Free search engine optimization SEO advice.

Making your website search engine friendly.

If you are interested in getting your current website, or a future one, placed well in the search engines then you have probably spent a good amount of time researching search engine optimization. In a nut shell, search engine optimization is a set of steps you take to ensure that your website receives a good ranking in the search engines, thereby providing you with more visitors to your website. To help you along here are some things we have learned that may make the entire process of optimizing your website for search engine inclusion easier.

1: Get in Google and you've got it made
In march of 2006 Google held 42.7% of the search engine market share. That means that almost half of the searches made online, were made using the Google search engine. That being said, if you can get your website into decent position in Google, you stand a good chance of it getting a good search engine ranking in all of the other sites that matter. Rounding out the top three are Yahoo and MSN search. And even if you only get into Google, if you can get in to decent position it may be all of the traffic you need to turn a sale every now and then.

2: Keywords-smewords
We recently performed a test with a new client's website to see if the use of keywords or a description within a website's meta tags would effect its inclusion and placement within the Google search engine.
We purposely did not include any keywords or a description within the meta tags. It took about three months, but the site is currently listed at number six under the main keyword that our client wanted it to come up under. This should tell us that meta tags really don't mean a whole lot to Google. It's still a good idea to use them however, since MSN and Yahoo may use them.

3: Main Page Text is the Key
Gone are the days of intro pages and splash pages with enter buttons. We currently only have one client that uses an intro page with an enter button and its because they absolutely insisted upon it. We've learned over time that what engines like Google really feed off of is the text that is on your main page, or the first page people see when they click on your link or enter your domain name into a web browser. That's why its a good idea to be very descriptive about who you are and what you do on your main page. When you write your main page text include as many keyword phrases within the text that relate to your business or service as you can. Google uses this text to decide what kind of site you have, and under what keywords it should be listed. And, if Google thinks that your site is more relevant on a particular topic than a site already indexed by their search engine, they might just give you a higher listing above the already established website.

4. #1 placement scams.
Beware of anyone that claims that they can get you in the top five under any given keyword on Google or any other search engine. As your Grandma used to say, "If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is."

5. Tricks that get you banned.
There is such a thing as getting penalized by Google, and several of the other major search engines, by using tricks on your website to try and better your position in the engines. If your designer suggests using hidden text, keywords that aren't relevant to your business, pages that redirect visitors to pages other than where they intended to go, or any other types of trickery, you run the risk of getting penalized and getting your site bumped way down the list.

6. Oh you think you know?
A big mistake a lot of people make when using keyword phrases within their website text and meta tags is using keyword phrases that people really aren't searching for to find a product or service. It may seem obvious to you that "Acme storage units" is a good search phrase for your storage business, but there may be a good chance that people are actually searching for "Chicago mini storage." The best way to find out what keyword phrases potential clients are actually using is to use a keyword tool. Overture.com currently has a keyword selection tool that you can use for free on their website. You can put in a keyword phrase and they will tell you how often it is searched for on their plethora of websites and online advertising partner's sites. Then, below the keyword phrase you entered they will also show you anywhere from 5-100 other phrases that are similar to the ones you entered, as well as how many times THEY were used. This can be very valuable since now instead of guessing what keyword phrases you should use within your website's text, you have a list of what people are actually searching for. The whole point of using keyword phrases on your website is to draw visitors to your site who are inputting the same phrases into search engines, phrases that actually relate to what you do.
OVERTURE KEYWORD SELECTION TOOL>

7: A good title says a lot.
Another way that search engines decide what your website is about and how to rank you is your website's title. It's what appears at the very top of the internet browser box when you go to any site. Your title should include your business, service or group name, your location if your service is regionally specific, as well as your main keyword phrase, the big one you've researched and actually know people are using to try and find businesses just like yours on the search engines.

8: Won't you be my link buddy?
Yet another aspect of the Search Engine Optimization game is external links. These are links from other websites, that somehow relate to yours, to your website. The more external links you have, the more popular the search engines, especially Google, think your website is. Therefore they use your link popularity as a gauge when deciding how to rank you under your given keywords. To be a good link buddy you will need to have a links page on your website so that when someone agrees to link to you, you can link to them as well. It's also important to exchange links with quality websites that are already listed in Google and have a decent ranking. To figure this out you will need to download the Google Toolbar, located at Google.com. Once this handy tool is installed within your internet browser you can use it to check any website's Google ranking. When you go to a website the Google toolbar will show you its ranking on a scale from one to ten. One being low and ten being high. Yahoo.com for instance has a Google ranking of 9. Our website currently has a Google ranking of 5, which is just about right for a service oriented business with 30 or so external links from quality, relatable websites. Don't bother trading links with websites that have a low or no Google ranking, it won't help.
GOOGLE TOOLBAR>

9: I'm not ignoring you, I just don't care.
It's important to note the things that are a non-issue with Google and some of the other majors, again, get in Google and your golden. Google feeds off of your web page's actual text. Text that a visitor can rollover, copy, and paste is actual text. Text that's buried within a flash file is not actual text, its an image of text. That being said, Google ignores Flash on your website. It also ignores Java navigation and most other types of non-html code. So, if you've got a main page that has all of your text included within a Flash animation, Google sees that as a blank page, and they don't rank blank pages very high.

10: Spiders get lost too.
All of the search engines have what is called a spider. Basically it is a software program that locates your link off of another website already listed within that search engine. The program then "spiders" your page and decides whether or not to add it to the search engine. Spiders follow actual html links off of your page to get to other pages on your website. Actual html links include text links and image links, they DO NOT include fancy java roll over navigations. If you only have java rollover navigation on your website and not actual text links to your other pages, the spider may only add your main page to the search engine, when you really want it to add every page. Keep in mind that every page that is listed within the search engines is
another chance for people to find you. If the search engine only lists your main page, they only have one chance to find you. So, feel free to use the fancy flash or java navigation buttons, but on your main page be sure to add some simple text links at the bottom of your website to all of your other important pages.

A final note.
While it’s feasible that you could build a website on your own and make it search engine friendly using the steps above, it will probably be more beneficial to hire a website designer knowledgeable in search engine optimization. The reasoning behind this is that since they do this kind of thing all the time, its second nature to them. While you on the other hand, will be learning as you go. When starting a new business time is of the essence, and the less time you spend on your website, the more time you have for your actual business at hand. To that effect we specialize in small business information based websites. Every site we design uses some or all of the methods listed above to insure decent search engine placement. And, if any client is unhappy with their placement in the search engines we work with them to try and make it better. If you are starting a new business and want an eye catching website that is search engine, and visitor friendly, then please consider our website design services.

CLICK HERE TO REVIEW OUR WEBSITE PACKAGES

This article was written by CJ Hughes for LogoDesign-WebDesign.com
© 2006 CJ Hughes, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.