SPIDERbytes

Search Engine Optimization on a time restrictive budget.

You understand the importance of optimizing your website.  You also understand the commitment optimization will take.  Time always seems to be our most precious and protected resource.  So when it comes to optimizing your website where should you begin?  Start here.

Keyword Phrase Research

While it may be obvious, its importance is often overlooked.  Keyword phrase research is the foundation for every successful search marketing campaign.  Start by using one of the many tools available online.  Some are subscription based and others are free.  Each has unique features so use the ones that best fit your needs.  Some of the more common tools are:

-        Google (Free)

-        MSN AdCenter Labs

-        WordTracker (Free and Subscription)

-        Keyword Discovery (Free and Subscription)

One of the most important things to keep in mind when doing keyword phrase research is that the phrases you may think are important to be found for may not be what searchers are actually searching on to find the product or service that you offer.  Besides the phrase research services noted above, current customers can be a good source of information when trying to determine how potential customers may be searching.  What people are searching for may not necessarily be what you thought.  That is, what the searcher intends to find with the words they search on may be different than you think or even desire.

The last note I want to make regarding keyword phrase research is that it all boils down to the searchers intent.  Notice I refer to “keyword phrases” and not “keywords.” It is very, very difficult to determine searcher intent based upon a single keyword.  2-3 keyword phrases comprise more than 60% of phrases per a Trellian report dated June, 2009.  So unless a single keyword phrase is your unique brand, I recommend staying away from them.

Unique Title Tags

While there is no magic SEO bullet, Page Title Tags are widely accepted as one of the more influential on-page components for increasing a web page’s relevance.

Two common findings upon doing website reviews is that either there are no Page Title Tags at all or they are all the same because the same template was used for every page on the site.  An easy way to determine if your site has duplicate Title Tags or none at all is to use Xenu’s free tool – Link Sleuth.

When crafting your Title Tags remember to use the keyword phrases you’ve identified as important to your site and in particular to that page.

XML Sitemap

Search engine spiders usually discover pages on your site by following the architecture (links) within your site and those pointed to your pages from outside sites.  An easy way to help the spider’s index your site is with the use of an XML sitemap.

XML Sitemaps tell the search engine spiders all of the pages on your site that you think are relevant as well as how important each page is (compared to the other pages on the site), the frequency in which it changes, and when it was updated last.   While this doesn’t guarantee that your pages will be indexed (or for that matter ranked), it does help you better map out your site for the search engine spiders.

Remember that XML sitemaps will not help you in excluding information.  If you need to make sure that something on your site is excluded, be sure to use a robots.txt file.  And, of course, don’t forget to submit your sitemap to the search engines.

SEO is time intensive.  Start with these 3 steps and you’ll get your search engine optimization campaign off on the right foot.

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