Web Site SEO and Web Site Design Strategies

For Improved Rankings and Usability

Major search engines, like Google, Yahoo and MSN can account for a majority of your web site's traffic. Traffic that comes from "natural" or "organic" means (non-paid) is a result of your web site's organic search rankings. If proper web site search engine optimization (SEO) techniques are applied to your web site, your site's rankings will improve and you'll enjoy increased traffic, especially if proper conversion optimization techniques are applied along with the SEO and design steps.

An effective web site SEO effort needs to not only consider what happens within your web site's pages but also steps taken off site that include incoming links and other promotional techniques. If your web site's traffic is properly targeted and your site is set up to maximize your conversion rates - the percentage of visitors who take the desired action, such as buy your product or service - you web site revenues will also increase, sometimes in dramatic fashion.

SOME STRATEGIES YOU CAN USE TO MAKE YOUR SITE ATTRACTIVE TO SEARCH ENGINES:

1. Keyword-Focused Content -

the more valuable, original content on your site that is focused on your targeted keywords, the better your site will rank. Not only because of the content on the page, but because others will want to link to your content, which gives an extra boost to your search rankings. In the past, most SEO specialists insisted that you must have a certain keyword density percentage - the ratio of your targeted keywords to the total number of words in your text - but no one has been able to prove with any certain exactly what that ratio should be. Your content should seem natural, easy to read and logical. It should include your targeted keywords and related words. It also needs to provide value to visitors, who will want to return and/or refer your content to others. Good content is the heart of any site. When that content is focused on your target audience and encourages them to take action you benefit even more.

Pages that don't contain enough textual content aren't likely to rank very well at all with the search engines. The same holds true with duplicate content taken from other sites and with content generated by a software program or purchased as "private label content". This becomes even more true as search engines continually strive to increase the relevancy of their results. Don't stress over keyword density, but if you want to run a check, here are two free tools to do so. You might see what pages are ranking at the top of the search engines for your keyword and see what the keyword density is on those pages:

http://www.keyworddensity.com
http://www.KeywordCount.com

Copyscape is a great tool for checking to see if you are using duplicate content. You can either enter the URL for your content or paste the text directly into Copyscape. The premium version, which requires a paid membership, conducts a more thorough search for your content. Therefore, the results are more accurate.

2. Keywords in your domain and file names -

it used to hold considerable weight with the search engines if your keywords were included in your domain name. Now, how long y our domain name has been in existence seems to be more important. Including keywords in file names still holds weight with the SEs. Don't change your domain name - especially one that's been around for a long time - for the sole purpose of improving your rankings. If you have a business reason to do so, fine, but let your web site SEO consultant know in advance, because redirects to your new domain need to be handled correctly to avoid problems with getting the new site to rank. In file names, the best way to handle multiple word keyword phrases, such as rubber buggy baby bumpers is to hyphenate between the words. For example rubber-baby-bumpers.html. In time, that may also change, but for now conduct a search and see which pages end up at the top. You're likely to find several with hyphenated page names.

3. Keywords in your page titles -

the content of page titles carries a lot of weight when it comes to search engine rankings. A good web site SEO practice is to include your targeted keyword in each page title - the title that displays at the very top of your web browser. Try not to repeat your keywords in the title more than once or twice and never place the same keywords right next to each other. The best way to separate keywords in your title seems to be with hyphens. For example, "Rubber Bumpers - Baby Buggy Bumpers". Every page on your web site should have its own unique title. How many times have you seen a web site where each and every page title is "XYZ Company". That will get you nowhere fast. Unless you are trying to rank for your company name, it's not necessary to include it in your page title.

Remember too, that this page title will be what appears in the search results list, so it needs to make some sense and encourage the searcher to click the link. Anything longer than 60 characters in your title will likely be truncated and invisible in the search results, and even in the browser's title bar. Avoid stop words such as but, for, and, etc. as much as possible while still having the title make sense.

4. Description Meta Tag -

many search engines will include the content of your META Description tag as the description of the link that appears below the linked page title in search results, provided the content of the tag is written properly and the code doesn't contain errors. The Description tag is an opportunity to not only work in your keywords, but to write text that will further encourage searchers to want to click through to your web site. Prior advice suggested that you should limit the content of this text to between 200 and 250 characters, but I've seen Google truncate (drop) any text that exceeds 160 characters. If your page doesn't include a META Description, the search engine will look for text on your page to serve up as the description of the page. This is not usually a good thing, as snippets may be pulled that either don't make sense or are not very appealing to make a searcher want to click your link. Again, every page needs to have its own unique META Description. In some cases, search engines will use your page content even if you have a perfectly valid Description tag, but you shouldn't skip this step.

5. Keywords Meta Tag -

your META Keywords tag needs to include your keywords for that page. Keyword research is critical for web site SEO and professional keyword research is strongly recommended as even a few hours of skilled keyword research will give you a nice return on your investment. While your web site design is in progress you should be having your keyword research being done. That way, even before your site goes live you'll know exactly which keywords to target for each page. Just as in your page title, don't place repeated keywords next to each other. Try not to target more than 4 or 5 of your most important keywords on your home page and no more than 2 or 3 keywords on interior pages. Targeting too many keywords results in the page not being optimized for any of them.

In most cases, whether you place commas in between your keyword phrases doesn't matter, but do leave a space between keywords. Some search engines treat singular and plurals alike - some differentiate.

6. Headings -

search engines still give weight to pages that include the targeted keywords in HTML headings on the page - especially H1 headings. Ideally, all of the pages that you are trying to rank well should include an H1 tag that contains your keywords. Standard H1 font sizes are too large for most sites, so adjust the size of the font used for H1 tags in your CSS (cascading style sheet) file or have your web site designer or web site SEO specialist do this for you so the heading text doesn't look too big on the page.

7. Use appropriate text in the ALT tag for images and Title attribute for links -

keep in mind that some visitors may have images turned off in their browser and some may be sight impaired and using screen readers to tell them what's on the page. Placing ALT tags in the html code for your images enables those with images turned off and those using screen readers to know what they aren't seeing. The content of the Title attribute on your links is displayed when a visitor hovers over the link. Many people have discovered this as a useful tool to see where the link takes them before the click. Those who are using screen readers will hear a voice prompt of this text. Whether this step is still necessary for web site SEO is debatable, however, it does contribute to good web site design.

Incorporate keywords in the ALT image tags so long as they relate to the image. Otherwise, you're not doing anyone a service by mislabeling your images. Some search engines, including Google are beginning to include images in search results. Proper labeling of your images may result in getting your web site's images found in the search results. Again, this is good web site design and can provide some oomph for your web site SEO efforts.

8. Keywords in image file names -

you can get some ranking juicy by placing your keywords in image file names, but remember, changing the file name will mean that all links to that image on your site will fail and the links will need to be updated accordingly. If you're going to incorporate this practice on an existing website, it can often be best to just start doing it for new images. If the file name accurately reflects what the image depicts, the image will be considered more relevant to search engines when image results are returned to searchers.

9. Keywords in link anchor text -

use keywords in your link anchor text - such as "rocket scientists" instead of "click here" or "Web Site Design Services" instead of just "services". This is especially important for your web site navigation links because they may appear on all of your web site's pages. If you exchange links from other sites or list your site in web directories, try to use the keywords targeted for that page in your link text.

10. Create both a text and an XML Site Map -

a text site map is a listing of your web pages that you want both the search engines and your visitors to find. By using your keywords in the links that are placed in your site map you can increase the search results for the target pages. Also include variations that might be helpful for your visitors to find what they are looking for. You can and should, have more than one link to a page, using different anchor text. Place a link to this text site map on every primary page in the root directory of your site, and especially include a link to your site map from your web site's home page as it is the first page that most search engines will index and attempt to follow. A good place for the site map link might be in your page footer or in your navigation.

An XML site map on your site is also helpful - especially for eCommerce and other sites that use dynamic URLs or URLs that contain multiple variables, as it helps the search engine spiders find your page. There are services available, such as sitemapspal.com that will examine your site and automatically generate an XML site map using the commonly accepted XML format now used by most search engines. However, you may find that they will not include pages that are not in the root directory of your site (pages in subfolders, such as "articles", etc. may not be included). Again, your web site SEO specialist will now the best way to approach creating your XML site map and keeping it updated. Major search engines now let you submit a new XML site map directly to them. In Google's case, this is accomplished through Google's Webmaster Tools. However, you want to make sure that your site map is using valid XML before you submit it. One easy way to do that is type the URL of the xml site map in your browser in Internet Explorer. If the XML code displays on the page, you should be all set. Otherwise, Internet Explorer will display an error message, meaning that there is a problem with the XML.

11. Repair Broken Links -

most search engine directories will not index your web site's pages properly if they contain too many broken links. Spiders may give up after being unable to follow the links on your page. Your visitors may also get annoyed when they click a link only to find it doesn't work. If they find too many broken links they may not return to your site. Test your links before your content goes live to make sure they work. Automated tools are available for this purpose as well, including those from http://www.AnyBrowser.com.

12. Create a contact page -

having an up to date contact page lets visitors know that humans are in charge of the site. When the contact information includes your area code and zip code and it can also help you to improve your rankings in local search results. Shopping sites with no contact information, especially those without a telephone number, aren't likely to make many online sales. It's just another aspect of good ecommerce website design.

13. Get relevant inbound links -

most search engines no longer give reciprocal links - links that you trade with someone else - as much weight as they used to in their rankings. However, reciprocal links can still provide value to your users and they may also be useful for brand new sites. Look for links that are related to your web site's content, but there's no reason to link to your competitors.

If you have your web site design firm create a links page you'll have somewhere to place links when you or your web site SEO specialist receive requests from other websites for a link exchange. Try to avoid more than 50 outgoing links on a single page, but in no event should you exceed 100 outgoing links on a page, and you don't want your link to be placed on these pages wither. When looking for other sites from which to request links, look for web sites that have good rankings and a Google PageRank that's at least equal or preferably, greater than, yours. Generally, links pages don't get much Google PageRank, so this can be a challenge.

Three-way links are becoming more common as search engines devalue reciprocal links. Three-way links involve you linking to someone's web site and they link back to you - but not from the same web site. How effective this technique is may be debatable, but it seems to hold more weight than reciprocal linking. Make sure you know which page your link will reside on and make sure that page is in some way related to your web site's content.

Nowadays, one-way incoming links from web sites that are related to your subject matter are given the most weight for web site SEO, but search engines are starting to devalue those, too. Especially such links that require you to pay a fee to get listed.

Conclusion:

Create a simple, clean web site design that is also SEO friendly, add valuable, original, keyword-rich content and follow the other suggestions in this article and you'll benefit in multiple ways.

About the Author

Randy Duermyer is a Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) and proprietor of HelpDocuments.com, a services partner of Boss Design that specializes in search engine optimization, website promotion and web content services. He is also the editor of About Home Business on About.com, a regular contributor to several blogs pertaining to web site SEO and web site design, including the Boss Web Design Blog and his own web site SEO blog, SEO Searchlight.

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