SICK SITES - Simple Search Engine Optimization

Nurse your site back to health with a few simple search engine optimization techniques.

Written May 08, 2008, read 1201 times since then.

SICK SITES - Simple Search Engine Optimization

It’s such a geeky oxymoron, “Simple Search Engine Optimization” or SSEO as the kids call it, but really, shouldn’t it be something we all try out? Right?

Lets fix up that sick site and build a more intuitive online presence that leaps higher on your next Google search. Check out this article and register for this associated Biznik workshop with myself and the brilliant Michael Grimm.

NOTE: Many very helpful articles have been written by Biznik folks on this topic, particularly some great pieces by Barry Hurd, but I thought I’d add in my two-cents and package the topic around steps a beginner might take. So lets get stepping.

DEFINITIONS:

SEO – or search engine optimization, it is basically making your site easy for search engines to find, with the ultimate result being a higher position, or "page rank" in a search engine query.

Search Engine Query – This is just fancy talk for a search engine submission and the set of results that is created

In-Bound Link – One way Google ranks results is by how many in-bound links there are pointing to your site. For example, if you search “Apple”, apple.com will show up first partially because of all the folks that link to them. This means if you develop lots of in-bound links (through raving customers, of course), it’s a good thing.

White/Black Hat – Just like John Wayne movies, the good guys that do SEO properly where white. They’re cool and it’s a good service to purchase for your business after you’ve already made a presence online (Big Feet). The bad guys who manipulate results (and charge tons of $ to do fraudulent activity) use "black hat techniques". Stay away from them.

Coding vs Offsite – In this context "coding" means changing stuff in the html mark up of your site, while “off-site” work means techniques you can use to create in-bound links to your domain without having to code.

SIMPLE SEO
Now that we’re clear on the terms, let’s check out how to do this.

1. REVIEW & EDIT SITE CONTENT - A simple but often forgotten step, first you need to toss on some fresh eyes and look over the layout and organization of your site. Would you say information is well organized, or messy? Can a visitor easily find the content they are looking for or is EVERYTHING BOLD AND IN CAPS AND SCREAMS AT YOU. It reminds me of the old (poor) advise – make it big and red.

Be critical of your work and act to simplify your message no matter how complex the topic/product is (see banned words). The great thing about search engines are that in many ways they look at content the same way regular people do. This means by making your site easier to navigate, you will show up higher on a search result. Some handy notes to consider:

Build sites for users, not search engines
Don’t try to trick search engines (they are like, WAY smart)

2. KEYWORDS - Before you get yourself all optimized, you need to think about the words you want associated with you or your business. For example if you’re a local bike shop called Cranky Cycles, you might want to think of the “natural words” that connect to your services. In this example you might choose “Cranky Cycles” “Northwest bikes”, “Seattle bicycles”, “Seattle bike club”, “Cycling in Seattle”.

Meshing a geographic region with a subject helps to drive context and is often how people search online.

3. GET CODING - So after you’re done organizing the text on your site, removing all the animated gifs from your homepage, and brainstorming associated terms, you are ready for a little coding. (CAUTION: Save a copy of what you’re working on so if you break stuff, you will have something to revert to)

We’re going to do this through three steps.

Step A – Fix Stuff

Correct broken links
Validate your page's html using this or this
Remove large files from pages so everything loads quickly or move your content to a faster web host
Use header tags, because search engines will know how important the content is, e.g. <h1>Title</h1> or <h3>Important</h3>

Step B – Add Keywords

Place the key words you want associated with your site in the body of the page. This really means just effectively describing your services in the actual text of the site. This is in addition to the previous content review you performed. For example: “Cranky Cycles is a Seattle Bike shop that specializes in new and used bikes”
Add keywords to images <img src="" alt="cranky" />
Add keywords in the META Data description area of your web page. EX: meta name=’description’ content=’The Seattle Bike Club is dedicated to…
Try not to repeat terms multiple times on the same page, this can actually LOWER your page rank

STEP C - Off Site Work

As I’ve discussed in Big Feet, off-site SEO work is very handy. Posting on blogs, bulletin boards and social networks are great ways to mention your company/service. Without acting in a spamlicious way, you can share ideas and suggestions with other professionals and by adding in your name, company and website address, you are creating a web of inbound links that all associate your business with your web address.
EX: BLOG COMMENT “I used to think that Shimano’s were the best cranks for most bikes, but have had some trouble with them lately. – Todd, www.Crankycycles.com”.
People don’t just search at google, they also surf the web and bump into things.Be there.
Also, don't forget to submit your website to the local search for the major search engines: Google, Live, and Yahoo.
Extend your domain registration for the max number of years. This is looked at by search enginges as a legitimating factor.

4. NOW, WAIT - Monitor your placement in searches for the key words your selected over the next few weeks. Be sure to give the search robots time to index your changes

Do you go up or down? Does anything change at all? Revisit this process occasionally as you tweak and adjust your content. If successful you'll climb higher and higher in the search result. You'll be so happy with increased web traffic that you'll send me fruit baskets for this helpful article. Good luck.

There are lots of more advanced techniques to improve SEO, this document should just get you started and get you aware of the potential for altering your search-ablity.

Don't forget to register for our associated Biznik workshop: Simple Search Engine Optimization

Learn more about the author, Joel Ballezza.

Comment on this article

Posted by Matt McCormick, Seattle, Washington | May 09, 2008

I'd like to make three other suggestions. First, make sure that every page has a title (this appears in the <head>...</head> section of your page's code). This is important because it tells search engines what that specific page on your site is about, and it's what the search engines display in big, bold letters to users on the organic search results.

Two, try to make the URL to each page also be relevant. For example, if you're a hardware store selling pneumatic air guns, don't make the URL to that page be:

http://www.mikeshardware.com/product1

Instead, make it:

http://www.mikeshardware.com/nail-guns/pneumatic.

This is yet another way to tell search engines what you have on each page. It's also the link that people will see in the search engine results (another key for them to click on your link).

Lastly, go find your happy customers and get them involved in helping you. Ask them to write reviews of your products on forums or sites that deal in your industry. If they have a blog see if they'll write an entry about you. Maybe you saved them in a time of need and it's a story they can tell. Whatever it is, getting other people to link to your site is huge deal to the search engines. After all, you can easily control your own content on a site. However, you can't easily control what other people do with their sites and the search engines know it.
Posted by Joel Ballezza, Seattle, Washington | May 09, 2008

Great points Matt - Thanks!
Posted by Mary McKitrick, Florence, Massachusetts | May 15, 2008

I've heard that the keyword meta tag has become useless due to all the abuse. I've stopped using it and have not noticed any decrease in rank.
Posted by Kristopher Dick, Redmond, Washington | May 15, 2008

2 items:

The SEO trap is an easy one to fall into. While you're page rank may be higher, your repeat visits will be lower. Terrible writing with overly similar phrases repeated over and over remains terrible writing even in the internet age. Do ensure your meta tags get populated, and things are well formatted. But DO NOT write schlock just to improve your page rank. If you write qualtity stuff, your regualr visitors will share your site with friends, who will become regular visitors.

Second point, use a Content Management System or CMS. This will automate your tag management and make life easier. Don't worry about the ugly URLs these systems generate. Modern search engines are more than smart enough to deal with them.
Posted by Joe Townsend, Redmond, Washington | May 15, 2008

Good to read a SEO article with some solid techniques. Thanks

Joe Townsend

Posted by H. Lee Travis, Seattle Bellevue Tacoma, Washington | May 15, 2008

Joel,

Sound stuff.

Interesting though: I peaked at your site and you had a normal <title> META tag, but did have a <h1>Title</h1> per your "Step A" counsel within Comment tags  .

I was under the impression that those pesky "bots" didn't pay much attention to Comment tags.

Or is it just an abuse of use of Comment tags?

-- Lee (www.warriorclasscoaching/)
Posted by Laura and Scott Brooks, Seattle, Washington | May 15, 2008

Thanks Joel,

I used the links you provided to sign up on Yahoo and MSN right away. That was something I had been meaning to do after signing up with Google and you just made it that much easier.

I also appreciate the way that you put your ideas into language that I can understand.

Trust me ... Many is the time I've left a meeting, fumbling for my car keys with a stoned expression on my face because the consultant was talking too fast or too technically for me to keep up.

Kudos,

Scott
Posted by Kimberly Dow, Frederick, Maryland | May 22, 2008

Thanks Joel. These tips were easy to understand and seem fairly easy to implement. I appreciate all the information and links.

I work on the design side of web marketing, so it is always great to extend my knowledge with some programming and SEO tips.

-kim, www.kalicodesign.com