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10 Steps For Beginning SEO On Your Web Site
January 23, 2008
SEO (
search engine optimization) and SEM (
search engine marketing) are 2 popular acronyms that get tossed around casually.
Have you SEO'd your site yet? I was recently asked, and
I know I need to invest in SEM, but I'm not sure where to begin. With everything else on your plate, finding a way to fit both of these needs into your busy schedule can be overwhelming. Normally I'd tell you to designate someone to handle this side of the business. Since I work with small businesses and non-profits, I know being able to pay someone to handle this very important task is hard on the wallet. If that's not an option, here are 10 steps to begin optimizing your web site yourself:
- Identify your competition
- Make a list of 5 direct competitors to your business
- While on their web site, look at their source code:
- in Firefox, select "View" at the top of page [next to File and Edit] and then select "Page Source"
- in Explorer, select "View" at the top of page and then select "Source"
- In the source page, select "Edit" and then "Find" - type in keyword
- This will show you what they listed in their source code for keywords. It will look something like this (including the title and the description of what the site is about):
<html><HEAD><TITLE>Shoes at Zappos.com - Powered by Service -
Our shoe store features dress shoes, casual shoes, and
athletic shoes for men and women!
</TITLE><META NAME="description" CONTENT="shoes, footwear,
sandals, boots, apparel, eyewear, accessories, handbags,
womens shoes, mens shoes">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="Find shoes, handbags,
apparel and more! Get what you need at Zappos!">
- Another way to find out their keywords is to look at their navigation and the content and write down the words they use. For example, on Zappos, they list the different types of women's shoes available in their drop down navigation. Those are all keywords that are searchable.
- Identify keywords
- Make a list of all the keywords you find in their source code, navigation and content. You list will be long, but you'll pair it down in a few minutes.
- Link tracking
- There are multiple ways to find out how well your competitors perform with link tracking: links to the site and links from the site.
- Links to the site: in Google, type in (example, substitute your competitors URL) linkto:www.zappos.com
- Using Alexa.com, type in your competitors name to see how well they're performing. Example: (I'm using Zappos.com today because I'm about to buy some running shoes)
- Combine keywords: review the list that you culled from your competitors and pair them down.
- Remove duplicates
- Combine words together that you know people use
- Put them into logical categories
- Discover how well the keywords are working (perform a test on known popular terms, somewhat popular, and possibly unknown terminology to get a good idea)
- Perform a search of each term in Google, Yahoo, and MSN
- Use the Yahoo! Search Marketing Tool to see how well the search term performs (this is an easy way to by-pass looking at your competitors sites. Simply type in the search term that applies to your business and see the keywords that pop up)
- Use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool (their new tool pulls from competitors sites if you enter in the URL and also supplies keyword/phrase search option too)
- Add keywords to content
- Review your content to ensure it contains the keywords you've selected.
- Submit pages to search engines & directories (a sampling is listed below)
- Check search engine registration
- After two weeks, start performing searches for your site to see where you turn up.
- Also use Marketleap to find out how you compare to your competitors
- Fine tune your keyword list
- Fix whatever isn't working and consider buying some keywords (search engine marketing)
- Check your placement often
- Once you've helped your search engine rank, you cannot rest on your laurels. Check your status often and make adjustments when necessary. Search engines pride themselves on changing their algorithms often, so what worked yesterday might not be working yesterday. Frustrating, yes, but it's how the game is played.
Posted by Suze Bragg on January 23, 2008 | Comments (2)
