Search Engine Optimization

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Search Engine Optimization You

• Gaining traffic through organic search results

Scott Dowling 241 Solutions scott_at_241solutions.com
http//www.241solutions.com
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Initial SEO Steps

• Where to start?
• Initial Analysis
• Keyword Research Analysis
• Competitor Analysis
• Lets look a little deeper into each of these
  steps.

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Initial Analysis

• Before you can get your website to where it
  is going you first has to see where you have
  been, or in this case currently are!
• There are some very good SEO reporting tools out
  there that can give you a view of what keywords
  you are searchable for each search engine and
  what page you are found.
• Web CEO
• IBP
• This will prove you with a good baseline report
  with which to track progress.

4
Keyword Research Analysis

• Make a list of keywords you WANT to be searchable
  for. This is often much different than the
  keyword found in your Initial Analysis.
• Once you have a list of your desired keywords
  found out exactly how many times a day that
  keyword is searched for. Chances are you will
  find that there are alternatives to your desired
  keyword that receive a lot more searches per day.
  
• You also want to make sure you are not choosing a
  saturated keyword. If you are a used car company
  in Harrisburg go for Harrisburg Used Cars DO
  NOT go for cars.
• Update your keyword list with the better
  alternatives.

5
Competitor Analysis

• Make a list of your top to or three competitors.
• Perform an Initial Analysis (Step 1) on each of
  your competitors. This will show you what
  keywords they are currently searchable for. If
  there are keywords here that are not on your list
  re-evaluate your keyword list and decide whether
  or not to add these new keywords to your list or
  have it replace current words in the list.
• Google the top three keywords and find out what
  sites appear. This is a great way to find
  competitors you may have been unaware of. Be
  sure to save a list of your competitors for use
  in the Link Exchange step.

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Keyword Finalization

• Choose your final keyword list
• Your list should contain no more than three
  keywords
• Each keyword should have a high usage count on
  Google each day yet have minimal competition
• Your keywords should be words that you can easily
  incorporate into your websites text
• Combination of words can sometimes be the best
  course of action
• Why only three keywords?
• Your keywords will be tightly ingrained
  into your websites pages. It will be used in the
  meta tags, alt tags, and the text itself. Trying
  to stuff in too many keywords could take away any
  sense of a meaningful message to your viewers.

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HTML Optimization

• Where do I place my keywords?
• Meta Tags
• Title
• Subject
• Description
• Href tags (Title Element)
• Img tags (Alt Element)
• No more than 3
• First three image tags when possible
• Text of the website
• Plain text
• lth1gt, lth2gt, lth3gt
• ltstronggt
• Linked

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Site Map, Site Map, Site Map!

• Here is an often ignore portion of website
  development. Site Maps!
• Site maps are at the heart of Search Engine
  Friendly Design. They make it very quick and easy
  for the search engines to find and index every
  page on your web site by putting links to every
  page in one spot. Site maps also allow you to
  help the search engines to clearly understand
  what your web site is about and presents some
  unique opportunities in optimization. "Keyword
  density" is a term often used to describe the
  number of times a particular search phrase
  appears within your site. Site maps should make
  maximum use of your most relevant and important
  keywords. It should contribute to your keyword
  density within the link text on the page. All
  links should be plain text and point to every
  page within your site with descriptive words that
  make it easy for both visitors and search engine
  spiders to understand what they will find on each
  page linked to from your site map page. Site maps
  are essential as an optimization technique and
  should always be linked to from your index page
  or home page.
• Google XML Sitemap Generator http//www.xml-site
  maps.com/

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Sample XML Sitemap
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Submit Your Website

• Submit your link to DMOZ
• Google and other major search engines spider DMOZ
  and other Open source directories quite often.
  There is a long history between Google and DMOZ
  with a great write up about that here
  (http//jean.manco.googlepages.com/googleanddmoz).
  
• Submit your links to Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN and
  any other major search engine.
• Submit your Google XML site map to Google
• Steps to do this here
• Submit your URL to Link Directories!
• In many SEO tools, like the one I listed earlier,
  provide you with a huge list of link directories.
  Submit your link to these directories starting
  with the ones with the highest PageRank.

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What is PageRank?

• According to Wikipedia
• PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used by
  the Google Internet search engine that assigns a
  numerical weighting to each element of a
  hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World
  Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its
  relative importance within the set. The algorithm
  may be applied to any collection of entities with
  reciprocal quotations and references. The
  numerical weight that it assigns to any given
  element E is also called the PageRank of E and
  denoted by PR(E).
• The name "PageRank" is a trademark of Google,
  and the PageRank process has been patented (U.S.
  Patent 6,285,999 ). However, the patent is
  assigned to Stanford University and not to
  Google. Google has exclusive license rights on
  the patent from Stanford University. The
  university received 1.8 million shares in Google
  in exchange for use of the patent the shares
  were sold in 2005 for 336 million.
• You can download Googles Toolbar that displays
  the page rank of any website you visit. This is a
  very useful tool for Search Engine optimizers.

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Initial Phase Complete

• Final keywords selected
• Website HTML and text are optimized
• Sitemap on the website for visitors
• Sitemap in your root directory for Search Engines
• Submitted to Search Engines
• Submitted to Link Directories
• Other tips
• Pay to have your link listed with Yahoo!
• Create a Google Analytics account and track
  traffic from search engines
• Start a Google Adwords Campaign

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Phase 2 Links, links and more links

• Link Exchange
• By now you might be wondering why SEO companies
  charge so much. After all what we covered so far
  isnt rocket science!
• Exchanging links is not only difficult but it
  will almost certainly test your patience and
  resolve. For every 100 link exchange requests you
  might get 10 replies. Of those 10 replies 1 or 2
  might remember to put your banner or link on
  their website as promised. Everyone wants YOU to
  place the link first and after being burned
  several times you will want THEM to place your
  link first!
• Should I just exchange links with whoever I can?
• No! Especially not at first. Your potential link
  mate should meet a few initial requirements
• Their website shares some of the same keywords as
  yours
• The page they want to place your link has a
  decent PageRank
• Your link is not placed anymore than 1 level deep
  from their home page
• There is a link to the page you are on from their
  home page

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Phase 2 Links (cont)

• There is no exact algorithm but it is generally
  considered that one link on a home page with a
  PageRank of 4 is worth more to Google than a
  dozen links on deeper pages with no page rank or
  a very low page rank.
• Since you will not have a great PageRank
  initially focus on exchanging links with websites
  that share common keywords. Enough of these links
  and Google will start to raise your PageRank.
• Keep in mind that each individual page has its
  own PageRank within your website.
• Of course the majority of you links will go to
  your home page but if you have a page within your
  site that has a unique topic try to exchange the
  URL of that page with other websites that deal
  with the same topic. This will help raise the
  PageRank for that individual page.

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Phase 2 Links (cont)

• Example
• Imagine you own a sports website like ESPN. In
  addition to giving a link to your home page to
  other sporting news websites you would also want
  to exchange the link to your football homepage to
  websites that deal only with football.
• http//sports-ak.espn.go.com/nfl/index
• http//espn.go.com/
• Each page is individually awarded points based
  on its own merits from the major search engines.
• Tip
• One of the best ways to find websites that will
  exchange links with you is to find where your
  competitors are linked.
• Use a website like www.linkpopularity.com to
  find out where your competitors links are and
  send the website owner an email requesting a link
  exchange.

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Incoming Links

• Incoming Text Links
• When you perform a link exchange be sure to
  provide the actual link and/or banner. In doing
  so you can control the wording of the text which
  is of importance. Text links that direct a user
  to your website should contain the keywords for
  the landing page it is pointing to.
• For Instance
• lta hrefhttp//www.hbgusedcars.com
  titleHarrisburg Used CarsgtGreat Used Cars in
  Harrisburglt/agt
• Incorrect
• lta hrefhttp//www.hbgusedcars.com/index.cfm
  titleHarrisburg Used CarsgtGreat Used Cars in
  Harrisburglt/agt
• Incoming Banner Link
• lta href titlegtltimg src alt
  border0gtlt/agt

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Black Hat Tips to avoid!

• Invisible Links
• Links in which the text is the same color as the
  background
• Link Farms
• Placing your link on Link Farm directories and
  websites
• Text
• Text with a font size of 1
• Spamming keywords
• Repeating pages, same content with dynamic
  keywords.