Search Engine Optimization Techniques & Tips

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engines via the “natural” or unpaid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.

Optimizing a website involves editing a websites content and html and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. - wikipedia

1. First and most important: Do your research to find out which keywords and phrases potential clients would most likely use to search for your product or service online. To achieve top search engine results for your website you need to make sure search engines can easily identify and understand what your website is about. Your website will rank well and receive more traffic from quality prospects if your key search words are used effectively throughout your website. Make sure your keywords are used extensively in your website’s content although you do need to be careful not to overuse these key words, as there are specific keyword weight and density rules you should aim for. If your key words are over used your website could be considered spam and may be blacklisted or banned from certain search engines.

2. Your domain name is another very important tool for achieving high-ranking results in all search engines. It does not matter so much what the extension is eg. .com, .net etc. What matters most is if your domain name is relevant to your business and the search terms potential clients may use to find your website. For example if you sell maple syrup and your domain name is themaplestore.com you may not achieve high rankings when people search for maple syrup in the search engines. On the other hand if you had named your website maple_syrup_store.com, the key words maple syrup are already in your domain name which ensures higher rankings for those key words. It may also improve your rankings to register many different domain names with your key search words in the domain name and have them all pointing to the same website.

3. Ensure all meta tags for your website including; page title, keywords, and description properly describe your business or service or search terms that are likely to be used to find your business or product. Title tags are used to identify and organize website content by search engine robots. Each title tags for each of your website pages should provide a title and key words and descriptions specifically pertaining to each page of your website while remaining relevant to your products or services offered. This ensures you will receive more relevant visitors from search engine traffic. Relevant website traffic is traffic that could potentially result in a sale due to a website surfer in the proper target market finding your website in a search engine.

4. A strategically designed system of internal links is an excellent way to get search engines to identify your individual website pages. This also helps visitors navigate your site easily. Text links using your key words and linking them to other pages in your website are an excellent method you can utilize to achieve higher ranking results in search engines such as Google for your key words.

5. High quality reciprocal external links are another important tool in achieving higher website rankings in search engines for your key words. Reciprocal external links are links from your website to other websites that offer complimentary products, services or articles relating to your business products or services. This ensures higher rankings only when you link to other reputable sites with good rankings.

6. Naming all your .html pages names of a search engine phrase. For example name your contact page graphic_design.html instead of contact.html or whatever key words you want recognized. This will show the search engines you are selling graphic design, not contacts! Also putting an underscore between pertinent words helps the search engines to decipher the true key search words easier instead of attempting to decipher key words from three words placed together with no underscores between them to differentiate each word.

7. Bolding of your key words and strategic usage of H1 – H6 headings will also help immensely with your sites’ rankings. The way you word the information on your website pages and titles throughout your website by placing key search words and phrases in your headings and bolding the fonts in these key search words and phrases will greatly increase your chances of higher search engine rankings.

8. Adding alternate image descriptions using your key words in the correct density will also increase your search engine visibility. For example, it is recommended you not use your key word or phrase for the alternate image wording for your photos more than 3 times per page or the search engines may think your website is spam. If they find your website to be spam they may blacklist your website and ban you from their search engine.

9. Adding robots and or sitemaps to your website may also help search engines find your site easier.

10. Submitting your website to search engines and business directories pertaining to your area of expertise is another highly important factor in determining your position in the search engines. You need to submit your website to www.dmoz.org as well as Yahoo, Google, Bing and other widely used search engines. You should also find business directories in your area and add your website and information to as many directories as possible. Directories can be for your town or for your specific business. For example if you are selling engineering services you may want to Google engineering directories in your area and add your site to those directories.

11. Once you have optimized your site following the above guidelines it may take a couple months for the changes to start working. You now need to add Google analytics tracking to all pages of your website. This way you can track where your hits are coming from and if you are now getting more hits after you finished optimizing your site. You can also find out what town the hits are originating from, what time of day, what browser they are using to view your site, how long they visited your site, what pages they viewed, what search engine they found your site on, what key words they typed in to find your website and much more. If you have a .php shopping cart website you can even track how many orders came through each day, how many products you sold, how much money you made, how many orders you had from the same person and so much more. You can even set up a weekly or monthly report to email you the statistics.

12. Now that you have set up analytics on your website you can compare what hits you were getting before you optimized the site and how many hits you are now getting. You are now ready to compare your search engine optimization results with your competitors’ sites that are vying for the same key search words or phases are your company.  A great program for analyzing your website as well as competitors’ websites is WEB CEO.

It is important to keep in mind that search engine optimization only gets potential customers to your website. Once they arrive, you must ensure that your website is of high quality with easy to navigate links as well as a pleasing layout and design coupled with properly organized, relevant content to entice them to purchase your product or service.