Search Engine Optimization Overview
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of increasing traffic from search engines through the appropriate selection of keywords, optimizing the site and removing barriers to search, and the generation of quality links from external sites.
The objective is to maximize your site’s position on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for your selected keywords.
SEO can be considered part of the larger field of Internet Marketing, which also includes Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media Optimization, Affiliate Marketing and Online Reputation Management, to name a few.
The SEO Process
The following covers five basic SEO steps:
- Keyword Analysis
- Keyword Optimizing & Search Engine Visibility
- Site Submission
- Link Generation
- Web Analytics
Keyword Analysis
Keyword Analysis is the process of determining which likely keywords users will be searching for relevant to your website.
Keyword selection is probably the most critical piece of the SEO process. Optimizing your site to the wrong keywords or keyphrases, will result in a website that your target audience will not see.
Keyword Research has a number of steps:
- Brainstorming — What would your customers pick for keywords in Google searches.
- Customer surveys — Ask the customers!
- Your Competitors — What are your competitors doing (What keywords do they use, how do they rank)
- Research Tools — such as Google AdWords.
- Selection — Final selection of keywords for the pages on the site.
Keyword Optimizing
Once the Keywords have been selected, the next step is to optimize the website pages to these keywords.
Keyword Optimizing refers to the procedure of optimizing your page to a keyword or keyphrase. Specifically, the placement of keywords in:
- The Domain Name (for example: www.NameWithKeywordsInIt.com)
- The Page Filename
- The Title header tag, (around 65-70 characters including spaces)
- The Description meta tag (around 150 characters)
- The H1 (H2,H3..) tags
- Bold Text
- Link Text
- Copy Text
There are some other rules of thumb, which some optimizers follow, such as “keyword density”, defined as the ratio of a keyword to total text on a page. Some believe this number should be between 1% to 4%, others believe this number is unimportant. There are any number of Keyword Density Tools available on the web.
Also some optimizers believe that the optimal size for the number of words on a page is between 450 to 600.
Another thing to look out for is “Duplicated Content” which is defined to be “substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar”. Article on De-Indexing duplicated content.
Search Engine Visibility
During the Keyword Optimizing process one should also concentrate on creating a “Search Engine-Friendly” Website, by removing roadblocks to the search engine’s ability to “crawl” a site. This process includes:
- Making sure all internal links are SEO navigable.
- Remove frames, avoid “all-flash” sites, De-index search results.
- Validate your webpages with validator tools, Website Validation
- Add relevant text to your images with “alt” and “title” tags.
- Include a sitemap.xml file.
A simple check with a text browser, such as Lynx, will enable you to see how your website pages look to a search engine.
Search Engines
When your site is up and running, you will need to notify the major search engines.
As of September 2009, the rankings of the major search engines were:
- Google.com — 64.9% of web traffic
- Yahoo.com — 18.8%
- MSN Bing — 9.4%
- Ask.com — 3.9%
Additionally, there is one “open” directory, DMOZ.org. Historically it was important to get your site listed in DMOZ.
To notify the major search engines, you need to submit your sitemap.xml. This blog article explains the sitemap submission procedure.
Geo-Targeting: Local Search
If you are a “Local” business, then you should also register in the free Google Local Business Listing. Local Links Info
Link Generation
The third step in SEO is the process of obtaining “quality inbound links” from other websites. This process is known as a “link building campaign“.
Some various link building methods include:
- Send out Press Releases — To popular PR Websites.
- Contact professional associations.
- Contact companies you do business with.
- Submit content to announcements and newsletters.
- Directories Submission — Citysearch, Yahoo, specialized and second-tier directories
- Yellow Pages — such as..
- Blogging — Provide interesting/unique content that readers will link to.
- Link Baiting: Anything interesting enough on a website to induce (aka bait) viewers to link to it.
- Social Networking Sites — Such as Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Linked In, Orkut, Ecademy.
- Social Bookmarking — Digg, StumbleUpon…
- Article Writing
- Forum Postings — That allow (do-follow) links in the signature section.
Another option at this point is a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ad campaign with your selected keywords. The Pay-Per-Click method will bring quicker results than the slower SEO link building method, but at a monetary price, as each click on your PPC link will cost a fee.
Performance Testing and Web Analytics
Performance Testing is the on-going process of tracking and measuring traffic statistics, log files, SERP results, conversion rates, etc.
There are two common data collection methodologies: page tags and server logfiles.
Server log files are analyzed using web hosting statistic programs. Page tags, on the other hand, are used by analytic tools, such as the popular GoogleAnalytics.
Google Analytics allows you to analyze your website traffic to see how people many people are visiting your site, how they get to your site, how they navigate through it, how long they stay, and ultimately how they become customers.
See Also
- SEO Portland Oregon – The Home Page.
- SEO, Web Design, Video SEO… – Our Services page.
- Search Engine Optimization Services – More on our SEO services.
- Website Design Services – More on our Web Design services.
External Links
- Beginners Checklist — at SEOMoz Blog
