Eric

Search engine optimization isn’t hard to do or learn.  Some basic stuff in web development goes a long way.  The basics believe it or not work wonders when trying to get your site into the search engines.  But first you have to determine, how badly do you want to be in search engines, and how badly do you want to fanazzle your viewer.  Unfortunately, for search engine optimization, the bells and whistles often times hurt your rankings.  When planning for search engines, the best thing to do is go back to the basics pre javascript era when the world wide web was still only for the selected few.

Using Javascript can be used and yet still achieve search engine optimization, however, flash will not get ranked.  And this is important to know.  What is your goal for your site?  Knowing this will be key.  Ranking in search engines is a process that takes time to achieve.  White hat SEO does not happen over night, or even months.  Often time to get good quality rankings, you need atleast 6 months, and so much goes into what factors your score.

Time your site has been “alive” plays a key factor.  If you domain is brand new, chances are, your site will take forever and a day to get ranked.  New sites have not established any relevancy to the internet world in the search engine spider’s eyes.  However, at the same token, and brand new domain might be easier to get into the search engine.  Old domains that may been optimized using black hat techniques might have been band or label, virtually making it imposible to rankings.  A brand new domain has no history, therefore it’s history will be built.  If you do things correctly, the search engines will love you, and before you know it, natural traffic will be on your way.

When building a brand new domain, it is better to build it small, then expand.  This gives it time for the search engine spiders to see a natural growth of the site.  Constantly adding new content keeps the spider hungry for more and coming back.

Targeting each pages to specific keywords or phrases is key. No more than 3 should be used on any given page.  Content should be written specifically for it.  Use proper english, however in the case of search engines, repeating keywords and phrases will not get you slapped on the hand by your english teacher.  Repeat the keywords.  Use them as much as possible, but make sure it is still gramatically correct and understandable to a human reader.  Try and keep content to approx. 300 words or roughly 3 paragraphs.

Use meta keyword and description tags.  Do not spam the keyword.  Make each page unique.  Try not to repeat the same keyword more than 5 times.

Use the keywords in an H1 and title tag in the HTML.  Proper usage of HTML tags is very important.  The days of using the tag to best achieve the look is out.  Use CSS to redefine the look of the HTML attribute or tag.  Keep your HTML code to a minimum.  Stay away from the table development, and stick more to div tags.  Keep all styling in a seperate CSS file.  Creating a pure CSS page will make a big difference in how the search engines favor your site.  Often times the pages are lighter, and the code is easier to read.

Images, keep the design images in the CSS file, and only include necessary images named after the keyword targeted for the page.  The name of the image must make sense to the image itself.  Proper usage of “Alt” tags on the images is a good idea.  Remember, what the search engine spiders want to see, is a properly formated site, this includes the content and the code.

Make sure all links on the site are readable.  Use title attributes on “a” tags.  If any javascript is used for rollover effects, make sure the link is still readable, and keep the javascript on a js file seperate from the page.

Page naming convention and folder structure.  Make sure the name is named to the keyword or phrase, and logically stored in the appropriate folder.  You would not store a page called “widgets” in a folder named “cars”.  Chances are, you will store a page named “Ford Mustang” in a folder named “cars”.  Usage of folder structures is critical when targeting main keyphrases and the sub targeting specific key phrases and keywords.  Keep your folder structure to a minimum.  It is not advisable to go in to deep.  Try and not pass more than 2 tiers deep.  Example:  somewhere.com/cars/ford-mustang.html is idea.  This is not: somewhere.com/cars/ford/mustang.html.  This is to many folders in deep and chances are, the page mustang will not be seen and put on to the back burner for another time.

Backward links is very important.  There are 2 types of links.  One way links, and two links.  One way links rank higher than two way links.  It is known that two way links are used in link building, and that two sites agree to have each other’s link on their site for the purposes of search engine optimization.  Better links are one way links.  Usually when someone finds a good read, they will naturally link to the site.  Search engines know this.  If you have a one way link to your site, and you have a lot of them, chances are, the content is good, and relevent to what the user is searching for.

As of now, search engines rely heavily on links to your site to tell them how you should be ranked.  The more links going back to your site, the better you will position.  A linking campaign is crucial when building for search engines.

Last thing, your site’s theme.  All sites have a theme.  The theme of this blog is everything about the internet.  Not much outside of the internet will be discussed.  Your site should have a theme too.  Without a theme, search engine’s will not know how to rank you or what to rank you for.  If your theme is cars, but you write or the spider interprets your content as planes, you have a big problem.  Using tools to figure out what your site’s content gives off is important.  Use them.  They really can drastically improve the ranking of your site.

This is a more in depth approach.  Tweaking an maintaining your site are important.  Tweaking your site often will teach you what little stuff works and what doesn’t.  A great deal of time will be spent, but if you’re long term goal is to get natural traffic through your site to help cut marketing costs, you will reap the rewards if you keep at it. Read webmaster forums and search engine optimization forums as much as posssible. Post and ask questions. There is so much free information out there, you just have to go get it.

Many times over and over the same questions are asked, “How do I get my site in Google?”  Well in theory, this is very simple.  Have a good site with a lot of good content.  However, with as many sites as there are in the net, Google has to constantly evolve their ranking algorithm.  Approx. every 6 months, Google does a purge on their system.  Sites that are so so usually don’t make the cut and get dropped.  Rankings and all.  But can you blame them?  They search millions of sites everyday, constantly finding new ones.  With an indexing system as large as theirs, they have to find a way to maintain a way to keep their databases as efficient as possible.

It has been said that new domains don’t get ranked, as true as that maybe, I’ve had plenty of brand new domains start return results within a matter of months.  But what are the criteria on getting your site indexed and cached by Google?  Here are some tips that will surely get you’re site noticed.

First of all, not all sites will get in.  You must understand that.  What makes a site get in?  HTML coding.  Simple as that.  The downfall to many sites seeking that organic natural rankings fail to properly set their site up with clean HTML code.  When Google and other search engines come in to evaluate your site the first time around, they will usually stick around for the first 10kb of the site.  If the first 10kb of your site is bogged down with code, guess what, the search engine will not find any content, turn around, leave, and throw your site at the end of the list to be read.  This will pretty much ensure the next time Googlebot or other search engines spiders will come around again sometime when boy bands decide to come out of the closet.  HTML coding is one of the most important aspects of Search Engine Optimization that people fail to realize.

Second, read able text links are key.  Search Engines cannot read JavaScript or follow JavaScript links.  So don’t use them.  If possible, a clean linkshould be used.  Ex.

<a href=”your_page.html” title=”Page Name”>Page Name</a>

This link is easily read by search engines.   The “title” attribute gives the spider a good idea on what it is to expect.  A good idea, stuff the keyword the end page is targeted towards in that spot.

Third, theme your site.  If your site revolves around “Widgets”, make it only about widgets.  Do not try and add other categories to your site, as this will throw off the “theme” and drop your chances of getting the main keywords or key phrases targeted.

Fourth, CONTENT!!!! Good quality content with just enough keyword repetition is in order.  Content should be betwen 200 and 300 words, and about 3 paragraphs.  Make sure the content is unique, and actually provides good information to the readers.  No one wants to read or visit a site with useless content.  Most of the stuff on this blog is useless information. But people keep reading it for some reason.  (I know it baffles me off too).  All the content on your page should have a certain amount keyword density and repetition.  You should only target no more than 3 keywords per page.  Keep in mind, you are still going for a theme on the site.   If it is widgets, then stick to widgets.  Do no have content on why the sky is blue.  It has no relevance to widgets and Google will doc you for it.

Fifth, links.  Good content will automatically have links generated back to the page.  This is what you want, and what you are aiming for.  If you don’t have time to wait around for it, surf the net and find other sites related to your site, and ask for a link exchange.  Be sure before you put their link up on your site, that they put one up for you.  Check back often to ensure they didn’t take it down.  If they did, you just gave them a one way link.  One way links weight more than 2 way links.  So the idea is to get as many one way links back to your site or landing page.  Often time posting in forums related to you site with your link in the signature works.  Posting in blogs with a link back to your site works too.  I don’t do it for my site, however, I do it a lot for sites I am promoting.  Not to mention, this drives free traffic to your site, esp if the page has a lot of traffic to it.

Sixth, change your content often.  Make weekly updates if you can. Add pages.  Constantly make changes to your site.  This will keep the spiders hungry ad coming back for more.  This blog gets on average a visit from Googlebot about every 2 days if not everyday.  I personally don’t see why considering I post to this once a decade, but they seem to like it.  If you can, make daily changes, even if they are small.
Seventh, use a site map.  Have a site map built just for the purposes of having all links in your site in one page.  If you can, use the Google SiteMaps feature to let Google know how often you make changes to your site.

Generally, getting our site into search engines is not hard.  Follow these 7 steps and you should be good.  There are of course a lot of other factors that go with really optimizing a site, however as a starter, these are good steps to follow when trying to get your site noticed by the search engines.