Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your Website or Blog

Search Engine Optimization is the holy grail of website designers, website owners and bloggers.  We want to get traffic to our pages so we can communicate to the world, sell a product, or promote a cause. But how do we get noticed?  Specifically, how do we convince Google and other search engines to rank our pages higher than those of another website?  The answer is search engine optimization (SEO).

Search engine optimization, at it's basic level, is fairly simple.  It can also be far more complex than I'll get into here, but these tips are a great way to start, and with a little time and effort, anyone can do them to improve their website or blog's page ranking.

Get quality links coming into your site. It is a fantastic way to improve your site's search engine optimization. 

The best links are from websites that are similar to yours in subject.  For example, if you are selling sculptures, links from other art related sites will help you in two ways:

1) You may get clicks from their site to yours, since their customers are looking for art, and you offer sculptures, and

2) When a search engine assesses the keywords in the linking site, it takes several factors into consideration to determine the quality of the link.  In the art example we're talking about, Google will look at the site's key words, determine that it is an art site, and when it follows the link and discovers yours is an art site also, it concludes that yours is a relevant site. It will reward the link accordingly.  It helps if key words relating to your site are imbedded in the host link.  Such as Stainless Steel Sculptures in this example. 

By the way, the worst links are those coming from link farms.  Google places no value on these links, and in fact, it is now believed by SEO experts that if the linking page/site is being penalized in some way by Google, that can negatively affect your own page ranking.  Get quality links!!!

Keywords are "key" to improving your site's SEO. Choose appropriate keywords to incorporate into your web pages.

Choosing the correct keywords for your web pages or blog is vital.  It may help to first answer the following questions:

1.  Who will visit your page and why?
2.  What information are they looking for?
3.  How does your web page meet their need?

You'll notice I'm saying web page, not website.  This is because it is likely each page of your site will have a different purpose.  For example, you may have a contact page, or a faq page.  These pages will require different keywords, because their purpose is different than your main page or your product page.

Let's go back to the art example.  If you are selling sculptures, determine which page you would like your visitor to land on.  The first page?  The sculpture product page?  After you have decided, then it is time to determine the best keywords for that particular page.  Once you have found those keywords, sprinkle them liberally on the page (in context please, and not enough to be annoying, of course), and include them in your page title, description and meta tags.  More on this later.

Think about the product you want to sell.  Say you have several stainless steel art sculptures to sell.  Brainstorm keyword ideas and write them down.  Imagine you are an art connoisseur, looking for that perfect sculpture for your garden. What keywords would you type into Google to find that perfect art piece? Stainless steel sculpture?  Garden Art? You get the idea.  (And let's not forget about Google images.  Later, I'll tell you how to use keywords with images, too.)

Now let's get a few more keyword ideas.  Two wonderful sites for this are:

Google Insights for Search:  http://www.google.com/insights/search/
Type in your keyword(s), and hit "Search." The keywords' popularity will be listed on the right side of the page (a blue bar under the word TOTALS). Related keywords are listed at the bottom of the page.  These are additional ideas to add to your keyword brainstorming sheet.

Google Adwords: Keyword Tool: http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal 
At the top of the page, under "Find Keywords," type in the keywords you would like to research, and hit "Search." A table will load up, full of information about your keywords, plus additional, related keywords.  (You can delete any irrelevant words, if you wish.) 

You can customize these columns by clicking on the tab "Columns." I like to look at the "Estimated Average CPC," "Competition" and "Global Monthly Searches."  The local search columns can be helpful, too, depending upon your purposes.  These columns convey a wealth of information.  The "Competition" column tells you how popular that search term is.  If the bar is completely green, the competition is high.  By correlation, the "Global Monthly Search" level is also high (lots of people are searching for this term), and the "Estimated Ave. CPC" (CPC stands for cost per click in an Adwords campaign) is high, also.

While these highly competitive keywords might relate perfectly to your site, the competition is clearly fierce for those words.  It will be easy to get lost in the crowd.  While you can certainly use those keywords in your web page, you might want to focus more closely on different keywords--keywords with high relevance to your page, and less competition.  The book "Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day," by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin, (an excellent book, by the way--I highly recommend it), advises website designers to choose keywords with the following attributes:

1.  Lower Popularity and Higher Relevance (meaning the keywords are very relevant to your page)
2.  Higher Competition along with Higher Relevance

If you'd like an Excel spreadsheet of the data you've found on the Adwords site, you'll want to click the button at the top of the page that says "Previous Interface."  It will allow you to export your findings to an Excel file, and download it to your computer.

By now you have a good number of possible keywords to use.  I recommend using one last tool to narrow down your best keywords to a manageable handful of five to ten.  To further determine your competition for keywords, go to http://www.google.com/.  In the search box type:  allintitle: YOUR SEARCH TERMS  and click "search." 

Google will tell you (in the line directly below the search box), exactly how many results (web pages) have your search terms in their title.  Once again, a large number means you're competing against a whole lot of people.  Keep in mind when choosing your keywords that while there are millions of fish in the sea, it's easy to drown in deep waters.  On the other hand, a tidal pool may have only a few fish, but they are easier to catch.

After you've decided on your keywords, it's time to implement them into your site.  Finally!

Plug your Keywords into Your Site in order to Improve your Website's Search Engine Optimization.

1.  Put your best keywords into the html of your site.  Put the best phrase(s) in your title (place them between the two Title tags). Add your keywords to your Meta tags, and include them in your Meta description.  NOTE:  If you put the keywords in your title, meta tags and meta description, be sure those exact keywords are located in the actual text of your page.  Title tags and Meta tags matter little if the search engines don't find the keywords in the actual content of your page.

2. Use your keywords as often as possible in your page content (without being obnoxious about it). Especially include your keywords in headers.  Search engines pay attention to bold or other emphasized text, and draw the conclusion that the content on your page is about the headlined text.

3. Remember I said I'd explain how to optimize your images for SEO?  It's easy.  Include keywords within the alt tags of the photo's html.  I like to put relevant keywords in both the short and long descriptions.  This way when people search Google images and type in your keywords, your pictures can come up.  Easy!

As I said in the beginning, search engine optimization is not hard, although it can be time consuming.  In addition, many more steps can be taken to further optimize your website for the search engines, but the steps I've outlined are a great way to start. With a little time and effort, you can begin to make your website into the popular site you would like it to be.

"For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor;

no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless."

Psalm 84:11