3 Simple Steps to Search Engine Optimization
By Gary Hall
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fundamental blueprint for building traffic to your websites. With so much talk online about SEO you might think anyone can master the techniques. You should know that to get your website listed in MSN, Yahoo, and Google is not so complex that only a computer science geek with multiple PhD’’s can do. But to rise to the top of search engines there is a time intensive construction process that is best left up to the pros so you can manage your day-to-day operations. So why am I suggesting you read this article? Simple, with some basic knowledge, you can either save yourself some time/money or at least be able to know what work is being done when you hire someone to do the heavy lifting.
For the most part, any website owner can get ranked by understanding and following these 3 simple steps:
Step 1 - Keywords / Phrases: Successful SEO begins with the proper selection of Keywords/Pharses that acurately define your business product or service. In the early days of the internet, searchers were looking mostly for information. However a major shift has occured and most web searchers today are looking for a local business. So you need to be sure and consider including some local words like City or State with your keywords.
Step 2 - Placement of Keywords: A quick word of caution, overdoing the placement of a keyword in your website can work against you. If you are not aware, in the early days of search engines, they simple counted the number of times a keyword was placed on a page and assumed the higher the number the better. Many people began placing the keyword on the page 100′’s of times right in a row. That technique seemed to work until Google came along. Google engineers have tried to develope an understanding of a page’’s content to determine ”true” relevence of a keyword to the content. So while many places are available to place keywords be judicies. Below are three location factors to consider when placing keywors on that page.
Location Factor 1 - Title Tags: The title tag is visible in the top left corner of your browser window and now days on the Tab of a multi-tab browser. The title tag is limited in sizes and works as an easy target for search engine bots. The size is sufficient to place a couple keywords and usually the name of your company with its accompaning city and state. More importantly, search engines often use the title tag as the first line of the search results. Each page of your site should have a valid title.
Location Factor 2 - Meta Tags: There is a special meta tag named Description. Here is where you get to write an advertisement for your webpage sprinkled with your keywords of course. The search engines use the Description tag as the text of the search results under the title tag mentioned above. So it is important to use this space to write a compelling ad. Every page should have its own unique relevant description. Note: if you do not have a meta tag called description the the search engines often take other text from you pages content that includes the keyword, which leads to the improtance of Location Factor 3.
Location Factor 3 - Throughout the content of your page: That’’s right! Sprinkle your keyword throughout the content of your webpage. Remember your high school english class when you had to diagram a sentance? Well search engine engineers seem to be using that type of logic to determine keyword relevancy also. So, use the keyword in a paragraph title or as the first and last words of different paragraphs and/or sentances. Use the keyword in picture captions or in table headers. You may have to get creative to write a comprehinsive paragraph to humans and search engines, but it is possible.
Moving on to Step 3 - Links: You should use the keywords for which you are trying to optimise as the narrative text of links both inside and outside of your website. Inside your website this can be accomplished by developing: a sitemap, a persistant menu at the top or bottom of the page, and/or a text based menu system. Outside your website you have to develope relavent links for your keywords also. This is the harderst and most time consuming part of SEO. When I was growing up, my father used to say, “fools names and fools faces always apear in public places.” But to compete online you have to go public. You can not afford to miss out on the opportunity to brag about your website, especially after spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars to have a website developed. Google counts the number of sites that link to your website. Again it is not just a numbers game but the highest number of strong relevent links that matters. You can do a lot to grow that number. All the options are too many to count and differ by industry. However, take a couple of minutes to create profiles on social networking sites, like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, InLocal, and Google Maps.
These three steps are a great start for building your website traffic from search engine results, but it is only the beginning. The SEO game is evolving all the time. It can be difficult to stay on top. Get started with these step and then hire a Search Engine Optimization expert who can help you menopolise your industry locally, nationally, and globally.
About The Author
Dean Arrow & Assoc., LLC has put together an expert team of search engine optimization strategist that specializes in internet marketing for small and medium sized businesses. Dean Arrow is a Denver SEO and SEM company. Gary Hall is a freelance writer.
