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Developing an effective search engine
optimization strategy
Search Engine Optimization is more of an
art than anything else. Many factors
must be considered when planning an
appropriate optimization strategy, but with
the right knowledge, skills, and a little
patience, your site can benefit enormously
in the end.
We don't use tricks or try to cheat the
search engines in order to obtain high
rankings for our customers. Instead,
we design a plan for increasing your
rankings based on making solid improvements
to your website, such as adding meaningful,
information-rich content that is helpful to
your website's visitors, checking for errors
or other problems that can prevent being
indexed, and more. Search engines are
very aware of the many ways people try to
cheat their way to the top, and we advise
our clients to steer clear of any SEO firm
who guarantees "top-10" rankings for their
clients, as they are likely using some of
these "less than honest" techniques to
achieve their high ranking, and could
actually end up hurting your rankings, or
get your website banned all together.
Phase 1: Initial Website Analysis
We will start by analyzing your website's
HTML code, web graphic images, links, etc.,
and analyze your website's traffic and
rankings to determine:
- Determine link popularity
- Research keywords to find the best
keyword phrases you should include
- Monitor your progress by tracking
your rankings on a weekly basis, and
provide weekly detailed submission
reports detailing your site's progress
- Repair broken links
- Text (Font type and sizes)
- Website layout and sitemap
- Text and background colors for
highest legibility
- Website navigational structure
- Determine placement and rankings
across major search engines
- Determine current indexing of site
across major directories
- Determine current keyword and key
phrase placement across search engines
and directories
- Calculate average traffic level of
site
- Number of people visiting site in a
given period.
- Determine which pages people are
visiting in site and from which pages
they exit.
- Pinpoint the most frequently (and
least frequently) visited pages on your
site
- Number of links to your site on
other websites
Phase 2: Competitive Analysis
The next phase involves analyzing your
competition in order to see what you're up
against.
- Analyze your competition (locally
and/or nationally) to determine their
ranking and popularity
- Targeted keyword popularity analysis
- Industry analysis
- Target market analysis
- Associate sites that affect their
link popularity
Phase 3: Search Engine Web Site
Analysis
If you are having problems getting your
sites found in the major search engines,
there can be problems with your keyword
selection, site architecture, and link
popularity.
- Visible website components, such as
images, text, keywords in text, page
titles, links, etc.
- Invisible components, such as
meta-tags (keywords, description),
alternative text ("alt" tags), etc.
- Site architecture including HTML,
style sheets, and scripting if
applicable
Phase 4: Website
Usability Analysis (Optional)
This phase involves testing
the effectiveness of your site using actual
people, in real time. We use real
queries which you can provide, which is done
in a controlled and monitored human
environment.
Assessments will be provided
from individuals visiting and testing your
site, to determine their overall browsing
experience, noting their opinions on
important aspects of your site, such as
their number of clicks required to find the
information they needed, whether your site
is easily navigated, level of understanding,
and any comments as to their impressions of
your site, both before optimization and
after.
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What is a Search Engine?
Search engines are the primary method
most people use to find information on
the Internet. The most
popular search engines include
Google,
MSN and
Yahoo, as well as many others using
search technology, such as
Lycos,
AltaVista,
Hotbot and
WebCrawler.
After typing a word or phrase of
interest to search for, the search
engine returns a list of websites it has
previously indexed that could possibly
contain information related to that
topic.
People also use various directories
to find websites containing the
information they need, which
differ from search engines because many
are indexed by an actual human being
rather than an automated search web
spider to index the text on a website.
Spiders, also called crawlers or robots,
pick up specific text characters to
match the word or phrase the user is
searching for. |
