need to include specifics. For example, if you are selling winter clothing, instead of describing a product as "women's hat" you would write "women's warm knit cap in primary colors". Or if your are selling a home on Martha's Vineyard, instead of describing the house as "House in Chilmark", you might say "This spacious three bedroom, two bath contemporary with stunning ocean views sits on a pastoral hill in Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard." If my website is selling tiles, instead of describing a tile as "4x4 inch tile", I might say, "hand-made 4x4 inch porcelain fish accent tile."

What you need to be aware of is that you are the expert on your audience and your product or services. You can get outside help in coming up with key words, however no one knows your clients and your website content as inside and out as you do, so if you want to get it right, you need to be actively involved in generating these search engine phrases. You can then hire help in writing copy that's brimming with key phrases and still reads well, or help inserting the phrases where they need to go in the different text areas that I describe later.

How to find out what search phrases and keywords your target audience is using
Besides just brainstorming about the search terms that you might use if you were searching for what your site offers specifically, there are other tools out there for researching search terms and key words.
One site that I recommend is wordtracker.com Wordtracker.com has compiled a database of terms that people search for. You enter some keywords, and they tell you how often people search for them, and also tell you how many competing sites use those keywords. Wordtracker helps you find all keyword combinations that bear any relation to your business or service - many of which you might never have considered. They also list common misspellings of key words so that you can include those in your hidden text areas.
Another good us of wordtracker is you can find out what other things interest your target audience and maybe include those things in your site. For example, if you sell kitchen appliances, it might be worthwhile to have a section of your site devoted to recipes. Then people coming to your site to look up a recipe might buy the latest chopper, blender or bowl when they get there.
Wordtracker.com has a free trial, but you can also sign up to use it for a day for a nominal cost.

Here are two other sites where you can research key search phrases:

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Another great site packed with free search engine optimization tools is: http://www.instantposition.com/free_tools.cfm

It is important to be honest. Don't put in your keywords "apple pie recipe" if you don't have an apple pie recipe on your site. If search engines think you're dishonest, they will not list you at all.

Areas to optimize text on your website

Once you have your list of search terms and key words, here is a list of different areas to put all that optimized text. Make sure that you sprinkle similar key words throughout multiple text areas. The more places you mention a phrase, the more valid it appears to the search engines. For example, if I have "Martha's Vineyard" in the title of my page, but I don't mention it anywhere else on the page, some search engines might ignore it.

The title of your page - Each page of your site should have a title specific to that page. Most search engines place a high level of importance on the keywords found in your pages titles. The title is inserted in the code by your web designer. It is the sentence that appears at the top of the browser when a page is loaded.
Meta Tags - Each page has behind the scene tags in the code that only search engines see. These are a description tag and keyword tag.
- Description Tag - Make sure that this description tag describes what is on the page. Try to also make it as enticing as possible. This is the description that the search engines display with your link. Each page should have a unique description. Include three or four of your most important keywords, and place them towards the beginning of the description so that they don't get cut off if the search engine places a limit on length. Avoid just listing a bunch of keywords. Try to keep your description under 250 characters in length including spaces.
- Keywords - These are a list of those words and phrases that your target audience is typing into search engines. Put all of those phrases here. Make sure that these phrases appear in other text on the page as well. This is where you would include common misspellings of search words. Don't forget to list plurals. "accent tile", "accent tiles" Submit-it.com recommends that your keywords meta not exceed 1024 characters including spaces.
- for a complete list of meta tags with descriptions and an online meta tag generator click here.
Image Alt Tags - Alt attributes can be added to any image on a page. It is code that is included in the image tag. Have you ever noticed when you're on a PC and mouse over an image sometimes a phrase appears? That phrase is generated from the alt tag. On a MAC sometimes you see the alt tag as text in the image box that appears before the image loads. The alt tag should describe the image, not just list keywords. Use some of the key phrases that are found in other areas of text. Be specific. If you have an image of a sailboat, instead of having "boat" as the alt tag, you could have "The recently renovated wooden schooner, the Alabama, sitting at anchor in Vineyard Haven Harbor." This is another great place to include plurals and common typos.
The copy on your page- Just like the visitors that come to your site and read the text on it to figure out what you offer, search engines do as well. Submit-it.com recommends that you have at least 200 words of copy on each page. The text should include your most important keyword phrases, but should remain logical and readable. Also, be sure that the copy on your pages includes some of the keywords found in your image alt tags and your meta tags. If may not be a bad idea, if you're feeling overwhelmed, to hire a professional copy writer.
Other areas for optimization that your web designer should be aware of are text hyperlinks and heading tags, and image name attributes. These areas are also scrutinized by search engines. Text placed in <h1> and <h2> as well as <strong> tags is given more attention by the search engines. Links can also be given "title" attributes. Some other tools for if you have a very large site are: creating crawler pages, and froogle (part of google) submissions of products.

SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION FREE

Once your site is optimized, then you should actively submit it to the search engines. Many of them you can submit to free of charge, and they will list you anywhere from one week to two months later. Some have express submission where for a fee, they will index your site sooner. Some search engines, like Yahoo, you need to pay for them to list you at all. If I am your web designer, I'll be happy to do the free submissions of your site once it's optimized.

According to Jakob Nielsen (April 6, 2003) "there are only about 7 search engines worth paying attention to: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, Lycos, AltaVista, and AOL. Together they account for 97% of traffic."

Other ways to get your site known is to have other sites link to you, either by buying listings in relevant online portals, or with reciprocal link exchanges. "Get lots of links to your site from domains that a lot of other sites link to -- that's how Google and Inktomi determine relevance when ranking search results." (quoted from Search Engine Optimization -- FREE!
by Paul Boutin 5 Jun 2001)

I have compiled links to free submission sites for search engines. Click here.

SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSIONS PAID

You can also pay for listings on google and yahoo. Here are some links.

Overture search term suggestion tool
keywords & phrases related to your subject, listed by frequency of search

Google Advertising Programs

Yahoo Small Business Marketing Tools

Also, put your web address on all of your ads, your business cards, your brochures etc.

Other Search Engine Optimization Resources

Article: Design your site for traffic in 2005

http://www.instantposition.com/seo_doctor.cfm
http://www.instantposition.com/free_tools.cfm
(I just discovered instantposition.com and it is a great site packed with free search engine optimization tools)

http://www.bruceclay.com/web_rank.htm

http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2004/sept/8prt.html

I hope you found this useful. Here is a list of items you should have for your web designer in order for them to successfully optimize your website:

keyword phrases
a description and title for each page
suggestions for image alt tags
and great written copy.

RSS FEEDS

If you like to write, creating an RSS Feed with your articles is a good option for generating traffic back to your site. Click here to view more.

Search Engine Optimization and Free Submission

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Search Engine Optimization

SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION FREE

SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSIONS PAID

Also, put your web address on all of your ads, your business cards, your brochures etc.

Other Search Engine Optimization Resources