There is perhaps no more level playing field in business than the Internet. It is this fact that has created
millionaires from paupers. The amount of money that can be made depends of course on your industry and your
products and/or services but to be sure, if it can be sold at all, it can be sold online.
While there are many methods out there for building a profitable website, from banner ads to email campaigns, by far
the most cost effective over time has proven repeatedly to be search engine positioning. The major advantage search
engine positioning has over other methods of producing revenue online is that once high rankings are attained and
provided that the tactics used were ethical and that continued efforts are made to keep them, they can essentially
hold and provide targeted traffic indefinitely. Your site may rise and fall in the rankings as a result of algorithm
changes, but a solid and complete optimization of your site will ensure it will not disappear.
I have been ranking websites highly on the Internet for quite a few years now and there are some essential rules
that, if followed, will ensure that over time your website does well and holds solid and profitable positions on
the major search engines.
Here are the 10 steps to higher search engine positioning:
Step One - Choosing Keywords
You first must choose your keywords. This is perhaps the most important step of the process. Incorrectly
targeting phrases can result in traffic that is not interested in your product. There are three tools that I use
virtually every day to help pick the most appropriate keywords:
- Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool
- WordTracker
- My Brain
The last in the list is the most important. Look through the potential keyword phrases and think, "Who would be
searching using that phrase?" If the answer is, "a student looking for information" then chances are it won't result
in a sale. If the answer is "Someone who is looking specifically for a product I offer," then obviously this is a
prime candidate as a targeted keyword phrase.
Step Two - Site Content
Even before I optimize websites I like to get a good deal of new content down in order to ensure that I know exactly
where I'm going and exactly what I need to do to get there. Creating some of the new content before starting the
optimization process can be doubly helpful in that it can reveal potential additions to your website that you may
not have considered (a forum or blog for example). If you already have a site, perhaps simply sit on your back deck,
sip on a coffee and imagine what you would do if your whole site was lost and you had to start again (other than
launch into a very colorful discussion with your hosting company).
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Step Three - Site Structure
A solid site structure is very important. Creating a site that is easily spidered by the search engines yet
attractive to visitors can be a daunting and yet entirely rewarding endeavor. To adequately structure your website
you must "think like a spider" which is not as difficult as it may sound. A search engine spider reads your web page
like you would read a book. It starts at the top left, reads across, and then moves down.
Priority must be given then, to what you place near the top of your page.
Step Four - Optimization
Once you have your keyword targets, your content created and your site structure established, you must move on to
the most obvious step, the optimization of your content.
As noted above, a spider places importance on what it reads highest on the page and so beginning with a sentence
that includes your targeted phrase only makes sense. That said, stuffing in keywords in the hope that it will add
weight to your page generally doesn't work. The term "keyword density" refers to the percentage of your content that
is made up of your targeted keywords. There are optimum densities according to many reputable SEO's though exactly
what they are is debatable. Estimates seem to range anywhere from 4 or 5% to 10 to 12% (quite a gap isn't it).
Personally, when it comes to keyword density, I subscribe to one rule: put your keywords in the content as much as
you can while keeping it comfortably readable to a human visitor.
Some do it first, I do it last. Regardless of when you do it, you must choose your heading. At the beginning of your
content you have the opportunity to use the <h1> tag to specify the heading of your content. This tag is given
extra weight and is also an indicator to the search engine of where your actual content starts. Make sure to use your
keywords in the heading but don't shy away from also adding additional words (though not too many).
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Step Five - Internal Linking
To ensure that your website gets fully indexed you have to make sure that the spiders have an easy path through
your website. Text links make the best choice as the anchor text (the actual words used to link to a specific page)
add relevancy to that page for the words used to link to it. For example, if I ran a website on acne and had a
treatments page, I could link to it with an image, with text reading "Click for more information on how to treat
this skin condition" or simply "Acne Treatments". When a search engine spider hits an image it has no idea what the
image is and, while it will follow the link, it will not give any weight to the page it hits. If you use text that
does not contain the keywords you are targeting you are essentially supplying the engine with the same lack of
relevancy as with an image, but if you use the phrase "Acne Treatments" to link to your acne treatments page you
are attaching relevancy to that page for those keywords.
There are two main ways to ensure that your site gets well spidered and that the relevancy is added. The first
is to place text links on the bottom of your homepage to your main internal pages (not every page, that just
looks odd). The second is to create a sitemap to all your internal pages and link to it from your homepage. Both
methods have advantages and disadvantages but that's a whole article unto itself.
Step Six - Human Testing
So now you have your site, it's optimized and you have your navigation in place. The next step is to run it past
someone who has never seen your site (and preferably who won't know how much work you've put in and tell you it's
great even if it's not).
Ask them to find specific information and see how long it takes. Ask someone else to just surf your site and watch
which links they click and ask them why they chose those ones.
Most importantly, find out how the content reads to them. You've spent hours working through the content at this
point and are probably somewhat biased. Find out how it reads to someone who has no vested interest in the site and
correct any issues he/she may bring up.
Step Seven - Submissions
I have a different philosophy than most when it comes to search engine submissions. I submit to directories (both
general and topic-specific) and to a few topical search engines, but for the most part, I've found submitting to
Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other major engines has proven to be a bit of a waste of time. The major search engines
are spidering search engines which means they will follow links to wherever they go. Simply having sites linking to
you that are spidered by the major search engines will get your site found.
When I have spent time submitting my sites, I have found they get picked up in about a week. When I have simply
skipped this step and sought out reputable directories and other sites to get links from, I have found that at least
the homepage of the site gets indexed in as little as two days.
Neither will hurt your rankings but to make the best use of your time, seek out directories and other websites to
get links from and leave the spiders to find you on their own.
Step Eight - Link Building
All of the major search engines give credit to sites that have quality links pointing to them. How many is enough
depends on your industry and targeted phrases. Running a search on Google that reads
"link:www.yourcompetition.com" will reveal approximately how many links a competitor has.
The first place to seek links is with general and topic-specific directories. After that you may want to move into
reciprocal link building. Reciprocal link building is the exchange of links between two websites. Some webmasters
will simply link to any website that links back to them. I highly recommend being more discriminating than that.
Find websites that you believe your site visitors would genuinely be interested in and you've probably found a good
link partner. You want to find links from sites that are related to yours.
There are obviously many more methods to building links than directories and reciprocal link building. Again though,
this is a whole article (or more) in itself.
Step Nine - Monitoring
Whether you use WebPosition Gold or just run manual searches you will
have to monitor the major search engines for your targeted phrases. Also, you will need to review your stats to
see where your traffic is coming from and what search terms are being used to find you.
If a month passes and you don't see any changes, then more work needs to be done. I'm certainly not stating that
you should take a month off, a solid search engine positioning strategy involves constantly adding content, building
links, and insuring that your visitors are getting the information they want to have and finding it as easily as
possible.
Step Ten - Reward Yourself
So you've done it. It's taken many, many hours of work but you're rankings are doing well. What you've created is
a solid position that will stand the test of time provided that you continually revisit the above-noted steps and
ensure that your website is always one step ahead of your competition (who have noticed you climbing and succeeding
as you would notice others climbing up around your ranking).
Now it's time to turn off your computer, take your partner out and have a great week(end). You have a lot of work
to do to maintain and build on these rankings but the hardest part is over. Congratulations!
About The Author
Dave Davies is the owner of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning. He
has been optimizing and ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history of success. Dave is available
to answer any questions that you may have about your website and how to get it into the top positions on the major
search engines.
