Ten Tips to the Top of the Search Engines
by Jill Whalen
Completely Revamped and Updated October 2005
Having a website that gets found in Google, Yahoo, and MSN,
etc. isn't hard to do, but it can be difficult to know where to
begin. Here are my latest and greatest tips to get you started:
- Do not purchase a new domain unless you have to. Due to
Google's aging
delay for all new domains, your best bet is to use your
existing domain/website if at all possible. If you're
redesigning or starting from scratch and you have to use a
brand-new domain for some reason, you can expect to wait a good
9-12 months before your site will show up in Google for any
keyword phrases that are important to you.
- Optimize your site for your target audience, not for the
search engines. This may sound counterintuitive, but hear me
out. The search engines are looking for pages that best fit the
keyword phrase someone types into their little search box. If
those "someones" are typing in search words that
relate to what your site offers, then they are most likely
members of your target audience. You need to optimize your site
to meet *their* needs. If you don't know who your target
audience is, then you need to find out one way or another. Look
for studies online that might provide demographic information,
and visit other sites, communities, or forums where your target
audience might hang out and listen to what they discuss. This
information will be crucial to your resulting website design,
keyword research, and copywriting.
- Research your keyword phrases extensively. The phrases
you think your target market might be searching for may very
well be incorrect. To find the optimal phrases to optimize for,
use research tools such as KeywordDiscovery,
Wordtracker,
Google AdWords, and Yahoo Search Marketing data. Compile lists
of the most relevant phrases for your site, and choose a few
different ones for every page. Never shoot for general keywords
such as "travel" or "vacation," as they are
rarely (if ever) indicative of what your site is really about.
- Design and categorize your site architecture and navigation
based on your keyword research. Your research may uncover
undiscovered areas of interest or ways of categorizing your
products/services that you may wish to add to your site. For
instance, let's say your site sells toys. There are numerous
ways you could categorize and lay out your site so that people
will find the toys they're looking for. Are people looking for
toys to fit their child's stage of development? (Look for
keyword phrases such as "preschool toys.") Or are they
more likely to be seeking specific brands of toys? Most likely,
your keyword research will show you that people are looking for
toys in many different ways. Your job is to make sure that your
site's navigation showcases the various ways of searching. Make
sure you have links to specific-brand pages as well as specific
age ranges, specific types of toys, etc.
- Program your site to be "crawler-friendly." The
search engines can't fill out forms, can't search your site,
can't read JavaScript links and menus, and can't interpret
graphics and Flash. This doesn't mean that you can't use these
things on your site; you most certainly can! However, you do
need to provide alternate means of navigating your site as
necessary. If you have only a drop-down sequence of menus to
choose a category or a brand of something, the search engine
crawlers will never find those resulting pages. You'll need to
make sure that you always have some form of HTML links in the
main navigation on every page which link to the top-level pages
of your site. From those pages, you'll need to have further HTML
links to the individual product/service pages. (Please note that
HTML links do NOT have to be text-only links. There's nothing
wrong with graphical image navigation that is wrapped in
standard <a href> tags, as the search engines can follow
image links just fine.)
- Label your internal text links and clickable image alt
attributes (aka alt tags) as clearly and descriptively as
possible. Your site visitors and the search engines look at
the clickable portion of your links (aka the anchor text) to
help them understand what they're going to find once they click
through. Don't make them guess what's at the other end with
links that say "click here" or other non-descriptive
words. Be as descriptive as possible with every text and
graphical link on your site. The cool thing about writing your
anchor text and alt attributes to be descriptive is that you can
almost always describe the page you're pointing to by using its
main keyword phrase.
- Write compelling copy for the key pages of your site based
on your chosen keyword phrases and your target market's needs,
and make sure it's copy that the search engines can
"see." This is a crucial component to having a
successful website. The search engines need to read keyword-rich
copy on your pages so they can understand how to classify your
site. This copy shouldn't be buried in graphics or hidden in
Flash. Write your copy based on your most relevant keyword
phrases while also making an emotional connection with your site
visitor. (This is where that target audience analysis comes in
handy!) Understand that there is no magical number of words per
page or number of times to use your phrases in your copy. The
important thing is to use your keyword phrases only when and
where it makes sense to do so for the real people reading your
pages. Simply sticking keyword phrases at the top of the page
for no apparent reason isn't going to cut it, and it just looks
silly. (Purchase and read our Copywriting
Combo for exact tips on how to implement this correctly.)
- Incorporate your keyword phrases into each page's unique
Title tag. Title tags are critical because they're given a
lot of weight with every search engine. Whatever keyword phrases
you've written your copy around should also be used in your
Title tag. Remember that the information that you place in this
tag is what will show up as the clickable link to your site at
the search engines. Make sure that it accurately reflects the
content of the page it's on, while also using the keyword
phrases people might be using at a search engine to find your
stuff.
- Make sure your site is "link-worthy." Other
sites linking to yours is a critical component of a successful
search engine optimization campaign, as all of the major search
engines place a good deal of emphasis on your site's overall
link popularity. You can go out and request hundreds or
thousands of links, but if your site stinks, why would anyone
want to link to it? On the other hand, if your site is full of
wonderful, useful information, other sites will naturally link
to it without your even asking. It's fine to trade links; just
make sure you are providing your site visitors with only the
highest quality of related sites. When you link to lousy sites,
keep in mind what this says to your site visitors as well as to
the search engines.
- Don't be married to any one keyword phrase or worried too
much about rankings. If you've done the above 9 things
correctly, you will start to see an increase in targeted search
engine visitors to your site fairly quickly. Forget about where
you rank for any specific keyword phrase and instead measure
your results in increased traffic, sales, and conversions. (You
can sign up for a free
trial of ClickTracks, which easily tracks and measures those
things that truly matter.) It certainly won't hurt to add new
content to your site if it will really make your site more
useful, but don't simply add a load of fluff just for the sake
of adding something. It really is okay to have a business site
that is just a business site and not a diatribe on the history
of your products. Neither your site visitors nor the engines
really give a hoot!
Jill Whalen of High Rankings® is an internationally
recognized search engine
optimization consultant and host of the free weekly High
Rankings® Advisor search
engine marketing newsletter. Jill's handbook, "The
Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" teaches
business owners how and where to place relevant keyword phrases on
their Web sites so that they make sense to users and gain high
rankings in the major search engines. Jill specializes in search
engine optimization, SEO consultations , site analysis reports, SEM
seminars and is the co-founder of the new search
marketing and website design company, Search Creative, LLC.
Contact Jill Whalen by e-mail at web@highrankings.com.
|
