Search Engine Optimization - Content and Links

Page content is still king! Search engines index all the text on the pages of your site to attempt to determine how well your web page matches a search. So you will want to make sure you use the search phrases you identified in our first article 'Search Engine Optimization - First Steps' in your web pages. Repeating the phrase 3 -4 times in the page content is a good rule. Don't forget the description meta tags.

Now let's discuss links. This is where Google came in and search engines got a lot smarter. Search engines now look at pages that link to your pages as well as your page's content. They figure that if people link to your page, it must have superior content. The actual algorithm used by the search engines is a carefully guarded secret, but here is a description of the basic premise. To determine ranking the search engine will not only look at the page content, it will also look for other pages with content matching the search phrase and see what pages they link to. The text on which the link to your page is applied is also considered. If you are in the real estate business in Austin, TX and someone links to your site on the phrase "Austin real estate", that would be preferable to "Joe Bob Brokers, Inc.". All links to your site are good, but links to your site from pages that index well for your selected search phrases are better, fewer links to other sites on the page is better, and if the link is on the search phrase, that's even better.

There's a whole industry now devoted to building up links to web sites. You might have received email from these folks. What most of them are doing is paying independent contractors that own their own domains to place links on their sites. Typically these are low value links in that the pages containing your link don't index well for the search phrases you are interested in and there may be quite a number of links on the page. Typically they will say the link is guaranteed to last forever, but they rarely check the links and it is up to you to monitor them and request a substitute if a link, page, or site disappears.

To establish better quality links, I recommend the following:

• Make sure if you are a member of any industry organizations that they provide a link to your site.


• Search Google, Yahoo and Bing using your selected search phrases. Make a list of the top 50 results. Strip out your competitors (I can pretty much guarantee they aren't going to link to you). Take the resulting list and visit each site. See if they have a paid link program allowing you to purchase placement on their site. If not, find an email address you can use to communicate with them and send an email praising their web site and suggesting their visitors might find a link to your site helpful. I recommend specifying where you would like the link placed and the way you would like the link worded.


• Use sites like Yelp, Brownbook, Merchant Circle, Indeed, ZoomInfo, LocalSearch.com, MojoPages, YellowBot, ZipWeb, and HotFrog to ensure your company has a listing and the listing has a link to your website.

Next you will want to be patient. It takes several weeks for the revisions you have made to your web site and the links you have established to be indexed by the search engines.

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Search Engine Optimization

Let's start our search engine optimization discussion with a list of search phrases. What phrases will people looking for your product or service use in a search engine? Make sure you consider using a location name in your phrase if your product or service is locally based. People looking for "swimming pool contractors" will quickly realize they really want a local swimming pool contractor and will add a location as part of a new search phrase ("Austin swimming pool contractors"). Because you want to match the prospect's search phrase as closely as possible, make sure you include the location in your search phrase list if your product or service is locally based. Stay targeted.

Next, take your search phrases to Google, Yahoo, and Bing paid advertising interfaces to see what phrases similar to your list are used and with what frequency. Google Adwords, Yahoo Marketing Solutions, and Microsoft Adcenter all have keyword tools that will give you suggestions and usage information. You will have to create an account (and pay $5.00 for Microsoft Adcenter) but you don't have to maintain an ongoing campaign to use their tools. If they force you to create a campaign, just make sure you pause it or delete it when you have finished using their keyword tool. After completing this step you should have a list of search phrases ordered by relevance to your product (or service) and frequency of use.

The web page title is VERY important when it comes to search engine placement. At this point, you should identify pages of your site that relate to the highest-ranked search phrases and make sure the title of each page includes that exact search phrase. Now, let's not get confused about what a page title is. When you look at a web page in your browser, the page title will be displayed at the very top of the browser window. This is above File, Edit, and View toolbars (click here for an example). The title on the example page is "Web Pro Journal - Search Engine Optimization - First Steps". In the HTML code, this is the text between the <title> and </title> tags. It is NOT visible in the web page window. The page title is used on the search engine results page when creating a link to your page (the blue underlined text - click here for an example). So, you will want the page title to make sense and entice the visitor to click on the link. The page utilizing the search phrase should also have the search phrase close to the top of the page in <h1> tags (header one). The <h1> tags indicate the top level heading on a page (or page topic). Header tags can be styled to look any way you wish, but they do have enhanced meaning with search engines. Therefore, we recommend that you use <h1> tags around your web page heading and utilize search phrases in the heading.

In the next issue, we will discuss content and links.

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