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Posts Tagged ‘search engine optimization’


How To Be a Pro at SEO: Part 2

January 5th, 2012 ::
This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series How to Be a Pro at SEO

SEO Part 2

In the first article of this series, I provided an overview of SEO and discussed on-page SEO tactics.  This article will cover off-page SEO as well as some tips on avoiding bad SEO practices.

Off-Page SEO

While you can control the content on your page, and therefore, your on-page SEO efforts, your off-page SEO can be a bit more challenging.  Building this type of SEO requires nurturing relationships by creating content people want to link to.

Search engines look not only at the number of links to your site, but also at the quality of the links.  For example, one link from The New York Times will mean much more than a hundred from smaller blogs.  The search engines will also look at the anchor text surrounding links to your site, to determine the relevancy of the content.

Here are some tactics for getting relevant links to your website:

  • Use social media to spread your content throughout the web.  Search engines use the content shared on social media when determining website rank because simply put, if it has been shared, it must be influential and attention-worthy.  Make your website content easy to share by installing social network buttons throughout your site.  You can also share your content on your own social media pages and profiles, encouraging your community to pass it on.  If your content is useful, people will link to you in their blogs and on their websites.
  • Use email to spread your content, too.  Make your email content easy to share by adding share buttons to your messages.  These buttons can help readers tweet the content to their followers or forward it on to a friend.
  • Blogs are the best way to create a stream of fresh content that your customers will find useful.  Write engaging articles about your industry, offer tips to help your customers and clients, and provide interesting news, and people will share and link to you.  There’s no better way to build links than to create amazing content that everyone wants to talk about and share.

Often, being good at something requires knowing what not to do.  To that end, here are five things you should never do if you want to excel at SEO:

1.  Using “Black Hat” SEO to try to boost your ranking  is discouraged by search engines and may even hurt your business.  Black Hat techniques are designed to bend the rules of SEO, and they include:

  • Keyword Stuffing:  cramming keywords onto a web page to create “content” with no regard to usefulness or even legibility
  • Doorway Pages:  pages filled with keywords that redirect users to another site
  • Invisible Text:  using white text on a white background so a search engine can see it, but a user cannot

2.  Shady linking schemes have no place in a top-notch SEO campaign.  Quick-fix link building will be recognized and punished by the search engines.  Emailing tons of webmasters to ask for a link, offering to trade links with anyone who will link to you, and purchasing links will raise red flags.  Building high-quality inbound links takes time and will happen naturally if your site contains useful, relevant content.

3.  If you focus too much on metadata, you will miss other fruitful tactics for creating a site the search engines love.  There was a time when cramming keywords into the HTML of your site was enough to rank high, but that time is over.  Some search engines still use meta tags to index websites, so you should still include them, but don’t go overboard.  Focus your efforts on the on-page tactics discussed earlier instead.

4.  Creating irrelevant content just to get people to your website won’t lead to much more than increased bounce rates.  When you don’t take the time to create content that flows naturally, your website visitors will become frustrated and will likely see through your efforts.  Stuffing your content with keywords, to the point that it becomes illegible, is bad SEO practice.

5.  Focusing on driving large amounts of traffic rather than qualified leads will leave you with an SEO campaign without much ROI.  If you drive tons of traffic to your site, but your visitors never become customers, you should refine your keyword strategy.  Aim to generate content that will have your website visitors saying, “Now, this is exactly what I was looking for.”  So, if your traffic is increasing, but the bounce rates are also sky-high, reassess your keywords.         

Hopefully, now you are well-versed in the strategies of SEO.  Have you tried any of these tactics before?  Let us know how it worked out by leaving a comment below.

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae

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Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing | 2 Comments »

How To Be a Pro at SEO: Part 1

January 3rd, 2012 ::
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series How to Be a Pro at SEO

SEO Part 1

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, as a concept is pretty simple:  Write content using a proven structure filled with targeted keywords, and people will be able to find you online.  Actually putting your SEO plan into action is another story; the process can be tricky and rife with costly trial and error.

This two-part series will help you master the techniques SEO pros use to draw targeted online traffic to their sites like a magnet.  The first article will provide a refresher on SEO as well as the tactics for mastering on-page SEO.  The second article will cover tactics for creating off-page SEO plus reveal tips for recognizing poor SEO.  Practice these methods yourself, and you can become a pro, too.

The Nuts and Bolts of a Solid SEO Strategy

SEO Review

When you use SEO, you are literally making your website more visible to potential customers and clients.  As search engines consider which pages to display, and in what order, they use two criteria: relevance of the content on your website and who’s linking to you.  These criteria help the search engines understand what your site is all about and who will find it useful, as well as how many other people out there have already found it useful and relevant enough to link to.

To rank high in search results, build your content around long-tail keywords.  This concept refers to steering clear of generic terms many people will be searching and competing on, and instead focusing on specific search terms that will produce qualified leads.

For example, when someone types “winery packages” into a search engine, they are likely to be bombarded with results, and your website will be lost in the mess if you used those broad keywords.  But if they type “holiday winery getaway packages in Northern Virginia,” their results will be much more targeted.  So, if those long-tail keywords are yours, the user will find you easily–and probably be more inclined to become a customer since you have exactly what they’re searching for.

Keywords Count

Before I get into the elements of on-page SEO, let’s discuss keywords.  As I mentioned, you want to be thinking about the long-tail keywords that are likely to drive specific traffic to your site, while not having to compete with too many other websites.

Don’t just think of keywords that use the language of your industry.  What you call “SEO,” your customers might call “getting a higher Google rank.”  Think of how your customers would search for you, including the phrases they would use.

To get the most keyword bang for your keyword buck, try to come up with a set of related keywords that will cover the variations users are likely to search with.  The real challenge is using your keywords in variations so they sound natural.  For example, if your keywords are “first novel,” “publish book,” and “write a book,” you can wrangle all these keywords into a naturally flowing title:  “Your first novel:  How to write and publish your book.”

Sometimes it helps to write the first draft of your web copy without worrying too much about SEO.  Then, as you edit, bring in variations of your keywords to get the page SEO-worthy.  This method can help you write more naturally while still utilizing good SEO techniques.

Types of SEO

Basically, there are two types of SEO: on-page SEO and off-page SEO.  Both are important for a thorough SEO strategy.

On-page SEO refers to the elements of your SEO strategy that are employed directly on your website.  These elements are completely within your control, so you should do everything you can to optimize them.  There are six areas to optimize for on-page SEO to be sure you have all your bases covered.

  • Content:  Creating engaging and relevant content is a must, but you should also consider the way you format your web pages so the search engine crawlers can digest your content.  Give each web page a thought-provoking headline that grabs the reader’s attention and includes the keywords the page covers.  Bolding certain keywords is another way to emphasize the phrases your page is optimized for.
  • URL:  The structuring of your URL affects the search engine’s ability to index and rank your website.  Aim for an organized URL structure by editing it to include the title of your web page rather than settling for the random string of letters and numbers most web creation software generates.
  • Images:  To help search bots see the photos on your website, use their file names to describe the image.  Consider adding Alt tags to your images as well, to tag each photo on your site for easier indexing.
  • Tags:  Tags are little text snippets that provide information to the search engines.  I already mentioned Alt tags, but you also need to use title tags, meta tags and headline tags to let the search engine’s crawlers know exactly what your web pages are all about.
    • Title tags appear in the upper left corner of your browser and appear as a blue link on a search engine results page.  You are limited to about 75 characters here, so choose your words carefully.
    • Meta tags come in two forms.  Meta description tags literally describe your web page to viewers on a search results page, and you’re limited to about 150 characters here.  Though not used as much as they once were, it’s still a good idea to include variations of your keywords as meta keywords within your HTML code.
    • Headline tags show search engine crawlers the outline of information covered on your web pages, so you should put important keywords within these tags.
    • Links:  Internal linking is a useful way to reference other pages within your website.  Use anchor text around these links to help the search engines know what type of content you are linking to.

Now, you should have a good start in building a successful SEO strategy.  In the next article, I’ll cover ways to implement your off-page SEO strategy, and I’ll give you some pointers on how to spot bad SEO.

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae

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Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing | 1 Comment »

How to Use Keywords to Improve Your Blog’s Search Results

December 12th, 2011 ::

Keywords

If you have never thought to use keyword research as a way to improve the visibility of your blog posts, think again.

Whenever we search for information online, what do we do?  We do a Google (or Bing, or Yahoo) search.  It makes sense, then, that if you want your blog to get found and read (and shared and commented on), you should include the keywords people are currently using in their searches.

For instance, I just did a search for web video templates for another blog post I was writing.  Not only did I find companies that offer templates, but I found plenty of blog posts, articles, and videos about web videos in general and web video templates specifically in the search results.

Now, the term “web video” is a very broad keyword search term and is therefore pretty competitive.  Whether you are a management consultant, graphic designer, plumber, or attorney, you’ll run into the same problem: broad keywords won’t help you get found because they are used so often.

You need to do 2 things to find better keywords: 1.) get more specific and find less competitive keywords, and 2.) hone in on those keywords that could generate huge traffic.

Let’s use an attorney as our example, because I know a bunch of super fun and very capabile attorneys who must compete in this very broad category.

Our attorney specializes in employment law; specifically litigating discrimination cases.  He is writing a series of blog posts about employment law that are aimed at small businesses.

Using Market Samurai (you can download a free trial version that is good for 2 weeks), I searched “employment law” and got 47 million results.  This blog post, though, is a guide for small businesses – that gets 15.2 million results –that focuses on racial disrimination – that gets just under 3.5 million results.

So you see, the more our attorney focused on keywords specific to this particular blog post, the better the chance his blog post will be found online.

To really take advantage of search engine optimization, our attorney needs to use those keywords in the title of his post, in subheadings in the body of his post, in the text itself (of course!), and in the image tags.

Try it yourself and see if it helps your blog posts generate more traffic!

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae.

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Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing | 2 Comments »

How to Write Engaging Website Content That Will Generate Leads Part 3

August 30th, 2011 ::
This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Writing website content that generates leads

Full notebook

Even though I regularly write website content for other companies without a problem, I know how hard it is to write your own copy.  In fact, I struggled with mine for a month till I felt like I got it right!  So, I put together a three-part series that details how to do it properly so you will connect with your target market to the point that they can’t wait to work with/buy from you.

I already covered how to define your target market and services and write your value proposition in part 1, the beginning.  In part 2, the middle, I discussed what pages you need to include and in what order on your website and what to write on each page.  Now, we’ll put the finishing touches on the website.

1. Write the Home Page

The home page is always the last thing I write.  You need to be happy with the rest of your website content first.  So, on your home page, you immediately state who your company is, who your clients are, and what you do for them.  In other words, this is where your value proposition is going.

Then expand a bit on how, overall, you help your clients.  The very last thing you include is a list of the products and services you offer.

2. Write Calls-to-Action

So now you have all this great content that engages your target market and gets them, well, if not excited to buy from/work with you, interested in learning more and talking to you.

To get them to take that next step and do something by adding a call-to-action (CTA) on each page that urges them to contact you via email or phone.  It will read something like this: “If you are interested in taking your social media marketing efforts to the next level, contact us today.”  Hyperlink “contact us” to your Contact Us page.

You might be able to use one CTA on every page, but most likely you will want to customize it a bit for each product/service page.  You will also add one to the home page, and a really strong, longer one to the actual Contact Us page.

3. Integrate Keywords

Because you are going to optimize your website for search (please don’t say you are thinking about doing it – you MUST do it if you want to get found online), you need to integrate keywords into your content.  I do this last.

Ask the search engine optimization expert who is working on your site to do a keyword search based on your products, services, and other industry keywords that you use and are applicable to you.  Go through the list and choose the keywords that have the most relevance for you AND that get high rankings.

Now, read through your website content and make sure those keywords appear on relevant pages.

Image by Flickr user neil conway (Creative Commons)

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Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

Contests, Content and Keywords: 3 Online Marketing Success Stories

February 9th, 2011 ::

coinsHubSpot recently released an eBook written by David Meerman Scott called 11 Examples of Online Marketing Success.  Because I love to learn from other companies and apply their successes to my own business, I couldn’t wait to read it.

Here is what I learned from a museum that used a contest, an e-commerce site that used content, and an industrial manufacturer that used keywords to energize their online marketing efforts (more success stories to come in future blog posts!):

1. Use Contests to Generate PR and Supercharge Your Social Media Marketing

This is a rather extraordinary example, but it is worth including because it is so darn clever!

Last summer, the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Chicago decided to hold a very creative contest.  They wanted a Web-savvy person to live and sleep in their museum for a month, explore it and share their experiences via a blog and social media.  A 24-year-old Chicagoan, Kate McGroarty, won the contest, which included the 30-day museum-living experiment, $10,000 in cash, an array of tech gadgets and lifetime membership.

The contest was covered by mainstream media channels.  Once she was living in the museum, Kate blogged at least once a day, generating a steady flow of comments.  She created videos and uploaded them to YouTube.  She tweeted and created a Facebook page, which has nearly 4,000 likes and is still up (even though the contest ended at the end of November 2010).  Her page invited people to visit MSI’s own Facebook page, which now has over 17,000 likes.

Lesson: Use a creative contest to generate publicity, reach your target audience and expand your presence on social media.

2. Create Unique Content to Attract and Convert Leads

Creating unique, valuable content can really ignite lead generation, as e-commerce site Suitcase.com learned. Last year, they launched a survey via an e-mail invitation that queried customers on luggage usage, travel habits and other luggage-related questions.  They packaged the answers into the Consumer Luggage Report and placed the report on a Web page on their site where visitors could download it.  That page generated a 20 percent conversion rate, and the report was even picked up by Reader’s Digest.  As a result of sharing their knowledge, Suitcase.com has become a thought leader within the rather crowded online luggage e-tailer space.

Lesson: Repurpose content to create buzz, position your company as an industry leader and attract and convert leads.

3. Leverage Keywords to Improve Quality of Leads

I love this example, because it shows how a company in a very unsexy industry can greatly improve lead generation with a very basic online marketing tool: keywords.

SRS Crisafulli sells dredging and pumping products worldwide.  In order to effectively reach their numerous target markets, they decided to do some competitive keyword analysis.  They began using highly searched keywords to determine what products were most in demand, and they created content based on that information to educate potential customers.  By doing so, SRS Crisafulli has been able to generate more high-quality leads that are sales-ready.

Lesson: By understanding your potential customers’ search behavior and needs, you can create the educational content that turns a website visitor into a strong lead.

Have you held a contest, turned a survey into a report, or used keyword research to supercharge your online marketing efforts?  We’d love to hear about your successes!

Image by Flickr user Ca Ribiero (Creative Commons)

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Posted in Branding, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, Social Media, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

9 Reasons to Choose Network Solutions

February 4th, 2011 ::

Every company today, no matter their size and or industry, must have a visible online presence if they want to grow.  You need a website that is optimized for search, has e-commerce capabilities, and has tight security to protect customer information.  You need a mobile website so people who are using their smartphones to conduct research online can find you.  You need a blog and social media integration.

Choosing a company to host, design and support your website can be a nerve-wracking decision.

You could choose a company based on their celebrity spokesperson.

You could choose one based on how cute their mascot is.

You could choose one by playing eeny-meeny-miny-moe.

Or, you could choose a company that has been doing this for years, that you can trust, that delivers value, that resolves issues quickly, and that can support your online marketing efforts.

Here’s why you should choose Network Solutions:

Everything is under one roof. No need to use a handful of Web and online service providers.  Network Solutions offers e-mail hosting; Web hosting, design, and support; e-commerce hosting and design; merchant accounts; SSL certificates; graphic design services; online marketing services; and mobile website design and hosting.  In other words, if you need it in order to have a successful online presence, Network Solutions offers it.

Their website is easy to navigate.  Some e-commerce websites are so cluttered with information and graphics that you can’t find what you’re looking for.  Network Solutions has made it easy to find exactly what you need, and they clearly explain the benefits and features of their products.

Ordering is a snap. On some e-commerce sites, you can barely place your order because so many new products are thrown at you on the checkout page.  Not at Network Solutions!  They don’t want to confuse you; they want to help you and make you happy.

They are innovative. Network Solutions is continually tweaking their products and services and rolling out new ones, like the .ASIA domain extension, goMobi™ mobile website builder, and a new domain validation SSL certificate called the nsProtect™ Secure Xpress Certificate.

They provide great customer service. The reps are friendly, helpful, and able to answer questions or solve issues quickly, whether by e-mail or phone.

They continually offer great promotions.  Not only is Network Solutions’ pricing competitive, but they run special promotions all the time.  Right now, for instance, the domain validation SSL certificate is 40% off and annual hosting packages are 50% off.

They understand small businesses. Together with the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, Network Solutions created the Small Business Success Index to measure how small businesses view their capital management, marketing and innovation, human capital, customer service, IT deployment, and compliance.  The latest study can be accessed via the Small Business Success Index website.

They are a great resource for small businesses. Trying to figure out how to run your business, use social media and grow?  Through this blog, their main blog, and their Women Grow Business blog, Network Solutions provides small businesses owner with the latest information, resources, tips and trends.

They offer a vetted list of vendors and resources for small businesses. Need financing, help setting up an LLC, a CRM, or someone to write your business plan?  Check out their list of partners.

They also clearly have a great sense of humor.  You will smile, and probably laugh out loud, when you watch this Network Solutions parodyvideo  http://bit.ly/gogranny

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Posted in Resources, Small Business | 2 Comments »

GrowSmartBiz Conference: How to Multiply the Effects of SEO With Great Content

November 15th, 2010 ::

One of the Marketing Track sessions I attended at the GrowSmartBiz Conference had a great title–Stories, Content, and the Search Engine Sword Over Your Head–and delivered useful information in spades.  No matter how new or established your business, this session was a great way to learn exactly how to improve your search engine optimization efforts and results.

Ben Cook, the SEO Manager at Network Solutions, moderated the panel of 4 pros, including Tinu Abayomi-Paul, principal of Leveraged Promotion, Dr. Alan Glazier, founder and owner of Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care, Deborah Ager, principal of ClickWisdom, LLC, and Liana Evans, CEO of LiBeck Integrated Marketing.    (You might be curious as to why there’s an optometrist on the panel.  Dr. Grazier has successfully implemented SEO at Shady Grove Eye and become a prolific blogger in the process.)

Here are their tips on using great content to boost your website’s search engine optimization:

Write for your audience! To produce great content specific to your audience, you need to understand what they search for when online.  Use Market Samurai, a keyword analysis tool, to help you figure what people are searching for.  Then you will be able to write content that addresses their needs.

Use long-tail search terms in your content. Long-tail search terms are the descriptive keywords people enter in the search box when they’re conducting research online.  For instance, “children’s navy blue cotton jacket” rather than “children’s jackets”.  The more pages your website has, the more content you’ll have, and the more chances you’ll have at being found for long-tail terms.

Content type is important. Blogs, videos, and podcasts are great for search engine optimization, thanks to plenty of chances for back linking (aka, links from other sites).  All search engines, including Google and Bing, measure how often content is linked and how many views it gets, so the more varied your content, the better.

Make it easy to share content. Twitter makes sharing content and getting links easy as your content is spread from one person to the next.  On your blog, make sure you add “tweet this” and “like” buttons.  Google rewards websites that have links back to it from both new and established websites.

Optimize video and podcasts. Because search engines cannot read videos or podcasts, add a transcript.

The importance of the URL. You can create custom URL shorteners for branding purposes (I had no idea!).  Awe.sm is the first company I found in search results that does this.  Also be sure that your blog’s URLs contain the title of the blog post rather than numbers.

Photo Courtesy Shashi Bellamkonda

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Posted in Branding, Grow Smart Business Conference, Marketing, Search Marketing | No Comments »

SEO for Dummies Part I: On Page Optimization

February 8th, 2010 ::

If you are a business owner, one of the first things you probably did when you started out was launch a website sprinkled with keywords.  How are potential customers going to find you otherwise?   Well, they probably aren’t. Unless your website is optimized for search engines, you are basically invisible online.  After all, how do you usually find businesses online?  You do a search.  And how many listings will you look at once a search engine has generated a list?  Exactly.  If your website does not immediately appear at the top of the list, well, like I just said, you are invisible.  Not good.

Posted by Gerlos to Flickr

Oh, and by the way, my website is not optimized for search engines, so don’t feel bad.

Time to get found online, which means calling in an SEO expert.  Meet Harry Books, President and CEO of Search First Marketing.  Harry has been doing this for a long time and has delivered over 200 SEO training seminars to over 6,000 business owners.  Needless to say, he knows his stuff.  There’s so much stuff to know, in fact, that it quickly became clear that this topic would require two posts.  This is part I and will focus on on-page optimization.  Part II will focus on links.

Here’s what I learned from Harry:

First, some background on SEO.  The reason you want your website to be found is to convert leads into new customers rather than just increase traffic.  Makes sense, right?  If you’re getting 100 hits on your website a month, but none of those hits are turning into customers, well, you’re just wasting your money.  SEO can help with a bunch of things: the messaging on your website, landing pages that keep visitors on your website, call(s)-to-action, and tracking and reporting.

It can sometimes take up to 6 months for SEO to work its magic, but results often start appearing much more quickly than that.  For instance, Harry just did a month end review for a client who had a 65% increase in Google traffic after just 2 months.  Not too shabby!

Anyway, let’s talk about on-page optimization. The biggest mistake people make on their website is giving every page the same title, like your company name for example.  When search engines look at a web page, the title determines what that page is about.   So your title page should include the name of our company plus your location plus what your business actually does.  So a spa’s home page would be titled “Spa Aqua—Washington, DC—Luxury day spa in the heart of Georgetown”. (Tip from Harry: Keep the titles under 65 characters, including spaces.) Since each page contains specific content, each page would have a unique title based on its content.   Keep in mind that search engines tend to reward pages with more content (more means at least 250 words).

To fix this every-page-with-the-same-title problem, you need to create uniqueness for each page on your website.  This requires someone with expertise, as it gets a bit technical.  You need:

  1. A title tag.
  2. A meta-description tag (this is buried in the code and is for search engines).
  3. Meta-keyword tag (this tells search engines more about your site).
  4. Page headers (more HTML stuff).
  5. Alt-tags (alternate text for images, which gives the search engine more information about the image; since a search engine can’t see the image, this helps them contextualize the image and gives you optimization credit).

So, now that we’ve covered text, would you believe that many experts estimate that only 3 of the top 10 ranking criteria are based on on-page elements.  The rest is all about links, those that are from and those that go to your site.  I’ll cover that in my next blog post, and I’ll cover PPC (pay-per-click), which is a more cost-effective way to go if you’re on a limited budget, in an upcoming post.

Don’t forget that Network Solutions also offers an entire array of online marketing solutions, including SEO, PPC, email marketing, local search visibility, and more.   Maybe one day I’ll get myself organized and actually invest in some search marketing tools.  If you are not generating the kind of traffic you need to grow, think about getting yourself some SEO help, whether it’s from Harry, Network Solutions, or someone you meet while you’re out networking.

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Eight Things To Keep In Mind For Your Websites Search Engine Optimization

November 19th, 2009 ::

If content is King then your Search Engine Optimization efforts are your King’s Herald. The guy who is out there, once people are listening, giving out the valuable information about your King. But instead of the shiny horn and scroll of lineage, the Search Engine Optimization Herald uses text and links to allow the web crawlers, the cute name for the automated programs that source out websites and index their content in their lists.

Let me be clear, this isn’t the silver bullet that will push your website to the top page ranking. There are a lot of variables that get that there and with multiple search engines there’s more detail than can be fit in this list of eight things.

What we’re going to go over today are just a few things that will help helps search engines, like Google, be able to better index your site.

1. Title each page with your business name and section title. – Search engines use your title as the top link so it only makes sense you would have your companies name here. Don’t get too wordy and try to fill this space with extra words to try to help. You have between 60 to 70 characters (that’s letters, spaces, and symbols) so use that space wisely.

2. Use keywords on your pages that relate to that pages content. – This is where you leverage your key points in your content to, initially, draw attention to your content. You also want to take this time to also include words and two word phrases revolving around your industry and target markets.

3. Give each page a description based on the pages content. Ok, we’ve gone over the title and keywords, but the description is on more part of the sight that most people don’t keep in mind as they are looking at a search engine. By definition, this is the text that the search engines will display below the link to tell you a little about the site you are looking to find. By describing the content on that page, and a little about your company. Just like the title of your site, depending on the search engine you choose, you have roughly between 156 to 250 characters (letters, spaces, and symbols) to relay the information you want. This isn’t the place you want to get cute and fill it in with words that will boost your site. Your keywords are for that.

4. Name every image…photos and buttons. - This helps for more than search engines. This will help the disabled review your site. By namin>g the alt attribute, commonly referred to as the “alt tag”, you are giving a corresponding text title for every non-text element on your site. If this isn’t making sense, find your local web designer and they’ll go on for hours explaining it. Or you can just shoot me a message.

5.Give your site…a map- Site maps are great, because they help you organize your site as you go through the creation process, but they also provide a page of reference links for the search engines to review your site. The site map will also give viewers a place they can go where there a clean, and clear, direction to the content on your site without all the bells and whistles.

6.Breadcrumbs aren’t just for the birds. - Breadcrumb Navigation is often seen just below the header, and navigation (if it is horizontal), and just above the title of the content. It is a great way for visitors to see the path that took them to this page, but this also provides additional links, just like your site map, for the search engine web crawlers to use when indexing your site. Breadcrumb Navigation will often look like this:

Home > Main Content > Sub Content

7.Leverage free analytics tools. – There are paid analytics tools, but just if you are starting out there are tools like Google Analytics available to you simply for the time of setting up a Gmail account. This will help you determine where people are going on your site and what keywords are working for your site.

8.Remember your King. – The content of your site (the text, the links you create, and even images) help your search engine optimization as well. You may be able to get away with just a title, keywords, a description, and a single image, but you’ll get so much further making sure all of the things we talked about above are in line with the content on your website.

These are just a few efforts that you can implement early on, or even in your current website if you haven’t yet, to help make your site more appealing to web crawlers. Remember, this isn’t the silver bullet to the top page rankings, but it will help.

You can also reach me on Twitter by following me @wickedjava, or on Facebook at facebook.com/mcdougherty.

As all ways, if you have been reading, thank you and stay wicked.

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