More on SEO Best Practices

Though SEO tactics evolve with the technologies used to render Web sites, certain fundamentals remain constant.

How can you tell if your site adheres to current SEO best practices? Let's start with some honest answers to the following questions:

• Are the keywords you're targeting relevant to site content?
  
  
• Are targeted keywords popular phrases used in search engine queries?
  
  
• Do page titles start with your targeted keywords?
  
  
• Does your site employ H1 header tags for prominent content titles?
  
  
• Is your permanent body copy contextually sufficient and keyword-rich?
  
  
• Do text links include targeted keywords that point users to pages within your site?
  
  
• Do you use CSS image replacement in graphical navigation on the site?
  
  
• Do graphics used in the site have descriptive, keyword-rich alternative attributes that are useful for visitors?
  
  
• Does your Web site have a site map with text links?
  
  
• Do the URLs of your dynamic, database-driven pages look simple and static?
  
  
• Does your site have a flat directory structure?
  
  
• Do your site's home page and other key category pages have PageRanks?
  
  
• Is your site listed in Open Directory?
  
  
• Do you routinely list your site in other trusted, human-reviewed online directories?
  
  
• Do all the pages in your Web site have keyword-rich meta descriptions?
  
  
• Does your site have a custom error page?
  
  
• Do the site's filenames and directory names include targeted keywords?
  
  
• Does your site avoid using pop-ups?
  
  
• Is the exact same content visible to both users and search engine spiders?
  
  
• Do you avoid free-for-all linking offers?

If you answered "yes" to all or most of the above questions, your Web site embraces some of the most common elements essential to SEO best practices. If you're unsure about some of the answers, consider the following additional information.

There's no point in angling for high rankings on keywords and keyword phrases no one searches for. If you're not certain what keywords your site's well positioned for, start digging through your referrer logs or Web analytics data to determine which search engines send your site considerable traffic for which phrases.

If you can't access your log files and search engine referral data, use a tag cloud generator to get some visual clues as to how the search engines interpret your pages. You might be surprised as to what any particular page in your site is actually optimized for.

Most subscription-based keyword analysis tools offer a free trial period. You can readily compare keyword popularity using tools such as WordTracker, KeywordDiscovery, and Yahoo's Keyword Selector Tool before deciding what phrases could send you considerable search-referred traffic.

Despite the popularity of individual words, it's best to target two- or three-word phrases on a page-by-page basis. Because of the vast number of Web pages indexed by the major search engines, competing for a listing or two on the first or second SERP for a one-word keyword is a losing battle. Trying to make one page optimal for a multitude of unrelated keyword phrases is almost equally fruitless.

It should go without saying, but the keywords you select to target should be relevant to your business and your site's content. Permanent body text should consist of at least two to three sentences on every page, ideally more. Opportunities vary from industry to industry. At the very least, try to build about 250 words into key category pages.

Of course, site structure plays a large role in how well your site's indexed. The search engines have improved their ability to crawl through dynamic URLs, yet static URL structures tend to rank better. Flash and AJAX present additional search engine visibility issues that can't be addressed in this brief column.

If you have an all-Flash site and answered "yes" to visible text links, you may want to reconsider your answer. Use the control-A function in your browser to see what words are really visible on a page, or use Zippy to take a deeper look at what any particular page or site is actually optimized for.

Better rankings come with better linking. Better linking starts within your site. Having a site map is a no-brainer, as are nongraphical site-wide navigation, footers, and related deep links.

Pursuing well-ranked inbound links is an art form and an ongoing endeavor for nearly every Web site. Just make certain you execute on the fundamentals first, which should include submissions to key directories. Once your site is listed in DMOZ, the Yahoo Search Directory, Gimpsy, JoeAnt, and the like, continually grow you inbound links with vertical directories, local listings, business partners, vendors, and so on.

Implementing the 20 most fundamental elements of SEO best practices (or at least most of them) and avoiding the dregs of worst practices should provide you with a straightforward approach to better visibility for your Web site in the major search engines.

SEO Best Practices

Image via Wikipedia

SEO best practices have been constantly evolving since the advent of the search engines themselves.

The following SEO best practices should provide you with a secure strategy for building organic traffic to your site for the long term. They can be broken into 4 major categories of activity:

1. Subject-Matter Expertise: If you are not an expert on the topic of your Web site, then invest the time to become one, (or employ one).
   
   
2. Information Architecture: Design a site that enables users to find the great content you have in a fast and effective manner.
   
   
3. Technical Implementation: Learn how to deal with the idiosyncrasies of search engines to get the best results.
   
   
4. Marketing: Formerly known as "link building".

Subject-Matter Expertise

You need to have great content. Building a large organic traffic stream will not happen unless you have great content. You need to offer something on your site that people want to read about, and link to. In addition, you just won't close business well unless your content is seen as high quality by prospects.

There are many ways to show expertise on a Web site. Here are a few basic ideas:

1. Write great articles about your area of expertise (but don't burden these articles with sales pitches for your products or services)
   
   
2. Offer great tools that people will want to use
   
   
3. Create a unique and valuable community on your site
   
   
4. Be a major source of news and information in your area of expertise

The key thing here is to think about high quality content for users, instead of "link bait." Where link bait seeks to get quick and easy links from any source, a better plan is to build trust with your audience. Trust building is not a gimmick or a trick. Trust is something that you earn and will keep your business growing for years to come.

Information Architecture

Wikipedia defines information architecture as the "practice of structuring information (knowledge or data) for a purpose". In broad strokes, think of this as user-centered design. (By the way, bots will eat this stuff up too.) The basic elements of an effective information architecture include:

1. Understanding how your users think about the topic area of your site.
   This is where keyword mapping exercises come into play. Keyword tools such as Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker are useful. Tools such as these can help you find out how users search for things related to the content you have, or plan to have, on your Web site. Map your navigation and pages to the things you learn during this exercise.
   
   
2. A well defined and clear global navigation scheme.
   Make it easy for users to navigate your content. The menus on your site need to be consistent in structure and location. It's helpful to implement a "bread crumb" bar showing the structure of a site, to help the users remember where they are and how they got there.
   
   
3. Leverage common UI practices.
   This is no time to implement a new paradigm. Users have been conditioned by other Web sites to look for things in certain places on a site. Take advantage of this and make life easier for them.

Technical Implementation

While the search engines urge us to "design for users," not search engines, the reality is that the search engines have certain basic requirements. Failure to meet these requirements can spell certain doom for your site's prospects. Here is our list of 5 things that you need to do to put together a solid technical implementation for the search engines:

1. Implement a clear navigation scheme that can be fully crawled using text links.
   
   
2. Minimize the number of clicks to your key content.
   Search engines look to site owners for clues as to what is important on a given site. If a piece of content is 4 clicks from the home page, what are you saying about its importance?
   
   
3. Implement pages that are rich in search engine visible content.
   This means text based articles and descriptions, and text based links. Give the spider something to chew on.
   
   
4. Effectively link related content within your own site.
   This is a great tool for reinforcing the relevance of pages on your site.
   
   
5. Write effective meta description tags.
   This will not help your ranking at all. However, these descriptions often get used by search engines as the description they show for your site in their results. So write something here that is likely to get a user to click through to your site.

Marketing

Getting people to link to you remains an important component of the marketing effort. We're not suggesting that you buy links, or swap them by the bushel. We mean getting people to give you links without giving them anything in return.

Since people won't generally link to you for the express purpose of making you money, why would they do it? Because they care about their visitors, and they think your site has something of value for them, such as great content. This also happens to be the profile of the sites whose links to your site are likely to have the highest value in the eyes of the search engines.

For years, our industry has thought of this process as "link building". It's time to change our thinking. Not that there is anything wrong with link building, or its close cousin that we all talk about, "link baiting." Links still drive higher search term rankings. But a few things have changed:

1. Since we need to think about search phrase-specific Page Rank, we must get highly relevant sites to link to our sites.
   
   
2. Since swapping is now heavily discounted, this type of activity has become virtually a waste of time. The exception is swapping links with highly relevant sites. The best guideline to use here is: Would you link to the other site even if they didn't link back to you? If the answer to this is yes, then go ahead and do a swap.
   
   
3. Link purchasing is a practice that works really well for lots of people. However, it comes with significant risks, so get over it. Why would you want to do this with any business that you are building for the long term?

Subject-Matter Expertise

You need to have great content. Building a large organic traffic stream will not happen unless you have great content. You need to offer something on your site that people want to read about, and link to. In addition, you just won't close business well unless your content is seen as high quality by prospects.

There are many ways to show expertise on a Web site. Here are a few basic ideas:

1. Write great articles about your area of expertise (but don't burden these articles with sales pitches for your products or services)
   
   
2. Offer great tools that people will want to use
   
   
3. Create a unique and valuable community on your site
   
   
4. Be a major source of news and information in your area of expertise

The key thing here is to think about high quality content for users, instead of "link bait." Where link bait seeks to get quick and easy links from any source, a better plan is to build trust with your audience. Trust building is not a gimmick or a trick. Trust is something that you earn and will keep your business growing for years to come.

Information Architecture

Wikipedia defines information architecture as the "practice of structuring information (knowledge or data) for a purpose". In broad strokes, think of this as user-centered design. (By the way, bots will eat this stuff up too.) The basic elements of an effective information architecture include:

1. Understanding how your users think about the topic area of your site.
   This is where keyword mapping exercises come into play. Keyword tools such as Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker are useful. Tools such as these can help you find out how users search for things related to the content you have, or plan to have, on your Web site. Map your navigation and pages to the things you learn during this exercise.
   
   
2. A well defined and clear global navigation scheme.
   Make it easy for users to navigate your content. The menus on your site need to be consistent in structure and location. It's helpful to implement a "bread crumb" bar showing the structure of a site, to help the users remember where they are and how they got there.
   
   
3. Leverage common UI practices.
   This is no time to implement a new paradigm. Users have been conditioned by other Web sites to look for things in certain places on a site. Take advantage of this and make life easier for them.

Technical Implementation

While the search engines urge us to "design for users," not search engines, the reality is that the search engines have certain basic requirements. Failure to meet these requirements can spell certain doom for your site's prospects. Here is our list of 5 things that you need to do to put together a solid technical implementation for the search engines:

1. Implement a clear navigation scheme that can be fully crawled using text links.
   
   
2. Minimize the number of clicks to your key content.
   Search engines look to site owners for clues as to what is important on a given site. If a piece of content is 4 clicks from the home page, what are you saying about its importance?
   
   
3. Implement pages that are rich in search engine visible content.
   
   This means text based articles and descriptions, and text based links. Give the spider something to chew on.
   
   
4. Effectively link related content within your own site.
   This is a great tool for reinforcing the relevance of pages on your site.
   
   
5. Write effective meta description tags.
   This will not help your ranking at all. However, these descriptions often get used by search engines as the description they show for your site in their results. So write something here that is likely to get a user to click through to your site.

Marketing

Getting people to link to you remains an important component of the marketing effort. We're not suggesting that you buy links, or swap them by the bushel. We mean getting people to give you links without giving them anything in return.

Since people won't generally link to you for the express purpose of making you money, why would they do it? Because they care about their visitors, and they think your site has something of value for them, such as great content. This also happens to be the profile of the sites whose links to your site are likely to have the highest value in the eyes of the search engines.

For years, our industry has thought of this process as "link building". It's time to change our thinking. Not that there is anything wrong with link building, or its close cousin that we all talk about, "link baiting." Links still drive higher search term rankings. But a few things have changed:

1. Since we need to think about search phrase-specific Page Rank, we must get highly relevant sites to link to our sites.
   
   
2. Since swapping is now heavily discounted, this type of activity has become virtually a waste of time. The exception is swapping links with highly relevant sites. The best guideline to use here is: Would you link to the other site even if they didn't link back to you? If the answer to this is yes, then go ahead and do a swap.
   
   
3. Link purchasing is a practice that works really well for lots of people. However, it comes with significant risks, so get over it. Why would you want to do this with any business that you are building for the long term?

So what does this mean? It means you have to get your links by different means (you have to "earn it"). Great content. A reputation as an open business that builds relationships with its customers and partners. In short build trust. This is what will get people to link to your site.

Summary

No doubt that there are many opportunities to drive up search engine traffic using techniques that are not in keeping with their terms of service. You need to view these techniques as both a risk and a distraction. It's a risk because the traffic you get from these techniques will go away when the search engines catch up to them, or you can get banned in the worst case.

It's a distraction because it keeps you from focusing on building the trust in your business. The trust is the enduring asset that you are trying to build. When you spend time working on other things, you are building a weak foundation for your business. If you are thinking about building your Web site as an asset for your business, there is no time for distractions.

But you can't ignore the technical requirements of the search engines. Getting these right is critical. Don't think of it as designing your site for search engines. Think of it as designing your site for users, but being search engine smart at the same time.

Why Small Business Needs a Web Solution Not a Website

Just a few years ago, small companies flocked to the web in droves, rushing to post their first website, anxious at the prospect of low-cost instant exposure. The web was going to be the great equalizer, putting small business on par with the big brand names, dangling the promise of visitors flocking to a company’s site to purchase its wares or partake in its services. Sound familiar? Unfortunately, for most small businesses and organizations, the promise fell short and company sales did not skyrocket from an unending march of site visitors.

So, what happened? For one, the web quickly became ultra competitive. Millions of sites sprang up in every business category making it virtually impossible to be found in the search engines. What little bit of traffic the businesses may have enjoyed when the site was first launched began to dry up. Also, as the web evolved to become a more interactive user experience, it became more technologically complex and many small business websites did not keep up. The other part of the problem was in the approach; not understanding that just putting together a website, even a pretty one, and finding some faceless company offering cheap web hosting services is not likely to make you the next great success story. A large hurdle that many small business owners and managers face is the tendency to compartmentalize the web into a few oversimplified tasks: grab a cheap domain name, find a budget small business website design and development person, look for some impossibly low-priced website hosting, and then expect their website to magically appear on page one of Google. Unfortunately, this ends up being a waste of time and money.

A Solutions-Based Approach with Professional Guidance

To create an effective web presence requires a solutions-based approach with clear ideas about what you want to accomplish and who the audience is you are targeting. The right elements have to be present; a well orchestrated website design with cohesive branding, solid technical acumen, clearly defined objectives for the organization, reliable small business web hosting services and some method of marketing your site and tracking the results. The web is constantly evolving and search engine competition is fierce. Being successful on the web requires consistently evaluating the site’s effectiveness based on your objectives, understanding the latest technologies and trends, having a dynamic website marketing plan and constantly fine tuning.

While you don’t have to spend a fortune to create real value on the web, you should also be realistic. Understand that being successful will require an investment that you should plan for and a clear vision of how your website fits into the goals and objectives of the organization. If you don’t have the experience and technical resources in-house, working with a professional web solutions provider, preferably one specializing in small business web design and development can provide great benefits. A good starting point in the process is to have an understanding of the core elements that are part of a successful website strategy and how they fit together.

The Elements of a Web Solution

1. Domain names – Choosing the right domain name is an important branding decision which impacts how your organization is perceived and also how it is found in the search engines. Purchasing from a cheap bulk registrar or choosing can spell trouble.
   
   
2. Website Design & Development Services – Find a provider that specializes in small business web design and development. An organization that offers a solutions-based approach can assist your company in doing thorough needs analysis and in designing all of the elements to work well together. First impressions count!
   
   
3. E-mail Management – E-mail is a key communication tool for your business. The right system will help you maximize communications within the company, on the road and with your customers.
   
   
4. Social Media – Social media such as blogging, Podcasting and other web 2.0 tools can greatly enhance customer communications. Your web services company should be able to help you evaluate how social media tools can best benefit your web presence and business objects.
   
   
5. Small Business Website Hosting Services – All web hosting is NOT created equal. There are many nuances and technical consideration involved with hosting solutions. It is best to stay away from budget hosting companies. Look for a managed hosting provider who can help you select the right plan for your web solution goals, get your website up and running and support you as it grows and evolves.
   
   
6. Website Maintenance – How will your site be maintained and updated? Having both small business web development and managed web site hosting as a package is immensely helpful for maximizing web server resources, identifying problems and keeping the site maintained and updated.
   
   
7. E-Commerce – Will you be actually selling on your site or using it for lead generation or information dissemination? If you are selling products, who will create and maintain your product database. How will transactions be handled? What about web server requirements? Working with a professional can help ensure you make the right choices for your e-commerce site.
   
   
8. Business Process Interaction (database development, customer relationship management, integration with your business management systems) – A website needs to be more than just an ad on the Internet to be effective as a business tool. There are many ways the web can be used to improve your business processes and integrate with your existing systems such as accounting or contact management.
   
   
9. Website Marketing – How will people find you on the web? Will you optimize your site for organic search or employ paid marketing techniques or a combination? What directories should you list your site in? Search engine marketing has evolved to be a complex specialty. It’s critical that you understand the tools available for driving traffic to your site and if needed, know how to evaluate and engage a web marketing specialist.
   
   
10. Website Analytics and Conversion – Having a great site isn’t enough if your visitors aren’t doing what you intended; buying something, contacting your company or using your site for an information source. Does your site have usability issues? What kind of reporting will you use to track site visitors? What do you need to know and do to convert your visitors into action-takers?
    

It’s a Process and a Work in Progress

While there is certainly a lot to think about, creating the best possible website solution for your business doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Your website can and should be a work in progress, evolving as your business grows. Because most small businesses do not have an internal IT staff to handle the technical elements of web development and planning, working with a web solutions provider that specializes in small business website hosting services and small business web design and development is a good start. Such an organization can help you identify your goals, manage the technical aspects of your site and guide you in your marketing efforts. They can also help you work within your budget to develop a plan that combines all the elements into a cohesive whole for creating and maintaining a successful web presence.

Conclusion

The web has grown up to be a terrific marketing medium for small businesses and organizations. Done right, it can be the most cost effective and powerful marketing and communication tool in your arsenal. The promise is still there. However, to truly leverage the power of the web, it is important to take a good, hard look at the website you currently have or the one you are thinking about creating. The elements of a successful web presence: small business web hosting, website design and development and web marketing are only the framework for a well thought-out web solution designed to reach your customers and truly benefit your business.

Local Business Profit from Local Search

Why do I want to Advertise on the Internet?

I often get business owners asking, “Why should I have my business on the Internet?” There are many reasons but the most important reason is your bottom line. Compared to the cost of Phone Book Advertising, Magazine, TV or Radio Advertising against the cost of having a website. The Return on Investment is mush higher with a website and Internet Advertising.

More and more people are turning to the Internet to find services instead of having bulky phone books. According to JuxtConsult Stats 30.32 million of all Indian citizens use the Internet. JuxtConsult conducted a survey of online users - 33% of Internet users make purchases online. If 67% of your online customers are using the Internet to get information and make purchasing decisions, and 33% are actually making purchases, then you need to be represented on the Internet.

Companies that do well with local search results are service based industries. With people moving into metro areas they need to find new service providers and are turning to the Internet to find and compare services that are available in their new location.

Two Types of Internet Advertising

The first type is paid advertising through a company like Google. Google’s paid advertising is called AdWords and is known as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. The concept is simple - you define your best keywords (through keyword research) then bid on the keyword phrase. When someone types in your chosen keyword phrase then your website will come up in the listings for that customer to click on and go to your site. The cost of this type of advertising is industry specific meaning that is varies by industry. Keywords can sell for pennies or well over $50.00 per click. For business targeting the local market it is possible to take a costly keyword like “Web Design” and put a city or area behind it and get a much better price on the keyword.

The second type of Internet advertising is called Organic placement - these are the sites that are listed in the main area of the search results page. The goal is to get placed in the top half of the first page. There are many variables that come into play for the search engine to decide who gets prime placement. It is all based upon relevancy of the phrase typed in by the searcher to the websites listed. Some factors are:

* Keywords in the title of the website
* Keywords in header tags
* Keywords listed in the text of the page
* Keywords in the URL
* Keywords bolded or emphasized on the page
* The Keywords in the text of inbound links
* How many inbound links
* The PageRank of sites that are linking to your site

That is a short list of considerations made by the search algorithms - but all of those items are in control of the owner of the website. They should all be taken into consideration when optimizing your site for organic placement in the search engines. This is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Social Media Google Slap

Just watch the video, it's worth it if you're at all concerned about how your website ranks in the SERPs.

She makes a very good point that if your strategy is to bookmark across hundreds of sites you're going to be in trouble. What she doesn't talk about is the quality of links from those sites. The problem with bookmarking using an autobot to get hundreds of links is that you don't get any internal support from the site -- it's just a submission with a single vote. From what everyone is hearing, Google is slapping those types of links hard.

The good news is that if you concentrate on a few high authority social media sites and get a strong number of internal links to your post (votes), you'll be that much ahead of the people that are relying upon numbers of links rather than quality.

Social media will still be important, but you need to build a strong profile with lots of incoming links (friends) to your profile and lots of incoming links (votes) to your submissions. A Digg story with 1 vote will be pretty much useless. A Digg story with 50 votes that sits in upcoming for a few days will be very powerful.

Also, don't discount the power of social media to bring traffic and other links. While you get no SEO value from a storm of StumbleUpon hits, you're likely to pick up some links as other webmasters are exposed to your content. And the evidence is building that Google is looking at its toolbar data to determine rankings. Sites that get more traffic tend to perform better in the rankings. So don't throw away traffic from sites that don't necessarily convert well because in the end that traffic helps your rankings in many indirect ways.