Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization – First, let me say that I am not the end all – be all of SEO. I am just passing on what I have learned over the years. Always keep reading. Matt Cutts of Google can help you too, as other SEO Experts (of which I am not), I am always trying to learn, just like you, and since the SE’s constantly change their algorhythm’s, you will be too.
Now that is out of the way, let’s get started.
Let’s say our keyword is Chicago Website Design. You are a web design company that creates websites using html 5 and WordPress. Now, people that buy your product search for something like: Web Design Company in Chicago. Most people will not just type in web design, they want something a little more specific. This will show you how many pages there are on that subject.
In our case, Web Design Companies in Chicago returned about:
About 99,000,000 results (0.66 seconds)
So now you know you need to look at your competition because you have to place 1st above all 99,000,000 other pages that Google found regarding web design. TIP* you can see what page you are on by searching for your own page(s). Usually, your options are limited to 10 search results on a page, but we want the max searches returned. We want 100 results on the page and there are a couple of reasons for this.
First – Search for your domain name to find out where your site ranks, you don’t want to go through it website by website and spend hours just searching one at a time, so have the browser find your domain for you. I want it to go to look for the link and type in my domain name in the find dropdown and let it search the 100 results for me. Continue doing this until you find out where you rank. Second – it is going to save me a lot of time and eye strain. So just use the drop down “find” and type in your browser, type in your domain name and see where you show up. You can go to this link below to find out more on how to do this.
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/21527/chrome-display-more-than-10-results-when-searching/
EXAMPLE:
When designing your Chicago Website Design – website, be sure to sprinkle the keywords and phrases that you think your clients will search for, and do across your entire site, but don’t put same keyword/keyphrase on every page. You have to use keywords that will fit what your page is about. Different pages, need different keywords/phrases.
Our Example:
Web Design
If I search for this keyword/phrase on Google.
I will look at the top 10 pages, and see what they are doing. I will look at their title, their description and the keyword/keyphrases on their website. I will also look to see how many links they have linking into their site. A lot of companies have a team working on that alone and have millions of links coming into their site. This can be really difficult to overcome.
So go and take a look at your competition and see what titles they use, what their meta-description is in the source code, the keywords they use on their pages.
We have Chicago website design as the main keyword, but you also have all html, WordPress, Chicago, etc. So Google is going to search out these types of keywords it thinks you are looking for!
Search Engines will look for: Title, Description (source code), keywords/phrases on the page, and at the end of the page.
Title: Be sure to make good titles. 17 – 60 characters
Our title will be: Chicago Website Design
(that’s 40 characters, use more if you want up to 60 characters)
Use Meta Descriptions of what your page is about 72 – 160 characters:
Our Description:
Chicago Website Design – Programming Chicago for awesome websites. Take a look at what we can do for you. Chicago and surrounding areas. Is Your Site Next?
More on Descriptions:
Use H1, H2, H3 headings in your pages.
Make the header clickable, and it should link back to your homepage.
Make sure you have links inside your pages that only link back to a parent page, meaning not the main navigation links.
- Let’s say we have a navigation link called WordPress
- We need a link inside that page called Our WordPress Designs (just an example) so now you need to create another page called HTML 5 that only links to the Web Design page. This makes this page rank a bit higher.
Our Home (Welcome/index) Page would include keywords/phrases:
At (insert domain name here) we create fabulous web designs in Chicago that you will be proud of. We are a local company that has been designing since 1999.
***In that first sentence we have our keyphrase Web Design in Chicago***
Add the keyphrase of the website at the bottom of the page, along with your domain name that you have linked to the home page.
Always have the links to your main pages on top and on the bottom of the pages. It makes it easier for the consumer to get out of that page if that is not what they are looking for, or if they finished reading the page, then they don’t have to scroll all the way back up to go to the next link.
Copyright area | Web Design in Chicago By: Our Company dot com All Rights Reserved.
Finally, remember to look at your competitions source code by using the right click and view source code attribute.
Create articles. If you can do it with a blog linked to your website that works very well.
Links – get as many good quality links back to your website as possible.
Try to have 300 words on the page. Better is 500, and best is 2,000 words or more.
Sometimes, that is difficult to do because your competition is also using the same keywords/phrases as well. Sometimes, you just don’t know what else to say without it sounding like fluff.
Other ranking factors:
The time you have had your domain name – Yours is good since 1998 (Excellent)
How long do you have until you have to renew your domain? The longer in years, the better.
https: is also now a factor in a higher rank (security certificate).
Have social media links on the website – be sure to have a YouTube account and upload videos if possible because Google owns YouTube. We are all sure it gives you a better rank.
Try not to spam keywords or keyphrases. Use them like you would in a normal sentence and paragraph. Google will penalize you if it thinks you are using any blackhat techniques.