Search Engine Optimization

The goal of Search Engine Optimization is to get a higher ranking in the search engines using keywords most relevant to your content and thus get more visitors. While getting the #1 rank in your keywords is difficult, it is not impossible. Search using your targeted keywords to see the top site in the rankings. That is the site you will want to out rank.

The first requirement for a search engine plan is to have a content rich site. This means understanding your own business and sharing the information with your visitors. You must, however, have adept Search Engine Optimization or your site may be wonderful but never seen. After you have accomplished these, you can submit to the search engines.

Step 0: Content is King

Search engines are becoming more "intelligent" to the point that there is now an argument developing among the search engine optimization community as to whether  the emphasis of search professionals should be content or context. As long as your site is content rich with a theme, you will have a site that the search engines like.

Content rich means having meaningful information that internet users will find valuable. Having a theme means what it sounds like. Having a site with several or a lot of unrelated topics is not a theme site.

Step 1: Find the Right Keywords

The first step you should do is research the best word and phrases to optimize on. This is known as "keywords" for which you want to get top rankings. If you choose the wrong keywords, you either are not going to be found or you are going to be found by the wrong people. It doesn't matter if you get top ranking if the keywords are not relevant to the objectives your site. So before you begin optimizing your site, choose the right keywords.

Try our Keyword Analyzer Tool:  

Use this tool to research your keywords. The output will tell you how many times a keyword was searched and how many corresponding keywords were searched. This will help you build an inventory of keywords and phrases. You can download them into a txt, xls, csv, xml, or ini file. It will also act as a creativity tweak to help you think of new keywords.

Use two to four words to create phrases that are most likely to be searched. Write them down or load them into a list from the tools above. You can do several runs until you find the phrase that seem to work best for your site.

Step 2: Identify Your Competitors

These are the web sites you are going to beat. Find the Top 10 in Google and Yahoo. Approximately 90% of all searches are done on these search engines. Compare the results of the two engines. Most likely they will nor line up directly in order of 1, 2, 3 etc. Each search engine uses a different secret algorithm. The companies closely guard their secrets.

  Try our keyword search tools:

Step 3: Write Your Copy

You probably have written copy or had copy in mind. Now is the time to write it. See our section on content. This is where the rubber meets the road. It is important that you offer your visitors something of value - something that makes them want to stay on your site and return to your site. Once your copy is written, it is time to tune it.

A good place to start the tuning process is with our Keyword Density Analyzer. With this tool, you can check how many times each keyword is used. From a search engine optimization standpoint, it is important to have enough of your keywords in your page without spamming. The best way to do this is to write in context.

Try our Keyword Density Analyzer. From our Keyword Density Analyzer you can also search on each of your keywords or phrases from the search engines.

Step 4: Go to Step 1

Search engine optimization is a iterative and reiterative process. Check your copy and make sure that your spelling is correct and that it is grammatically correct. The search engines are then better able to understand your page and to index it.

Step 5: Link Popularity

After you have tuned your website using the steps above, you should concentrate on increasing your link popularity. It  is a factor increasingly used by search engines to determine the importance of your website and is used as part of the ranking algorithm.

A good move is to check the link popularity of your competitors. Write down who is linking to them and try to get them to link to you also. The rules are - if you get a site to link to yours, you get popularity points. If you link to their site, they get popularity points.

When checking the sites that you want to link to yours, you want the sites that have quality links to their sites. You thus get higher points for their links. The goal is to get links with higher points linking to yours, not necessarily the most links. If Adobe™ links to your site, it is worth a lot more than if Fred.com links to your site. You should also try to link with sites that are relevant to your business.

Since link popularity is important and it takes a long time to get sites to link to yours, you should begin this process immediately.