Search Engine Optimization - A 10 Step Program

Search engine optimization is often presented as a series of unrelated tips. But proper optimization is a process involving several distinct steps. Here is a tutorial I put together when I was preparing to speak at the Search Engine Strategies Conference. The paper walks you through the steps a professional SEO follows when reviewing a site before starting an optimization campaign.

Make sure the page looks professional, has usable navigation and is complete. This check is important for several reasons:

• Remember you will eventually be hand submitting this page to the directories. Unlike search engines, directories use real human beings to review sites. If the site isn't visually appealing to a human editor, it won't do well.
• The second reason you want a good looking page is that assuming you do well in the search engines, this is where many folks will enter your site, and first impressions last. If the site looks unprofessional, they aren't going to have the confidence in you to entrust you with their credit card.
• I also check to see if there is quality content on the page or in the site. The old saying, "content is king" is still true. Good content increases the value of your site. It is a reason for people to return to your site and to link to your site. Search engines and directories love good content and reward it with higher rankings. If your site doesn't have some, add it.

A spider trap is anything that would prevent a spider from crawling your page or site. It includes dynamic pages, pages containing no readable text or splash pages, no text links, password protection, or frame sites without good noframes sections. If a spider can't crawl through your site it will leave, and your site won't get indexed. Part of the SEO's job is to look over a site and identify anything that could potentially hurt the site in the search engines.

I also look for anything that might be considered spam by a search engine. What is spam? I define it as any practice that you do that you wouldn't want to openly discuss with a representative from a search engine. I'd rather err on the side of conservative optimization, than be banned. Remember it was "extreme accounting practices" that brought down Enron. Don't think you will get caught spammig? Read what happened to Green Flash.
(http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/00/05-pagejacking.html)

The most common "spam" I see is accidental. A Webmaster innocently does something such as using white font in a colored table, when he happens to also have a page with a white background. From a search engine's point of view this is spamming because he has "hidden text." You aren't allowed to have text the same color as your page background.

Another item to look for in this step is general page layout. Does the page have multiple nested tables or long JavaScript code that push all the content way down the page? This can reduce your relevancy score. This situation happens frequently when the SEO isn't part of the design phase of the Web site. (Take a note here - include the SEO on any redesign!!!!)

This is the most important step in optimizing a page for the search engines. This is also where most people, including many SEOs, make mistakes. You can get all the top ten rankings in the world with unusual keywords, but you won't see any traffic unless you choose a popular keyword.

Fortunately, there are tools to help you in determining how popular a keyword is - they are called keyword popularity tools. Search Engine Power Pack has one included as part of the package. Keyword popularity tools show you how many times a certain keyword phrase has been entered over the last month. Most of them give you examples of related words too. You can compare different keywords and see how they rate in popularity. The theory is that a keyword that is popular as a search term will translate into traffic on your site. Increased traffic usually means increased sales. Therefore, good keywords equate to increased revenue. Did I get your attention?

Be careful here; don't pick keywords that aren't appropriate for your site (and risk being banned). Also avoid words that aren't focused enough to bring you targeted traffic. Single words are generally too broad. Keyword phrases of two or three words generally work better. Why? Searchers may start with a single word and when they see unfocused results, they quickly refine their search to several words. Some recent studies show that most searchers now use three terms in their queries.

Also be careful to keep a lid on the number of keywords you use per page. Too many keywords will dilute your relevancy. If you have more than 20 keywords in your Meta keyword tag, you need to pare back to a more focused list.

Keyword selection deserves more time than I can devote here. See our newsletter on keyword selection for a more in-depth discussion. (http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol3/promo_no9.htm)

Enter your keyword into a search engine. Does your site come up? This can be a tedious task if you're checking multiple engines. I recommend using a tracking tool like Search Engine Tracker to quickly check multiple engines and directories at once. If your site is already at the top of the search results, whatever you're doing seems to be working. Now you need to see if the top ten ranking is bringing traffic - Jump to Step Ten if so.

It's back to the basics. If you don't do the fundamentals correctly, advanced tricks won't help you much. Look at the keywords you've selected and make sure the keywords are in the strategic places where search engines look. At a minimum, keywords should be in:

• Title tag
• Meta description and keyword tag
• Alt tags
• Heading tags
• Link Text
• Prominent positions throughout the body

Also make sure the site is optimized beyond the home page. Many people optimize this one page and copy the title and meta tags to every other page on their site. Customize each page individually like it was a separate entry way into your site and only use a few keywords per page.

Link popularity is considered in every major search engine's ranking algorithm. It's not something you can ignore. Building link popularity needs to become a habit. If you need tips on increasing your site's link popularity, see our link popularity story. (http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol3/promo_no16.htm)

Page Primer, included in Search Engine Power Pack, gives you the link popularity as part of its page review. In many engines you can type: link:http://domain-name and you can get a link count for that particular engine.

If you have prepared your site and followed the steps above, you need to make sure your site is included in the databases of the search engines and directories. If you type in the name of your domain in a search engine query box and your site doesn't come up, you can assume that you're not in the database. If you've modified your site considerably you should also submit your site to invite the spider to revisit soon.

Again, there are great submission tools to help you get your site into the search engines databases. Using an automated submission tool will save you a lot of time and headaches. Search Engine Starter, included in Search Engine Power Pack, allows you to submit any and all pages in your Web site to your choice of 100 search engines. If you use a submission tool (and most folks do), be sure to use one that allows you to select which engines you want to submit to. Why? If you're doing great in a certain engine, the LAST thing you want to do is to resubmit your site to that engine - what if the ranking algorithm changed. Don't risk breaking what is already working.

Okay, this is really part of Step Seven, but most people think they can submit one day and the spider will come the next day. Not so. Search engines are in high demand, so there is a lag time from when you submit your site to when the spider actually visits. This can be anywhere from a week to a few months depending on the search engine.

If you have been practicing patience and don't see your site in the search engine database, it may be time to resubmit or tweak your page a bit and resubmit.

I recommend hand submission to directories - in fact if you stumble on any automated submission tool that advertises it submits to directories - Run the other direction fast! See our story on automated versus hand submission.
(http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol3/promo_no14.htm)

Directories like Yahoo, Open Directory, and Looksmart are big themselves, but combined with their partner relationships with search engines, they are huge. Many directories have recognized their self-importance and now charge to bestow the honor of having your site reviewed. It's a necessary evil, just grit your teeth and do it. See our primer on directory submissions to help you get started.
(http://www.netmechanic.com/powerpack/info/directory.htm)

Search engine optimization is definitely not a "do it once and forget" activity. This might be a good reason to farm the work out to many of the excellent search engine optimization firms. The reality is that you must continually track and adjust your pages. The rules the search engines use to rank a page change constantly. It takes a major time commitment to keep abreast of these changes. What worked last year could get you banned this month.

Optimization maintenance translates into "tracking and tweaking" pages. Search engines change their ranking algorithms frequently, so a technique that works one week might get you in trouble the next week. Search Engine Power Pack has two tools that are very helpful in this stage.

First, Search Engine Tracker will automate the tracking process for you. Don't waste time drilling through the search engines looking for your site. Use a robot.

Tracking gives you feedback that your optimization efforts either worked, or need help. Most of us don't get it right the first time and in a highly competitive market, you may have to continually work at optimization.

Second, to help you to "improve your page", use a tool to evaluate your page for optimization (like Page Primer - yes, this is included in Search Engine Power Pack too). This tool scans your page checking all the important sections to make sure you haven't made any critical blunders, like having a frames page without a noframes section or accidentally forgeting to use your most important keyword in the Title. It happens every day.

Most log file analysis tools or hit counters can tell you how much traffic you're getting from search engines and which keywords are generating the most hits. If your log file software doesn't tell you this, get one that does!

Let's assume your starting to see top ten rankings in the search engines. Now you need to determine if the high rank is bringing you traffic. People assume a top ranking automatically means high traffic. But it's really traffic that matters, not high search engine ranking alone, and high rankings only bring traffic if the rankings are for good keywords. If you've done all your optimization around "yummy orange cakes" and nobody enters that in a search you won't get any traffic.

Increased traffic is the real result of a successful optimization process, not a top ten ranking. If you're not seeing a jump in your traffic, you need to re-evaluate your keywords and cycle back through the optimization cycle.

Search engine optimization is a multi-step continual process. As long as search engines change rules and new Web sites come into existence, search engine optimization will be necessary. It's not cheating, it's helping search engines do their job more efficiently. Optimization takes a lot of time and patience (expect to wait at least three months before you see changes in some engines). It also requires a skilled knowledgeable person who spends a non-trivial amount of time staying up to date with what the search engines are doing. People often get discouraged in the process. Don't - search engine optimization pays for itself in increased revenue. It is worth the time and trouble.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Chris Churchill is Director of Web Development and Search Engine Optimization at NetMechanic Inc., the leading developer of Web site and search engine optimization tools. Learn more about NetMechanic tools at www.netmechanic.com.