SEO and How to Get It

SEO refers to “Search Engine Optimization”. There are many factors that can influence your search engine ranking – the age of the domain name (a domain and site that has been up for a longer time will typically do better than brand-new sites in the same subject), the accessibility of the code, the quality of the content and the competition for specific keywords are also factors. Search ranking will fluctuate over time and is also a measure of your sites “popularity” (number of reciprocal links that have propagated through link exchanges, Social Networking sites, blogs and internal links) as well as your sites relevance to specific searches. The web is a dynamic environment and users expect fresh content – a reason to visit your site more than once, link to your site and forward your site to friends, associates and partners. Ideally, SEO should be part of your normal content development process – and an ongoing area of refinement for your web site and blog articles.

Tips on Writing Well for the Web

(from Google so pay attention)

Meet Googlebot - the friendly web crawling robot.

Meet Googlebot, friendly web-crawling indexer

Write easy-to-read text – Users enjoy content that is well-written and easy to follow!

Stay organized around the topic – It’s always beneficial to organize your content so that
visitors have a good sense of where one content topic begins and another ends. Breaking
your content up into logical chunks or divisions helps users find the content they want faster.

Use relevant language – Think about the words that a user might search for to find a piece
of your content. Users who know a lot about the topic might use different keywords in their
search queries than someone who is new to the topic.

Create fresh, unique content – New content will not only keep your existing visitor base
coming back, but also bring in new visitors.

Offer exclusive content or services – Consider creating a new, useful service that no other
site offers. You could also write an original piece of research, break an exciting news story,
or leverage your unique user base. Other sites may lack the resources or expertise to do
these things. (Note: this is where Blogs and Social Networking sites can be useful – they are effective tools to promote news and services while establishing quality links back to your site.)

*Create content primarily for your users, not search engines – Designing your site around your visitors’ needs while making sure your site is easily accessible to search engines
usually produces positive results.

* Creating high quality content is essential and is now a factor in search engine results. Learn about Google’s Quality Guidelines here…

In short, write your own content and keep it relevant to your unique services. You know what you do better than anyone else – Eat Paint Studio can help you edit and refine your content to make sure that you are utilizing important keyword weight (the natural occurrence of keywords in your content).

Keywords, META tags (descriptions and keywords) as well as page titles and page headings will all help achieve a search result.

On-Site and On Page SEO Checklist:

On-site SEO Check (condensed):

  • Crawl-able: Is your website W3 standards compliant and does it include a Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml file? Also, is your site not in Flash?
  • Readable URLS: Is the page URL in your browser readable by humans and does it use keywords? Read this article on Best Practices for URL’s.
  • Canonical Homepage: Don’t have duplicate site content. Make sure “http://www.yoursite.com” or “http://yoursite.com” both resolve to the same URL. It doesn’t matter which one your choose but choose one. Your web designer should be able to do this for you.
  • Have a unique 404 page: The rule of thumb is to Be Helpful – and have some fun with it. Its not the user’s fault that your page content moved or doesn’t exist anymore – don’t lose their trust. Why this matters and examples of some good 404 pages on Smashing Magazine.

On Page SEO Check (condensed):

  • Only one <h1> heading value should appear on your page and it should be a property of your page title.
  • Use keywords in your <title> tag – this is the title that appears in your browser window above the URL window. Yoast’s SEO plugin for WordPress will allow you to handcraft these entries. Every page title should be unique and reflect the content of that page. Use your long-tail keywords!
  • Use a META description. This won’t impact Google search results but it is helpful to users – and, hey, you’re here to help, right? The META description is the little blurb (or first few lines of your page) that appear in a search result or when you post a link to facebook.
  • Include keywords in your page content – just focus on a few keywords throughout your site and develop trust. Build on these keywords and refine your content over time. Keywords should appear naturally in the flow of your content. Don’t be pushy.
  • Images – although search engines can’t “see” you images, they can read the image file name and the “alt” image tag. Instead of the default filename “image_01119899DCS.jpg,” call it by its proper name. EX: “willis-tower-chicago.jpg”. Use dashes to separate keywords. Use the “alt” tag to describe an image for non-visual browsers and screen-readers. Again, be helpful.
  • For WordPress users and all of my clients: Tag your blog articles! Tags are custom keywords unique to each blog post. Use this dynamic feature of WordPress. One primary category and 5-7 keyword tags are good.