Cityline Websites Home Page, Surrey / White Rock, Langley, BC

CREATING A SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZED WEBSITE

IF YOU AREN'T FOUND, YOU CAN'T SELL YOUR PRODUCT!

The following article is a compilation of findings and research done on SEO. There is no magic formula for creating a #1 site, rather there are many things to consider. For instance, Google uses 200 differenct criteria to determine which site is ranked number one (and why you are on page 15!). By reading these steps and implementing as many as possible you will find your site will have a good chance to succeed.

Proper Website Planning

  • Research competitors (do a Google search) – what are they doing?
  • Your site should be similar, but better. No site is perfect.  The sites on top are the least “imperfect”.  Your job is to do all the steps to make things nearer to perfection.
  • Draw a Flowchart of the site structure
  • Determine topics (1 or 2 keyword phrases) for each page
  • Want 5 pages of content on a topic minimum for Google if possible
  • Larger sites the information should be organized in “silos” (where main page links to sub-pages on different topics, which contain all the links on each topic.  There is no cross linking between topics (cross-linking contaminates the theme of the page)
  • For larger sites, there could be several landing pages
  • DO NOT START THE SITE UNTIL EVERYTHING IS LAID OUT AND ORGANIZED.  If you start too soon, you may end up with an unorganized mess.

Domain Names / Hosting

  • Domain name
    • Try to get a domain name with the keyword(s)
    • Also get the company name (.com)
    • Some advocates say get the .ca, .net and .org as well to prevent others from taking your name
    • Dot Com names I believe are best
    • I like to redirect the companyname.com to keywords.com  (* only redirect one name to the actual domain name).  If you need to redirect more, then direct all the names to one feeder site and then direct the feeder site to the main site
    • Use companyname.com on your business cards
  • Hosting
    • Faster Hosting is better
    • Static IP is better
    • Local Hosting is better for local businesses

Creating an Effective Wesite Design

  • Don’t stray too far from the norm for the industry
  • Sites should not be entirely flash.  Although search engines can now somewhat read static flash text, it’s far from perfect.
  • Some flash is good, however (eg some of the SEO sites have flash to hide text).
  • Design should allow for main headings, plus sub-headings
  • Pages should stay on theme – too many bells and whistles can dilute the theme.
  • Interactive components are good (eg images, video, audio clips, embedded FB / twitter feeds)
  • Design should be conducive for leading the viewer to the end goal (the conversion)
  • Site Map, Company information page and Privacy Policy pages are good technique

Writing Copy that Search Engines Love

  • Google ranks based on who it perceives to be the authority on a topic.  Ranking tends towards more research oriented sites.
  • Research the keywords to focus on (use Google Adwords keyword tool)
  • 300+ words minimum per page (500+ for research)
  • Use headings.  All pages should have a primary heading
  • These headings should contain the keywords / phrases (plus Google’s synonyms)
  • Key words should be more prevalent in first 200 words, and in last bit of text.  
  • Key words should be distributed throughout the page as well
  • One technique I use is to have the first bit of text intended for the reader (with the call to action) and then the rest of the page is primarily to increase the amount of text for the search engines (use lower level headings, short paragraphs).
  • Google likes 6-7% keyword density, Bing more towards 5%
  • Funnel the traffic to the end goal
  • Having said all that, write for the user.  Primarily use full sentences, proper English.  Use of different tenses and versions of the keywords are important to search engines because it mimics good English.
  • Do not repeat more than 150 words from another location (if so change by 20% or more)
  • Using the word “how” is good because it indicates a research oriented page.

Programming for Search Engines

  • Meta tags should be in the order of Title tag, Description, Keywords
  • ALL meta tags should be unique and relevant
  • Title tag
    • match the H1 tag
    • 65 characters maximum
    • Don’t repeat the keywords
    • Most important words first
  • Description
    • Use all the words in the title tag
    • Start with the title tag words
    • 150 characters maximum
    • Don’t repeat any word more than twice
  • Keywords
    • Use keywords up to four times
    • Start with long tailed keyword phrases
    • Start with keywords in the title tag
    • Capitalize first letter of each word
    • Don’t use keywords that aren’t on the page (but can use spelling mistakes for these key words)
  • Use external files where possible (especially for CSS, JavaScript)
  • First text that the robots see is important. Good idea to float text right, start with content, end of page would be the menu bar for example
  • Bruce Clay uses flash for menu bar (less text)
  • Repeat important links at bottom
  • Use nofollow links for unimportant links (but don’t go overboard)
  • Always use ALT tags on images
  • Create site maps for user (html or php)
  • Create xml site map for search engines
  • Submit xml site map and verify all sites to Google, Bing, and Yahoo by hand
  • Always use robots.txt file
  • If redesigning a site, use 301 redirects for all new pages in the .htaccess file
  • Validating the HTML is good (http://validator.w3.org)
  • Must have an analytics package of some sort to track performance
  • Good idea to have a “conversion” page to further track performance
  • Insert RSS feed option for key page(s) (eg www.toprankblog.com/tools/rss-buttons)
  • Include key word in anchor text
  • File names and directories should have key words (separated by a - )  max 3 hyphens per file name
  • Test on all browsers (even IE 6)
  • Create a 404 error page

Additional SEO comments

Ongoing SEO work

  • Study analytics – which words are attracting people to the site.  Can they be improved on?  Should the text be modified
  • If using social media, keep adding on a regular basis
  • Keep contributing to articles
  • Adwords – same thing (study conversions, change text, modify budget if necessary, achieve a positive ROI)

Other SEO tidbits

  • Register domain name for 5 years, don’t let it be less than 1 year before expiring
  • Highlight (bold, italicize, lists) keywords
  • Include key words in links
  • Try to get a domain name with the key word in the URL
  • Optimize for Google (in 2008, 90% of European searches, 95% in South America are using Google, 65% in US but rising)

More Interesting SEO Facts (from 2010 Bruce Clay SEO Short Course)

  • 90% of the hits are from the 1st page of Google
  • 6% second page
  • 7 of 8 clicks are organic
  • 200 variables for Google algorithm
  • 58% of all queries are 3+ words
  • Google looks at previous searches to influence rankings
  • Google can recognize text in pictures
  • Google is starting to recognize words in videos (must have clear voice)

References

Adtech Conference 2010 – Bruce Clay SEO short Course
SEO for 2010 – Search Engine Optimization Secrets, Sean Odom & Sean R Odom, 2010
Search Engine Optimization All-In-One for Dummies, Bruce Clay & Susan Esparza, 2009
Search Engine Optimization – Kristopher B. Jones, 2008



Cityline Websites, Based in Surrey / White Rock, BC