Ok, let's just get the requisite rhetorical questions out of the way…
<<Said
in an exaggerated infomercial-like tone of voice>> Would YOU like
to improve your ranking in the most popular search engines and directories?
Would YOU like to drive more targeted traffic to your Web site? Would
YOU like to make simple improvements to your Web site and eliminate
common barriers in order to optimize your site for high search engine
rankings? Well, today is YOUR lucky day…
All kidding
aside, search engine optimization (SEO) is serious business though not
necessarily complex. While there is an endless array of tips and tricks
one can employ to make a site more attractive to search engine robots,
spiders and other creepy cyber-crawlers, this article serves to arm
you with the most basic strategies that will help ensure a successful
search engine optimization program.
As with any project, it's important to first establish your objectives
toward which all related tasks will be focused. Typical SEO objectives
are as follows:
- Identify
and create a list of brand, product and/or service specific keywords
and descriptions
- Establish
high rankings in top search engines and applicable industry directories
- Drive
targeted traffic to the site
Pretty
cut and dry objectives - get ranked higher…increase qualified site traffic.
Short. Sweet. Here's how…
Navigation
Many Web sites employ graphical menus (image maps and the like) to direct
navigation through the site. These graphical "primary" menus
typically only include links to the main, top-level sections of the
site and require users to enter one of the available top-level sections
in order to access related content contained therein. Not only would
Web site navigation be vastly improved by reducing the number of clicks
required to access relevant content via the home page, but internal
pages of the site would also become more accessible to search engines
if expanded "secondary" sub-navigation text menus were instituted
in addition to the primary menu. Typical placement for a sub-navigation
text menu of this nature is at the bottom of each and every page of
the site, and should include text links to both the primary top-level
pages as well as the corresponding internal pages relative to each section.
For example, a primary page-oriented sub-navigation text menu might
read as follows:
Home
| Products | News | About Us | Contact Us
Once inside
one of these primary sections such as "About Us," all related
main section links should also reflect in this sub-navigation text menu
as follows:
Home | Products | News | About Us | Contact Us
Who We Are | What We Do | Press Room | Investor Relations | Employment
Crawler
Pages
Site maps, also known as crawler pages, which list and text link every
page within a given site should not only be established, but also directly
submitted to all search engines and directories of interest. Submitting
these actual crawler pages makes it easier for spiders to find and index
optimized pages on a given site.
In addition,
some sites use an internal search index function whose results are often
hidden from the search engines due to complex path algorithms and/or
a series of forms that spiders can't follow. In these instances, it's
imperative to ensure that static links to each of these databased pages
are included in the site map link list to facilitate a spider's ability
to index this presumably important content.
Content
Before we start our discussion about back-end META data and code, it's
important to first discuss front-end site content. Where appropriate,
each page of a Web site should contain content - verbiage - that's relevant
to the purpose of that page and/or section, and should leverage as many
"keywords" as possible to ensure the page is appropriately
delivered when those words and/or phrases are queried in the engines.
This content relevancy is a critical factor toward optimizing one's
site for high ranking. In addition, this targeted content will also
be leveraged in the associated page title, META data and Alt tags to
further ensure the page is optimized for delivery during applicable
keyword/phrase searches.
To facilitate
inclusion of your site in geographic-specific search results, applicable
geographic terms in both fully spelled and abbreviated formats should
also be integrated throughout the Web site content and appropriate back
end code. A "Where We're Located" page could be used to even
further enhance such geographic search term opportunities.
Regarding
Alt tags, eMarketers should ensure that each and every image
on their Web site uses an Alt tag that leverages specific keywords relative
to the image itself and the content on the page where the image is located.
Because spiders often rank pages by the frequency of a given keyword
on a given page, the strategic use of Alt tags is yet another opportunity
to maximize high search positioning of your site's pages.
WARNING:
There are many abuses of this keyword frequency concept that spiders
can easily discern, so don't try to "trick" the spiders by
placing a slew of non-relevant page content or repeating the same keyword
over and over and over again, either on the back-end or on the front-end
using a font that's the same color as the background. The spiders will
know…and will penalize you greatly by completely banning your site from
inclusion in their index. The use of only "legitimate" keyword
strategies is advised.
Titles
This isn't rocket science, folks. A page title is exactly that - the
name of a given page of a site relative to its content and/or purpose.
Page titles provide site users with quick visual checkpoint as to where
they are in a given site, as well as dictate how that page will be represented
in a bookmark or "favorites" list. They also provide the search
engines with a top-level index of that Web page's content. Enhancing
page titles with keywords reflecting the content of each specific page
is another way to legitimately optimize a site for the search engines,
and generally speaking should not exceed 10 words in length.
The back-end
code for page title assignment is as simple as:
<TITLE>Title Text Here</TITLE>
META
Description Tags
Because META tags alert search spiders of the content found within a
page, the tags are an important variable for obtaining relevant and
high search engine rankings. META descriptions of between ten and thirty
words should be used wherever possible, and should directly correlate
to the content of each specific Web page - especially those pages to
be pro-actively submitted to the engines. While not viewable on the
front-end, this important descriptive copy also helps maximize your
site's ranking when keywords used in this description are searched on
the engines. Accordingly, the same or similar keywords to those earmarked
for page content and titles should be heavily integrated into these
descriptions.
The back-end
code for META description assignment is as simple as:
<META NAME="description" content="Up to 30-word description
here">
META
Keyword Tags
By now, the importance of identifying and building a list of page-specific
keywords for use in optimizing page content, titles and META descriptions
has been clearly established. There's yet another search engine-friendly
opportunity to leverage these all-important keywords and phrases through
the use of META Keyword tags. Each page of a Web site should have between
ten and thirty META keywords, with no duplication outside of plural
and non-plural formats. Again, these keywords should also be also be
utilized within that page's content. A site is simply not optimized
if it employs the same generic set of keywords (and other META data
for that matter) throughout all pages of the site - customization is
key! Note that although most searches are conducted using lower case
font, one should try to include different capitalization formats for
those keywords deemed necessary.
Tip:
When developing your keyword lists, consider using information gleaned
from your back end site analysis software such as WebTrends, and/or
popular search queries on select search engines and directories that
publish this kind of information, to discern what the most popular word
and phrase searches are relative to your business. You can then integrate
this language into your site's content.
The back-end
code for META keyword assignment is as simple as:
<META NAME="keywords" content="list up to 30 keywords
here, separated by commas">
Bridge
Pages
Bridge pages, also known as mirror pages or information pages, are Web
pages designed to rank highly in the search engines for keyword phrases.
These pages are specifically engineered to meet the criteria of the
continually changing algorithms that search engines use to determine
rankings, and are generally employed when there are obstacles, technological
or otherwise, to optimizing the "regular" pages of a Web site.
Though largely indistinguishable from the normal site pages, such bridge
pages are only intended to be a one-time "doorway" for visitors
who find a site via the search engines and are not accessible to a user
subsequent to their initial visit.
Obstacles
There are several technical obstacles one may face when trying to optimize
a site. Such obstacles will need to be eliminated through special filters
and/or workarounds before SEO can be achieved. Some of these obstacles
may include:
- Cold
Fusion/Dynamic Page Generation -
Many sites are dynamically generated using Cold Fusion, as indicated
by ".cfm" extensions in the site paths. This software application
creates unique URLs that include symbols considered by several search
engines as "spider traps." To avoid spider traps, some search
engines avoid indexing URLs that that include the following problematic
symbols for fear of getting caught in a crawling loop: ?, $, &,
=
- JAVA
Script -
Many sites also use JAVA script. The complexity of this type of code
can distract a search engine spider from indexing the site in appropriate
categories.
- Frames
- Some of the major search engines cannot follow frame links.
An alternative method for spiders to enter and index the site, either
through META tags or smart design, will need to be established.
The good
news is that there "are" workarounds for these varied SEO
roadblocks. Just ask your friendly neighborhood Webmaster for details.
Links
The last strategy I would like to discuss is somewhat - ok, completely
- out of your control - links on OTHER external Web sites that point
to yours. Yes, I know that's the ultimate objective of this search engine
optimization initiative, but many search engines first discern how your
site is ranked and/or listed on other Web sites and directories in deciding
how you should be ranked on theirs. The more links pointing to your
Web site that a search engine can verify, the higher it will rank you
on their list by virtue of presumed popularity - it's as simple as that.
Of course, this is somewhat of a catch 22 in that to establish high
rankings and listing frequency on these engines and directories, the
site in question must first be optimized. Don't be discouraged, though.
Simply institute a concerted, ongoing grassroots search engine and directory
submission initiative in an effort to establish such links wherever
possible.
SEO
Starter Wrap Up
As mentioned previously, there are endless strategies that can be enlisted
to improve a site's rank in the search engines. To attest to this, there
are numerous agencies that make their living based solely on guerilla
SEO methodologies. However, even if you leverage the simple techniques
described above that are largely relative to content on your Web site,
you will vastly improve your positioning with the engines and will undoubtedly
realize increased traffic - qualified traffic - at your site.
