Web University

Eleven Step Guide to Understanding SEO – Part 2

One piece of ‘new media jargon’ that has got the vast
majority of business leaders confused is SEO (search engine
optimization). Too many people have been charged too much
for either inappropriate or ineffective SEO services, often
because the supplier does not really understand it either.
This two part article is for people who are not experienced
or very knowledgeable when it comes to SEO – defining what
it is and what it can do.

The introduction and first five steps to SEO heaven
discussed how to get a website ready for an SEO campaign.
In part two (steps 6 to 11), we’ll explore the continuous
and competitive process of earning a high search engine
ranking for a SEO prepared website.

Step 6 to SEO Heaven – Web Analytics

As with any marketing, but particularly for online
marketing, where the tools and results are so effective, it
is essential to measure and track results. Market behaviour
is very predictable. Accordingly, the effectiveness of each
part of your campaign can be compared and optimized. The
options for web analytics vary from free services to very
expensive and customizable packages.

Whichever you choose, don’t put it off. Measure your results
from day one and use them to improve your site and your
marketing campaigns. That old statement ‘I know half my
advertising does not work, if I only knew which half was not
working I’d stop spending it’ is not true on the internet.
You can and must know.

Step 7 to SEO Heaven – Content Building

Part of being ‘the best and most relevant’ result is having
the freshest content, and the search engines look for that
by regular visits to your site and reviewing your site’s
progress. They use a formula, not usually a human being,
unless they detect potential fraud.

Actually, good SEO means a website is never done, and the
fact that it has to change and grow over time gives your
customers a better experience. Search engines reward a
‘natural process’ that adjusts to changes in the market
and your normal business growth.

Providing good quality content that is related to what you
do, but not necessarily aimed at selling something directly,
is a powerful, perhaps the the best, opportunity to increase
the traffic to your website and the exposure of your
business. Most people do not link to pages that only serve
the purpose of making a sale.

This leads to the next step in this 11 step process of
successful search engine optimization for your website.

Step 8 to SEO Heaven – Link Building

The internet works through links, it would not be a “net”
without links. A collection of independent pages that are
not connected to each other cannot be found and, for the
most part, that defeats their purpose. People seeing and
clicking on links to your site make effective inbound links
that search engines like to reward with a higher ranking for
your website. They are also vital for SEO.

Inbound links play an important role in virtually every
search engine when it comes to ranking pages in their search
results. In the normal course of business links are added,
and sometimes removed, all the time. This never ending
organic process is monitored and measured by the search
engines as an indicator of importance and relevance – so it
is advisable to be pro-active in acquiring good inbound
links. There are plenty of sites out there that should link
to you, but don’t know you and your content. Help them to
find your content and encourage linking to it.

Step 9 to SEO Heaven – Engagement, Trust and
Community Building

Like it or not social media is a reality whole sections of
society participate in for hours daily and is a fundamental
indicator of relevance and popularity. Don’t allow your
website to exist in an isolated bubble. Talk to people and
allow them to respond and to interact with you.

People will talk about you with or without your permission.
Much better to seize the initiative and become part of the
discussion. Use it to build trust and deeper relationships
with your customers or potential customers. Use it like
research. Listen to what they say and learn about their
wants and their needs. Listen and take note of comments,
especially criticisms, and use them to improve. You can save
the money you might have spent on focus groups and get
feedback free of charge on the internet.

In relation to SEO, social media provides a huge opportunity
to expand your link building. For your business it increases
your brand exposure for a fraction of the cost of traditional,
more intrusive advertising campaigns that are usually less
effective.

Step 10 to SEO Heaven – Ranking and Traffic Analysis

When you begin, or if you have already started, check where
you are today to be able to track and compare with data in
the future. Look for trends and evaluate the progress
towards your goals. You know those goals which we set in the
first paragraph before we began the campaign. The ones you
should specify before you engage in any type of marketing
campaign. Those goals were measurable I hope? If you view
improving your SEO ranking as a measure of your business
success rather than an essential step to achieving business
success, you will maintain a high SEO ranking for the long
term. Why, because the high traffic that comes with it will
drive your business.

Does the change in ranking yield the traffic you expected?
Does this traffic actually convert? Which leads us neatly
to step 11 of SEO heaven.

Step 11 to SEO Heaven – Conversion Analysis

All of this effort matters not one jot unless you make your
profit number (or the equivalent in not for profit
organizations). It all comes down to one critical factor -
what is your bottom line? Did you make profit or did you
lose money. Web Analytics is part of the process of making
this determination. Focus on the things that work and help
your bottom line and stop doing the things that don’t.
Work on the details to increase visitor conversion to sales.
This requires testing. Don’t try anything upfront without
testing it first. The things that work for others might not
work for you and the same is true the other way around.

Many with experience in the SEO game will tell you that
there is another, more important step that would make this
article 12 steps to SEO heaven. That step is to be sure
only to work with people who can really explain SEO in plain
English. To be blunt, small, independent and one-man-band
web designers rarely get SEO fully and their usually well
meaning efforts end up costing you more than they deliver.
They do get part of the story, but they fail you by wasting
both your money and your time.

Eleven Steps to SEO Heaven – Part 1

Are you fed up with feeling baffled by search engine
optimization (SEO) because of jargon and poor practitioners? Do
you feel you have been charged too much for less than you were
promised? This two part article sets out to explain the process
and put you back in control.

If you have focused objectives and a clear online strategy then
SEO will almost always be a good cost effective addition to the
marketing tool set. The first thing to understand is that search
engine businesses, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, have customers
to satisfy too. Their customers are searching and they expect to
see the ‘best and most relevant’ search results. I expect like
me, you get frustrated if your searches bring irrelevant results
first. No surprise then, that the methods used by the search
engine operators are designed to deliver customer satisfaction.
They work hard to eliminate bogus SEO services that aim to
cheat.

It is possible for you to make your website ‘the best and most
relevant’ for certain searches and to convince the search
engine operator you are just that too. That is SEO. Each of my
11 steps to SEO heaven is necessary. I assume that you will be
committed to a long term marketing strategy, and to measuring
results with a view to adjusting your activity. The steps
include those of preparation as well of those of continuous
repeated activities. The early preparatory steps are perhaps the
most important as errors here will frustrate the effectiveness
of the later ones.

Armed with our clear objectives and online strategy:

Step 1 to SEO Heaven – Keyword Research

A vital first step that should not be undertaken lightly. While
experienced pay-per-click advertisers will know that you can
easily test and change hundreds of keywords in paid search
campaigns, they should understand this not possible for organic
search optimization. It is normally advisable to concentrate on
one to five key phrases for the whole site around a core theme.
Then, for individual pages only one to three phrases. For large
sites with hundreds of pages it is hard to optimize every single
page. The effort and cost of SEO to the full extent produces
diminishing returns.

Step 2 to SEO Heaven – Competitive Intelligence

SEO is competitive. There is only one front page and only one
top slot so it is important to know your competition and perform
better. What are they doing? Where do they rank and for which
keywords? Who is linking to their website and why? The less
competitive your industry is online the easier it is for you to
outperform your competition. This is an important determining
factor in the cost and resources necessary to achieve your
desired SEO outcome.

Step 3 to SEO Heaven – Web Design and Development

Like trying to cable an old building for modern communications
or boosting performance of an obsolete machine, fixing a bad
website design is much tougher than building properly from
scratch. When you create a new website, make sure to consider
search engine friendly design and architecture before and during
the actual development of the website. Almost all template-based
websites are tough to re-engineer for SEO. A good design from
the start will save you a lot of time and money. In most cases
it will put you ahead of a considerable number of your
competitors. In most cases a high performing design for SEO is
also a user friendly design, but occasionally compromise is
necesary.

Step 4 to SEO Heaven – Get Your First Inbound Links

There is no need to pay to submit your website to any search
engine. Just as soon as you create inbound links from other
websites to yours the search engines will find your website.

There are plenty of scam products and services. Avoid them. They
are a waste of your money. No one can guarantee you a number 1
ranking. It must be earned and maintained by being the best and
most relevant.

There are some web directories that are recognized by search
engines and gaining a trade listing there will be a helpful
kick-start to your SEO campaign. Then ask your customers and
suppliers to place a link to your website from theirs. Most will
be pleased for the favor to be returned.

Step 5 to SEO Heaven – Sitemaps

The larger search engines allow webmasters to submit a sitemap
to them via a webmaster console. The search engines also provide
reports and other useful information, such as technical problems
with your websites you might not be aware of via their console.
Even if you decide against the submission of a site map to the
search engines, it is advisable to create an account and
register your website with them, just for the reports and
statistics they provide free of charge and which are invaluable
for your internet marketing efforts.

After completion of the first 5 steps, schedule them for
occasional review. The remaining tasks require regular and
repetitive effort. In Eleven Steps to SEO Heaven (steps 6 to
eleven) we look at taking a website that is a SEO ready site
with a ready to run campaign and look at the steps and work
needed to claim a high search engine ranking.

18 Effective Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Proper Search Engine Optimization, otherwise known as SEO, has
quickly become a popular topic of conversation among website
owners and entrepreneurs. The difference between having a
successful website, and hosting a flop, is often the difference
between whether or not you’ve incorporated proper keywords and
phrases into your webpages.

Learning proper SEO techniques can seem like a daunting task,
especially to those who are not familiar with the concept. The
following list offers 18 simple SEO techniques you should keep
in mind when developing and marketing your website.

1. Make sure your website is initially designed with your search
engine optimization needs in mind. Search engines look for text,
not flashy graphics and cool layouts. The trendiest web designs
will mean nothing if no one is able to find your site.

2. Every page of your website should have a title tag with text
describing either your site or what is on the page. Be sure the
text includes SEO-type keywords instead of the name of your
website. Unless you’re incredibly popular, no one is going to be
looking for you by searching for your name. They’ll most likely
search for a product or service and the keywords you use will
lead them to your site.

3. Consider canonicalization, or whether or not your website
address includes or excludes the www prefix. If you choose to
use the www version of your website, make sure the non-www
version directs users back to the one you use. Make sure you use
your preferred version (http://www.mydomain.com or
http://mydomain.com) every time you place a link to your site on
the web. Never use both!

4. When designing your website, be sure to avoid too many
drop-down menus, confusing image maps, and excessive images. If
you must use any of these methods, be sure to include plenty of
text links for the search engine spiders to find and identify.
Without links, the search engines will not pick up your site
information.

5. It does not matter what type of website extension you use
(ie. .html, .htm. .asp, .php). Search engines do not look at the
web extension and it will not have any impact at all on search
results or ranking.

6. Every page on your website should include a link to your home
page and your sitemap. Make sure every link is the same. Home
page links should go directly to your domain
(http://www.mydomain.com). Make sure your internal links do not
include the additional /index.html or .php text as it is not
needed (ie. http://www.mydomain.com/index.html).

7. Are you sharing a server with other websites? If so, you’ll
want to conduct a black-list check to make sure you are not
sharing a proxy with someone who has been banned by search
engines in the past. Being on the same server as a website with
a poor reputation may damage your own.

8. You’ll hear the same phrase over and over again: “Content is
king”. It is imperative that your website have fresh, unique, and
quality content that is updated on a regular basis. Be sure to
include your favorite keyword phrase within the body of the
content!

9. People are more likely to input a phrase instead of a single
word when conducting internet searches. If your business has a
physical location, incorporate the name of your city into the
text as well. For example, you might use “our Philadelphia
location” instead of “our location”. Including your city name
will increase the chances of your site being seen in location
searches.

10. If the information on your company website doesn’t change
regularly, or remains static, you might want to consider
starting a blog. Search engine spiders are always looking for
fresh content. Use your blog as an advertising tool and link
back to your website within each and every post.

11. Write naturally. The worst thing you can do is try to cram
a zillion keywords into your article or blog entry, making it
messy and difficult to read. Search engines are able to determine
whether or not your text is logical and they will ignore content
with ridiculously high keyword density.

12. Building links to your website is essential to its success.
As a matter of fact, links are like the queen to complement your
king’s fresh content. Choose a keyword phrase and network with
other websites, asking them to place links on their pages. Don’t
hurt your ranking by having non-related websites place haphazard
links. While it may seem great to gather 100s of backlinks,
you’re better off limiting your links to related websites. Ten
relevant links stand a better chance than 100 irrelevant links.

13. Links within your own website should be built with keyword
phrases as well. Try to avoid using generic anchor text such as,
“click here”.

14. Don’t place a list of links on your website. Always place a
link within at least two to three lines of related content. The
better your description, the more likely it is someone will click
on the link.

15. Don’t limit your keyword or phrase to text links. You should
also incorporate your keywords into your image alt tag and domain
name, whether it is part of the name itself or contained within
the description.

16. Try to avoid using frames, Ajax, and Flash as much as
possible. None of these functions are keyword or search engine
friendly and will hurt your SEO results.

17. Before your website can be found by the search engine
spiders, it must be indexed. Search engines such as Google have
regular submission forms, but it can take days or weeks for your
form to be processed. Having a highly ranked website place a
link to your site is a sure-fire way to have your site indexed
quickly.

18. No matter what you hear, don’t be overly concerned with the
Google PageRank of your website. A website that is properly
developed and contains good content can outrank a website with
higher PageRank.

Reverse SEO: Restoring Online Reputations

Reverse SEO fits seamlessly within the context of your online
reputation management (ORM) program. It is the quickest, most
effective solution for dealing with bad press that has
surfaced on the search engines about you or your company. By
pushing negative listings from the front page of Google,
Yahoo, and Bing, reverse SEO shields you from the damaging
commentary of others.

Negative publicity online has become one of the most
frustrating challenges for companies. It is typically
anonymous. Names are often unattached to forum threads, blog
posts, and even entire websites. Therefore, it is difficult to
track and address the source of the complaint. Moreover, the
growing popularity of social networking platforms has made
it easier than ever for anyone with a mild grievance to give
weight to their grudge. If you or your company have been the
target of bad press online, it may be time to launch a
reverse SEO campaign.

In this article, we’ll clarify how negative publicity gains
traction within the search engines, and how it can lead to a
public relations nightmare. We’ll also provide a working
blueprint for executing a reverse SEO campaign and
controlling the damage.

Controlling Bad Publicity With Reverse Search Engine
Optimization

To appreciate why reverse SEO is effective, you should
understand how negative press takes root within the top
search listings in the first place. Google, Yahoo, and Bing
rank pages based on a large number of criteria. If a website
and its individual pages satisfy the most important of those
criteria, those pages will rank well.

A lot of the bad press that targets companies (possibly even
your own) is placed on websites that meet key ranking
parameters in the search algorithms. That means the negative
publicity can climb into the top positions and gain exposure.
When people search for you or your company, they’ll see the
bad press. That damages your reputation.

Reverse search engine optimization is an ORM strategy that
pushes negative publicity from the top search positions. By
moving the bad press off the first page of listings, reverse
SEO limits its exposure and stifles its impact.

Ingredients For An Effective Reverse SEO Campaign

Like search engine marketing, reverse SEO uses a methodical,
multi-pronged approach to protect your online reputation. The
first step is to identify the sites and pages that contain
negative publicity about your company and that are ranking for
important keywords. Those keywords might include your name,
that of your company, or key employees.

The second step of reverse SEO is to analyze those sites and
pages for their respective ranking authority. That will help
you determine the effort and tools you’ll need to use in
order to move them from the first page of listings within
Google, Yahoo, and Bing. A negative PR blitz that is
spreading across social networking sites is more difficult
to remove than a single blog post that is on a non-authoritative
domain.

The third step is to gather the necessary tools and execute
your reverse SEO campaign. Such tools might include
optimized press releases, a new network of competing sites
and blogs, social media profiles, and a social bookmarking
program. Reverse SEO may also include heavy content
syndication to build high-quality links. A search engine
marketing specialist will have these tools at their
disposal.

Reverse SEO Begins Before Negative Press Emerges

The best time to launch a reverse SEO campaign is before bad
publicity appears in the search engines. This is due to the
way that the pages link. A page will rank well within the
search engines if there are enough thematic links pointing
toward it. However, once it ranks, it will gain exposure.
That exacerbates the problem.

Negative press can spread rapidly as people attach the press
to their own blogs, sites, forums, and social media accounts.
That creates a growing portfolio of links pointing toward the
damaging press, cementing its position in the top listings.
It becomes more difficult to address. By launching a reverse
SEO campaign upfront, you can prevent the negative publicity
from gaining exposure in the first place.

Protect Your Online Reputation With Reverse SEO

Reverse SEO should play a key role in your online reputation
management program. It is far too easy for unsatisfied
customers, resentful employees, lazy journalists, and
malicious competitors to tarnish your name. And when it
happens, it is usually done under the cover of anonymity.
Anonymity makes the complaint or grievance impossible to
address in private.

Launch your reverse SEO campaign now – before trouble
strikes and the damage begins to gain momentum in the search
engines. In a year’s time, you’ll be glad you did.

DIY SEO with a Foolproof Twist

As the founder of an independent SEO firm I am asked almost
daily “What is the easiest way to optimize a web site?” It
is harder to answer than you might think. It depends on who
is asking and what their knowledge or experience level is.
But last week I read an article written by the person who
taught me search engine optimization ten years ago, and I
now have an answer… Learn the secret recipe, then use it.

There is no magic bullet that works on every web page like
so many SEO ‘miracle’ books and programs would have us
believe. Each page has its own unique ’secret recipe’ that
has to be discovered and then applied because every single
page it is trying to outrank, is unique. If this seems
confusing, just remember my new favorite quote that I
borrowed from that author’s website: “Think about it.
Anyone could bake Mrs. Fields famous cookies – possibly
better than Mrs. Fields herself – with the secret recipe.
And that’s all SEO is; knowing the secret recipe for any
given web page.”

And it really is that simple. We will look at how to
discover the secret recipe in a moment, but first there is
one crucial thing to understand about search engine
optimization before you go any further:

SEO means making a web page as highly visible as
possible to search engines… for a given keyword.

Just about everyone knows the first part; but too many
people forget the second.

Remember that your soon to be visitor types in very
specific keywords (search terms) on search engines like
Google, because they are looking for something very
specific.

If you know your most important keyword that is great! If
not, do not waste your money on expensive keyword software
that SEO professionals use. Use a free keyword tool like
Google’s, found at:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Just enter in the keywords that you think people are
searching for to find your product or service and then
check the search numbers for those and related keyword
suggestions.

So what about the secret recipe? Once you know your main
keyword or keywords you need to see how well your site is
optimized for that term already. This is called getting
your SEO Quality Score.

What you do is make a list of the most important
optimization aspects of a webpage, for the search engine of
your choice (because Google looks for different things than
Yahoo or Bing.)

Here are ten critical factors for Google, but there are
nearly 140 to be aware of…

* Keyword use in document title
* Keyword use in body text
* Link texts of inbound links
* Global link popularity of web site
* Keyword density
* Keyword position and proximity
* Number of words
* Readability level of web page
* Keyword use in H1 headline texts
* HTML validation of web page to W3C standards

Once you have all of this information for your webpage, you
need to get it for the pages currently occupying the top
ten positions for that keyword and then see how your page
compares.

You can buy software that does a lot of this for you but it
generally costs $500 to $2,500 for the ones that really
work and even then you might need to buy an hour of an SEO
consultant’s time to help you really understand it.

Doing it yourself is very educational. You will be an SEO
pro after a couple of these. So if you have the time, I
would not hesitate.

In my case I did not have the time – or let’s be honest,
the patience – to invest what would be 20 plus hours doing
this manually and not really understanding what I was
looking for. At the time I was a lawn sprinkler installer
looking to optimize my company webpage and knew nothing
about SEO, except that it was too expensive for me to hire
someone else to do it. So I went the cheap and easy route
paying a company called DotCom Pirates (at
http://www.dotcompirates.com) $50 for something they
called their SEO To Go package that reviewed my site for
all 140 SEO factors and provided plain English instructions
to fix every aspect of it. I did most of them and hit
number two on Google.

Here’s my dirty little secret… Realizing this was much
easier than breaking my back in irrigation, I picked up a
couple local shops as SEO customers, ordered reports for
those sites, followed the directions and my SEO business
was born. I no longer need their help, but it made for some
easy success when I needed it most.

Knowing the secret recipe is the foolproof answer to DIY
SEO. Once you have the secret recipe it’s easier than you
ever thought possible and you’ll be laughing all the way to
the bank with the money you saved.