10 steps to higher search engine positioning: by eyelogic media
Step One - Choosing Keywords You first must choose your keywords. This is
perhaps the most important step of the process as incorrectly targeting phrases
can result in traffic that is not interested in your product. There are three
tools that I use virtually every day to help pick the most appropriate
keywords:
Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool WordTracker A Brain The last in the list
is the most important. Look through the potential keyword phrases and think,
"Who would be searching using that phrase?" If the answer is, "a student
looking for information" then chances are it won't result in a sale. If the
answer is "Someone who is looking specifically for a product I offer," then
obviously this is a prime candidate as a targeted keyword phrase.
Step Two - Site Content Even before I optimize websites I like to get a good
deal of new content down in order to insure that I know exactly where I'm going
and exactly what I need to do to get there. Creating some of the new content
before starting the optimization process can be doubly helpful in that it can
reveal potential additions to your website that you may not have considered (a
forum or blog for example). If you already have a site, perhaps simply sit on
your back deck, sip on a coffee and imagine what you would do if your whole
site was lost and you had to start again (other than launch into a very
colorful discussion with your hosting company).
Step Three - Site Structure A solid site structure is very important. Creating
a site that is easily spidered by the search engines yet attractive to visitors
can be a daunting and yet entirely rewarding endeavor. To adequately structure
your website you must "think like a spider" which is not as difficult as it may
sound. A search engine spider reads your web page like you would read a book.
It starts at the top left, reads across, and then moves down.
Priority must be given then, to what you place near the top of your page.
Step Four - Optimization Once you have your keyword targets, your content
created and your site structure established you must now move on to the most
obvious step, the optimization of your content.
As noted above, a spider places importance on what it reads highest on the page
and so beginning with a sentence that includes your targeted phrase only makes
sense. That said, stuffing in keywords in hopes that it will add weight to your
page generally doesn't work. The term "keyword density" refers to the
percentage of your content that is made up of your targeted keywords. There are
optimum densities according to many reputable SEO's though exactly what they
are is debata ble. Estimates seem to range anywhere from 4 or 5% to 10 to 12%
(quite a gap isn't it).
Personally, when it comes to keyword density I prescribe to one rule: put your
keywords in the content as much as you can while keeping it comfortably
readable to a human visitor.
Some do it first, I do it last, regardless of when you do it you must choose
your heading. At the beginning of your content you have the opportunity to use
the <h1> tag to specify the heading of your content. This tag is given
extra weight and is also an indicator to the search engine of where your actual
content starts. Make sure to use your keywords in the heading but don't shy
away from also adding additional words (though not too many).
Step Five - Internal Linking To insure that your website gets fully indexed you
have to make sure that the spiders have an easy path through your website. Text
links make the best choice as the anchor text (the actual words used to link to
a specific page) add relevancy to that page for the words used to link to it.
For example, if I ran a website on acne and had a treatments page I could link
to it with an image, with text reading "Click for more information on how to
treat this skin condition" or simply "Acne Treatments". When a search engine
spider hits an image it has no idea what the image is and, while it will follow
the link, it will not give any weight to the page it hits. If you use text that
does not contain the keywords you are targeting you are essentially supplying
the engine with the same lack of relevancy as with an image, but if you use the
phrase "Acne Treatments" to link to your acne treatments page you are attaching
relevancy to that page for those keywords.
There are two main ways to insure that your site gets well spidered AND that
the relevancy is added. The first is to place text links on the bottom of your
homepage to your main internal pages (not EVERY page, that just looks odd). The
second is to create a sitemap to all your internal pages and link to it from
your homepage. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages but that's a
whole article unto itself.
Step Six - Human Testing So now you have your site, it's optimized and you have
your navigation in place. The next step is to put it past someone who has never
seen your site (and preferably who won't know how much work you've put in and
tell you it's great even if it's not).
Ask them to find specific information and see how long it takes. Ask someone
else to just surf your site and watch which links they click and ask them why
they chose those ones.
Most importantly, find out how the content reads to them. You've spent hours
working through the content at this point and are probably not the least biased
on its readers. Find out how it reads to someone who has no invested interest
in the site and correct any issues they may bring up.
Step Seven - Submissions I take a different philosophy than most when it cones
to search engine submissions. I submit to directories (both general and
topic-specific) and to a few topical search engines but for the most part I've
found submitting to Google, Yahoo!, MSN and the other major engines has proven
to be a bit of a waste of time. The major search engines are spidering search
engines, which means they will follow links to wherever they go. Simply having
sites that are spidered by the major search engines linking to you will get
your site found.
When I have spent time submitting my sites I have found they get picked up in
about a week. When I have simply skipped this step and sought out reputable
directories and other sites to get links from I have found that at least the
homepage of the site gets indexed in as little as two days.
Neither will hurt your rankings but simply to make the best use of your time,
seek our directories and other websites to get links from and leave the spiders
to find you on their own.
Step Eight - Link Building All of the major search engines give credit to sites
that have quality links pointing to them. How many is enough depends on your
industry and targeted phrases. Running a search on Google the reads
"link:www.yourcompetition.com" will reveal approximately how many links a
competitor has.
The first place to seek links is with general and topic-specific directories.
After that you may want to move into reciprocal link building. Reciprocal link
building is the exchange of links between two websites. Some webmasters will
simply link to any website that links back to them. I highly recommend being
more particular than that.
Find websites that you believe your site visitors would genuinely be interested
in and you've probably found a good link partner. You want to find links from
sites that are related to yours.
There are obviously many more methods to building links than directories and
reciprocal link building. Again though, this is a whole article (or more) in
itself.
Step Nine - Monitoring Whether you use WebPosition Gold or just run searches
manually by hand you will have to monitor the major search engines for your
targeted phrases. Also, you will need to review your stats to see where your
traffic is coming from and what search terms are being used to find you.
If a month passes and you don't see any changes then more work needs to be
done. I'm certainly not stating that you should take a month off, a solid
search engine positioning strategy involves constantly adding content, building
links, and insuring that your visitors are getting the information they want to
have and finding it as easily as possible.
Step Ten - Reward Yourself So you've done it. It's taken many many hours of
work but you're rankings are doing well. What you've created is a solid
position that will stand the tests of time provided that you continually
revisit the above noted steps and insure that your website is always one step
ahead of your competition (who have noticed you climbing and succeeding as you
would notice others climbing up around your ranking).
If you have any questions about keyword selection or your website in general
please feel free to contact us for additional information by visit is at
http://www.submizseo.com/
About the Author
www.SubmizSEO.com Search Engine Management Solutions is the division of Eye
Logic Media Inc. With 5 years of experience in Internet marketing, Eye Logic
Media Inc.is growing leader in the online industry.
We have been dedicated to helping small, medium and large corporation grow
their business on the web.
With the core belief that the Internet is one of the most viable solutions for
business, Eye Logic Media Inc. has embraced all online technol
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