New Orleans Internet Marketing

People ask me how to get their web site to show up in search engines once a week. Then there’s the question about the spam email they got that guarantees to submit their site to over 1000 search engines! Or, “I keep submitting the site to Google, once every day, and I’m still not listed.”

Let the truth be known….submitting your site to Google is a waste of time. If that’s all you’re going to do in order to get your site listed, then I guess it’s better than nothing. And if your site is about some really obscure topic that no one else talks about on the internet, you might show up eventually. And that’s if your on-page factors are well optimized for the search engines.

With that being said, there are some very basic ways to get our websites to rank well in the search results. They’re not as easy as typing in the URL and clicking “Submit,” but if you’re going through the trouble of designing a site, you can certainly pay attention to these details along the way.

Choosing Keywords

First and foremost, decide what keywords you want to target in the search engines. You can use tools like the keyword selection tools I link to on the SEO Tools page. Make a comprehensive list, then decide which you think will bring in the most relevant traffic; then decide which ones you should target based on your time and budget. The competitiveness of the keywords you wish to target will determine how much work you need to put into search engine optimization. If you target highly competitive keywords, and you don’t plan on spending every waking moment developing content and marketing your site, you probably won’t show up for those keywords.

In order to determine “competitiveness,” look at the sites that show up for them in the search results. Do they follow the guidelines described below? If so, they may be harder to beat. You can also look at the number of people who search for those keywords (using the SEO Tools mentioned earlier), and the number of results that Google returns when the search is made. If there are 1,000,000 results for a search – that means you need to find a way to tell Google that your site is the most relevant out of 1,000,000 pages it has in its index! Don’t worry though, it’s easier than it sounds.

Use the list you made as a guideline for developing content for your site. Be aware that anything you want to show up for will need to be represented in the content on your web site, and that you’re going to have to work to get quality links from other relevant sites. It’s important to be realistic when targeting keywords; if you give your web designer a list of 1000 keywords with no prioritization among them, your site will probably not show up for any of them.

There are 2 main aspects to consider when optimizing a site for search engines, On-Page factors and Off-Page factors. Here’s the rundown:

On-Page Factors

This is the easy part. These are all factors that we have infinite control over. On-Page factors are your site’s content and how it’s presented to users and to the search engines.

Does your content match what you want to show up for in the search engines?
Example: I have a site about dogs, and it’s all about dogs. But now I want to sell “cat food” on the site. If I don’t have information on my site about “cat food,” my site will probably never show up for those search terms. A good idea would be to add a section on “cat food.”

Is your content actual text on the page, or is it represented by graphics?
It’s hard for most people to tell the difference. An easy way to tell is if you press down your mouse button while dragging it across the text areas on the web page. If it lets you highlight parts of the text, it’s more than likely real text. If not, if it highlights a whole area, it’s probably a graphic or flash. The problem with graphically representing content (well, one of the problems), is that search engines don’t read graphics like they do text. Of course, you can specify an “alt” tag in the html, which is supposed to describe the graphic in certain instances; but search engines don’t lend much relevance to that. There are also workarounds for things like logos and company names; there are always other ways to incorporate them into text on the page. The same goes for Flash – don’t put your important content in Flash. It’s ok to use it for parts of the design, but if you want to get good search engine rankings never do an all-Flash web site.

Are the keywords you want to show up for in the “title” of your pages?
The title of the web page is the part that shows up on the top of your browser window. The title is probably one of the most important places to have the main keywords for your pages. Try to use words in the title that are actually represented in the content of the page. Some people suggest 8 – 14 keywords in title tags, but it really depends on the nature of the keywords you’re targeting.

Did you spend hours writing meta tags?
If so, you probably wasted a lot of time. Although meta tags are pretty irrelevant today, I still write them because it’s good practice. Some web sites and search engines actually use the descriptions. There’s been talk recently, that if you’re not going to do original description tags for each page, that it’s better not to do them at all. Some people warn that this can cause your pages to go “supplemental,” which is another whole topic I’m not going to get into in this “basics” discussion. Meta tags should be descriptive and relevant to the content on the page.

How did you organize your content?
Example: If I have a web page (one page) that talks about “cats, dogs, and elephants,” it may show up for a search on “cats, dogs, and elephants.” But if I want it to show up for the individual keyword searches, like “dogs,” then it probably won’t do as well. If I want my page to show up for “dogs,” I would  do better separating my “cats, dogs, and elephants” page into pages about each animal. I could even do a summary page, called “cats, dogs, and elephants,” that links to each individual page – “cats” – “dogs” – “elephants.” Organization of content is an important aspect of search engine optimization that is frequently overlooked.

These are the On-Page basics of search engine optimization. There are many factors not discussed that affect On-Page factors; those will be addresses in future writings.

Off-Page Factors

Off-Page factors are things we have less control over than On-Page factors. Off-Page factors are the other sites on the web that link to your page, and the manner in which they do so. Think of Google’s search results like a “popularity contest.” In this contest, the best, most popular web sites show up better in the search results.

How does Google decide who is the best?
On-Page factors aside, Google uses the links pointing to a site (from other sites) to determine quality. The idea behind it, is that the better quality web sites will “naturally” get more links from other sites over time. But there are many different factors Google considers when looking at links. Here are a few:

1. The number of links pointing to a site
2. The relevance of the site linking to your site (links from a site about “sports cars” won’t do much to help a site about “dogs” show up for “dog” searches).
3. The quality of the site linking to your site. Does the linking site have good search engine rankings? Quality inbound links? Good, relevant content?
4. The text used to link to your web site. If it’s always your company name, and your company name isn’t relevant to what you want to show up for in the search engines – that could be a problem.

These are just some of the basics that should be considered when optimizing your site for the search engines. Search Engine Optimization can be a lot more comprehensive than what’s discussed here; and the level of work that needs to be done is dependent on the competitiveness of the keywords your site intends to target.

Always keep in mind that long term sustainability of competetive search engine rankings is directly proportional to keeping your site up to date and developing relevant content that is useful to searchers. A “create it, and leave it” attitude about your web site will result in a site that loses relevance over time.

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