New and Improved 10 Tips to the Top
Copyright © 2005 Jill Whalen HighRankings.com
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:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.)
6. 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.
7. 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.)
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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
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
