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 (see
this forum thread), your best bet is to use an
existing domain/website if at all possible. If you're
redesigning or starting from s10cratch 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
Keyword
Discovery,
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 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!
