Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization

Overview:
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an ongoing process to build a website so that it will receive the desired online traffic. The elaborate process involves creating a website with plenty of quality content on an ongoing basis, proper structure with ideal page names, meta data (keywords, description), inbound links, sitemaps and competitors analysis. Although a lot of work can be done initially to set the site up for SEO, it can be an ongoing process as the website evolves and new content needs to be included to help the site receive more traffic.

Content:
One factor of SEO that has been around since the 90s is content. Content is the most important for many reasons. The more content a site has, the more different combinations of phrases and words that can show up in seacrh results. Also, Google like to think they index pages based on how a human would index the pages. Therefore, a quality reference would be positioned high on the list. One more reason why quality is very important is to acquire returning visitors. If your site does get a good ranking and does not satisfy readers, it will not be bookmarked or explored. It would be exited almost as fast as it was discovered.
Meta Tags; Names and Keywords:
The easiest way to start the SEO process is to register domain names that are ideal search terms, such as vancouvermechanic.com. Words like this would automatically help a car mechanic get a higher ranking when someone searches Google for ‘car mechanic in Vancouver’ or ‘Vancouver Car Mechanic’. Furthermore, if the home page used ‘Car Mechanic’ as the title name,  ‘car mechanic’ is used in sequence in the article appropriately without spam, and the article has ‘car mechanic’ as keywords, this formula could achieve decent seach results. For small businesses, having two websites, one written as their company site and one written for the subject would bring in better results than just having one site. 

Researching Keyword Popularity:
Time and time again, webmasters receive calls from people that want a website to rank at the top for certain keywords. In some cases, using specialized keywords that are not popular, such as ‘Vancouver outdoor taco stands’ would be easier to rank higher than keywords like ‘Reimax’ or ‘Vancouver real estate’. A multi-million dollar company like Reimax is not going to be shoved out of position for a budget $200 website, no matter what. With this in mind, the website owner needs to find exploits that will be beneficial on the web.

Blogs and Forums:
Spending time to write new content every so often will allow for better SEO. Blogs and forums make SEO simple because they can automatically create page titles and keywords to match the content. Or, each page can be customized to have specific keywords and titles. Blogs are also very user friendly. The user can login, write and insert images more simply than using a Word processor.

Rewriting URLs:
With Content Management Systems, there are built-in SEF and SEO tools that can rewrite URLs. In order to rewrite URLs, there is a .htaccess file that allows rewrite conditions. These components that can be used for SEO vary considerably. For example, Joomla has built in SEF / SEO that rewrites URLs in content pages and there are some third party components. Some SEF components can rewrite any URL while some cannot rewrite URLs for other third party components such as Forums. Third party SEF / SEO components will rewrite a larger selection of URLs or they can allow you to make custom titles and tags for any page.

Link Building:
Link building can be done with third parties who provide a service for making quality links. Text links and banner purchases can also be made on some websites with high pageranks. Alternatively, many blogs and forums on the Internet, and classified ad postings like Craigslist allow you to insert free links into the posting. 

Site Submission:
Your website should be submitted to the ‘Big Three’; Google, Yahoo and Bing. They all have free submissions. The next level after submitting content is to create sitemaps, especially for large websites with hundreds of URLs.

Sitemaps:
With Google, you can sign into webmaster tools with a gmail account and use their tools site as submitting sitemaps. With Yahoo, you can login with your Yahoo Messenger id and have an account to insert sitemaps. With Bing, you can login with a hotmail account and keep track of sitemaps.

Time:
Generally speaking, long-term websites stay on solid ground while new websites need more work to become established.

Conclusion:
Search Engine Optimization is quite a lengthy process. With a prepared website and a simple follow through plan to submit content that is created to reach your audience, you have begun the process for which can evolve, grow and receive abundant traffic.

July 6, 2009 by kent