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The Real Deal on Search Engine Optimization
Sitepoint's Mike Hudson wrote an article that is a must-read for optimizing your pages for search engines. No fluff. No magic bullets. Just good solid advice. My clients receive these e-mails that promise instant improvements in Google rankings. They wonder why I don't know the quick tricks. I always have to explain that the real deal is the agricultural model ("you plant the seeds, you water the seeds, you wait, and you reap the harvest"). Some quick-fix tricks have worked but only until the search engines discover them and end the game. Then, you're back to some other cheating strategy. Better to do the good work up front and save your money.
Contrarian View
There are only two things that matter in SEO: writing great content for your users, and building links into that content. Everything else is a distraction.
This advice comes from Dan Crow, the Product Manager for Google Crawl Systems, who speaks regularly at SEO conferences. Forget everything else, he says, just focus on two things: great content and great links.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of preparing your site to be easily found on the internet. It is an ongoing process that changes to meet evolving developments.
But ever-changing algorithms seem to confound the regular user who can't seem to stay ahead of whatever new wave technique is in vogue this week. It can seem like a constantly moving target designed to prevent you from learning their secrets.
It is true that Google and other search engines are constantly tweaking their techniques. But these techniques are not as hard to grasp if you understand that they are more like evolution than bait-and-switch.
For example, a decade ago, keywords were the theme. Web masters used techniques such as repeating keywords in white type on a page where it would be seen by the search engine but not visible to the visitor. The repetition would cause a page to rank higher than another with less repetitious key words.
This was a "cheat" and easily detected by search engines engineers, who quickly corrected their algorithms to prevent this. Today, search engines actually penalize these and other techniques which gives rogue sites an unfair advantage in search engine listings.
These old-fashioned techniques are largely a thing of the past, although you probably have a message in your inbox now that promises amazing results for only $59.95.
What works today?
The key to effective SEO is straightforward methodical practices that you can implement today. The methods are simple, straightforward, but require some work on your part to improve your rankings.
SEO experts use the term "organic" to describe the natural ranking of your pages in a search hierarchy.
Authority sites
Before we buckle down to the simple things that you can do right away, I would like to mention one element that is important, if a bit out-of-reach for most small businesses. Nevertheless, it is important for you to know.
Search engines, especially Google, characterize certain sites as authority sites. These are the huge sites that have millions of visitors and are trusted as the embodiment of certain collections of information. CNN, NPR, and newspaper sites are considered authority sites because they are a reliable source of information. So are American Express, CNET, Smithsonian Institute, and so on because they are places millions of people go to get reliable information.
When an authority site links to a site as a source, some of that authority conveys to the linked site. So its a good thing to be mentioned or linked to from an authority site.
Here's the bad news. The common small web site is unlikely to be mentioned by an authority site. Not to be negative but that's the status. It is a mountain very difficult to climb but good to know about. Now let's concentrate on something we can do something about.
How can you improve your Google position?
Improving your standings is an on-going, evolving disciplines that requires some study and work. But you can dramatically improve your position in Google with a few key tasks.
Here are four things you can do right away?
- Get other Web sites to link to yours.
- Speed up the loading speed for your pages.
- Separate content from presentation (i.e., CSS)
- Learn how to use landing pages.
Now, before you ask how long is "right away," let me say that this is not an overnight process. Unlike those e-mails that promise immediate #1 Google rankings, I am going to tell you that this will take some time and some effort. Expect between two to four months before real change occurs.
But a little work can go a long way toward helping others find you on the Web.
Links from other sites to yours
Do you have friends or affiliates who could benefit from a link to your site. Or could you benefit from a link to theirs? Then put their link on your site and ask them to put their link on yours. The goal is to create interaction between several sites. Don't worry about link farms and irrelevant relationships. Just work with the people and sites that you know.
Also, when you submit comments to other sites, be sure to list your URL. That creates an automatic link back to your site.
Speed up page loading
It may seem curious to address page loading on in SEO article but it is relevant. After all, when your page take more than five seconds to load, you are testing a visitor's patience. What does it matter if your SEO got them to the right web site only to lose them as they try to navigate through sluggish pages.
So, start now to skinny up your pages and templatize them.
Separate content from presentation
A web page is made up of content (what you can see) and coding style (what you cannot see but what make the pages more attractive to the reader). Both are necessary. To the greatest extent possible, you should separate style and content. This is done through something called cascading style sheets. A style sheet dictates the fonts and layout of a page and not improves the attractiveness of your pages, but makes each web page load faster.
This separation of style from content helps with search engine optimization, as well. And helps improve the overall "stickiness" of your web site.
Landing Pages
The third bullet, about landing pages, is another key to increase inbound traffic. Instead of sending all visitors to your home page, its best to redirect them to a page that addresses their immediate need. A landing page can help you do that. Because a landing page is all about one topic. It assumes that the visitors is interested in getting fast information about that topic instead of taking a leisurely stroll around your web site.
A landing page should contain all the relevant information necessary to make a buying decision about that product or service. Or at least all the information necessary to move the visitor to your next goal (i.e., ask for a brochure).
A landing page has a response device, such as a form, that can be easily filled out. Or a phone number for immediate contact.
Landing pages work in conjunction with your home page to help the visitor receive a positive response to your company and its web site.
If content is the king and usability is the queen, relevance is the prince!
30 Advanced techniques for optimizing your Web site
Yoast's post on Twitter analytics
The SEO checklist The way to improve your organic rankings is to produce good content in your pages.
Here is a list of good elements of content.
Do you have compelling headlines on every page that nails the page's purpose?
Are the headlines marked up with an h1 tag?
Are you using landing pages effectively?
Are your pages quick to load and optimized for most browsers?
Do you have your phone number and e-mail listed in the footer of every page so that you are easy to contact?
Is it easy to contact Support resources on your site?
Do you have a physical address listed for your Web site that substantiates you as a legitimate bricks and mortar business?
Is your content relevant to your site?
Have you included case studies and testimonials that use actual customer names?
Do you have a "contact us" form that makes it easy to reach you?
Do you have an About Us section that lists your principle officers and gives information about your affiliations and reputation?
Do you have a schedule for regularly updating content?
Do you use landing pages to draw your visitors into the site and help them find what they are looking for?
Are your Web site rankings improving over time?
Are visitors spending more time on your target pages?
Are you clear on your objectives for your Web site and how this relates to building your business?
Does your Web offering clearly solve your target customers' problem?
Is your site standards-compliant (and therefore look basically the same in all browsers)?
Do you have an up-to-date site map that fully reveals the navigation of your site?
Does you Web site allow you to interact with your customers in real time (or very quickly)? Do you have a low bounce rate for key pages (that is, are visitors NOT quickly clicking away because your page is irrelevant to them)?
Do your pages enable visitor feedback?
Can visitors easily contact you through phone, Twitter, chat, or e-mail?
SEO Tools for improving your position
10 best ways to improve your SEO position
Bill Hartzer is a SEO expert and a good writer. in very plain talk, he reduces SEO goobledegook down to what's important and actionable. He writes a blog and consulting (and breeds Labradors).
4 R's of SEO: Robots, Ranking, Relevance & Results
