Search Engine Optimization February 2013 Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of tuning your website so that it appears high in search engine results, increasing relevant traffic to your site. There are three key steps to SEO: 1) Understanding the terms potential clients are searching for. Starting with your best guesses and business priorities, you can use a variety of commercial tools and databases to determine the most frequent searches. Google provides a free, easy-to-use tool for non-professionals: http://www.google.com/trends/ 2) Establishing the Relevance of your website. Incorporate the targeted search terms into the content, page titles, headings, and image captions on your web pages. In some cases we may recommend creating specific pages to target important search terms. 3) Establishing the importance of your website. Search engines determine the importance of websites based on the number of other sites that link to your pages, and the quality of those sites. Google has a proprietary algorithm called PageRank 1 ; other search engines use a similar concept. You can obtain links to your site in a number of ways, including submitting to relevant directories, seeing what sites link to your competitors (and requesting links to your site), and even by posting in discussion forums and social networking sites. These are the three key steps to achieving good placement in search results; the actual process is more complex, and takes time. In most cases, SEO takes three to four months to achieve results. Once the results are achieved, maintaining search placement takes a relatively small ongoing effort. As a faster alternative, many sites consider Pay-Per-Click search advertising, which can deliver immediate results. To learn more about Search Engine Optimization and its role in Internet marketing, view our short video series at: www.youtube.com/lunagraphica 1 PageRank (or PR) is a single-digit number from 1 to 9 that represents the number and value of links to a web page. It s a logarithmic scale, so a PR 5 site has much more weight than a PR 4 site. PageRank refers specifically to a value determined by a Google algorithm, but all search engines use similar concepts. Copyright 2013, LunaGraphica Inc. All rights reserved. Page 1
Establishing the Relevance of Your Website Technical Information for your Web Designer The basic techniques used to optimize html pages for relevance are listed below. If you do not maintain your own website, skip ahead to the next section, Linking and PageRank Recommendations. Note that most of these techniques can t be employed on Flash websites, which are essentially invisible to search engines. We strongly advise that at least the home page of every website be built with conventional html, using the following guidelines: title: Use the targeted search terms in the page title. description: Use the targeted search terms in the description metatag. The description should also be written to summarize the page content in a compelling way, because search engines often display the page description in search results. keywords: Sparingly use the targeted search terms in the keywords metatag. Search engines now place little or no value on the keywords metatag, because it is frequently abused. Excessive use of keywords may actually cause a site to be removed from search indexes. We therefore recommend that no more than 4-6 search terms be included in the keywords tag, and that the majority of the search terms also appear in the description and the page content. img alt: Use the alt parameter in img tags (especially page banners) to include targeted keywords. headers: Use targeted keywords in (h1, h2, etc.) headers on the page. Unfortunately, this may result in a conflict between search engine optimization and human optimization. As an example, suppose you are selling a product, AdBuster, for blocking pop-up ads. For people visiting your page, you want to make AdBuster your main heading. But for search engines, you want pop-up blocker to be the heading (because that s the key search term). Fortunately, using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), it s possible to do both. For human visitors, the page will look like this: AdBuster The Best Pop-Up Blocker Available! (text about the product) But for search engines, we ll indicate that the line containing Pop-Up Blocker is the most important header (the h1 tag). The html might look like this: <p class="big">adbuster</p> <h1 class="subtitle">the Best Pop-Up Blocker Available!</h1> <p class="normaltext">(text about the product)</p> This technique is currently considered acceptable by search engines, and is likely to remain so, because there are entirely legitimate reasons to use CSS to alter display formatting. Copyright 2013, LunaGraphica Inc. All rights reserved. Page 2
content: Use search terms, in context, within the page text. Search engines place more weight on words that are used within sentences and paragraphs than on words that appear on bulleted or comma-separated lists. Search engines also rely on linguistic cues such as the use of related terms and synonyms to determine relevance. Using search terms in natural ways will also make the page content more compelling for human visitors. This is one place where search engine optimization and human optimization do not conflict! Links within your site: Use effective links between pages on your website. This is an underutilized technique on most sites. Search engines use the anchor text of a link to associate keywords with the linked page. You can therefore optimize the linked page for particular keywords by choosing the anchor text appropriately: effective: AdBuster is the best pop-up blocker available. less effective: AdBuster is the best pop-up blocker available. site map: Create a site map with effective links (see above) to all pages of your website. A site map has the added advantage of making all pages directly accessible to search engines. Things to Avoid Search engines monitor sites for techniques that are considered abusive within the search industry. Sites that employ these techniques may actually be deleted from search engine indexes. The major red flag techniques are: cloaking: the website presents different versions of the page to humans and search engines / spiders. keyword spamming: the keyword metatag contains an excessive number of keywords, or words that don t appear related to the page content. hidden text spamming: the page contains text that is hidden from the human visitor (usually by making the text color match the background color). Page Optimization Summary Be sure the title incorporates one or more of the top priority search terms. Change the keywords metatag to include the top priority search terms. As previously discussed, it s doubtful whether the keywords metatag actually helps any more, but it can hurt if there are too many keywords or unrelated keywords. Rewrite the description metatags to focus on the top priority search terms. Incorporate key search terms into the alt fields of the header img tags. As discussed in the General Principles section, use html header tags (h1, h2, h3) and CSS to incorporate the key search terms. Edit the text to incorporate targeted search terms, as well as related terms and synonyms, in a natural way. Copyright 2013, LunaGraphica Inc. All rights reserved. Page 3
Linking and PageRank Recommendations Building PageRank through a linking campaign is a time consuming effort. Each individual link contributes very little, but over time you will see a great increase in your site traffic. Note that search engines give more weight to link from high-ranking, important sites, and also give more weight to links from government or educational organizations (.gov or.edu domains). Ask for Links! Business partners. Ask your business partners, suppliers and associates to link to your website. Satisfied clients. Consider asking customers or clients for links back to your site. Professional Associations. Many professional organizations allow you to have a link from their website. Check the organizations that you belong to: trade groups, chamber of commerce, alumni associations, etc. Ask for Relevant Links When asking for links to your site, try to get a link that includes some of your keywords. This will help build your site s relevance. For example: We re happy to recommend Carlos Da Silva for your wedding photography. (Note that the link is on the keywords, not on your name.) Getting More Links Surprisingly, many sites that are not associated with you in any way will link to you if you ask. It helps if you have well written, link worthy content on your site. Lists are very popular. For example, 5 Questions to ask When Booking a Vacation Package, or 10 Ways to Reduce your Home Energy Use. (Of course, you ll want to post pages that are relevant to your business.) The first step in getting links is finding sites to ask (after you ve exhausted your own contacts). Note that this is a time-consuming process. We recommend setting aside 3-4 hours for the initial effort, and then perhaps another hour or two each month. Here s the general method you can use: Start with your list of targeted search terms. Perform a Google and/or Yahoo search for each search term. Look at the results of your search and copy the URLs of the top five or six companies that seem to compete with your product or service. Go to Google and perform a link search on each of these URLs. (This is a very neat trick; Google will show you the major sites that link to any website. Simply type the word link: followed by the domain name, with no spaces.) For example: link:www.lunagraphica.com Google link results show the top sites that provide links to your competitors. To find more links, you can use this free tool: http://www.backlinkwatch.com Copyright 2013, LunaGraphica Inc. All rights reserved. Page 4
Visit the sites that link to your competitors, and see if a link to your site might also be appropriate. If so, send a request to the site. If you can t find an e-mail address, you can always try info@domain.com or webmaster@domain.com. Since this is a time consuming effort, you should focus on high-ranking sites. Start with the sites shown in the Google link search. To find out how important sites are, you can use the following tool to quickly check the Google page rank of a number of URLS: http://www.pagerank.net/pagerank-checker Link Exchanges When you request a link, the owner of the other site may request a link back. This is called a link exchange. Use exchanges sparingly! There are online sites where people can find exchange partners you can get hundreds of links in a couple of weeks. To discourage this, the search engine algorithms include penalties for sites with too many exchanges. We advise doing a link exchange only if the other site has a very PageRank, or if it s a very high-quality site that you d like to share with your visitors regardless of the exchange. Additional Linking Recommendations Here are several under-utilized ways to get additional links to a web site, and to increase your visibility on the web. Offer Content There are many ad-supported sites that are constantly looking for content to attract search engines and readers. Look for high PageRank sites that seem to have many pages and articles relating to your business. You can find relevant sites using a search engine. Try contacting the site operators and offering to write a short article for their site, based on your expertise, in exchange for a couple of good relevant links back to your site. Press Releases When you have something newsworthy to say about your business, in addition to sending your press release to traditional media outlets, submit it online to one of the major posting services: http://www.prweb.com/ http://www.ereleases.com/ http://www.prfree.com/ http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/ We usually use the lowest price options, but sometimes the one step up package delivers more value. Unless you are doing a major press rollout, you don t need the top-of-the-line service. Note that you can often find discount codes and coupons online. For example, search for prweb discount coupon and you should find a deal for $50 off your first press release. Make sure your press release contains your key search terms and your URL! The press release will usually get picked up by several online media sites, and you ll gain some good links to your site. Copyright 2013, LunaGraphica Inc. All rights reserved. Page 5
Directories Directories are specialized websites that provide links to other sites. (Do not submit your site to directories that charge a fee; there are plenty of good free directories.) You can find directories by searching for them. For example, suppose you want to find web pages where you can submit auto mechanic websites. In the Google search box, you would type: or try: or: automotive + Submit url automotive + add site automotive + suggest a site Check the search results; some will actually be directories where you can submit your site. Again, don t pay a fee to submit; just look for the free sites. You could look for directories relating to your type of work: or: mechanic + suggest a site car repair + suggest a site or geographic directories: San Jose + mechanic + suggest a site Each combination may reveal new directories where you can submit your website. Handouts and Literature If you have brochures, white papers, manuals, or other paper handouts, add a simple link request: Happy with our service? Please link to us at www.lunagraphica.com Get Organized Search Engine Optimization is a very cost effective way to bring traffic to your website, and generate leads for your business. Plan on spending 1-2 hours per month on getting links to your site. Be organized create a spreadsheet or list to keep track of places where you ve requested a link, the date you made the request, and whether you got the link (don t be afraid to follow up your initial requests). Track Your Results The most important measure of SEO success is getting more business leads. Whether it s e-mail queries, phone calls, or actual sales, choose something that you can measure, and track it on a weekly basis. Copyright 2013, LunaGraphica Inc. All rights reserved. Page 6
You should also install a web traffic analysis package. A good traffic analysis tool will tell you exactly how many people visit your site, what pages they look at, and even how they found your site (whether through a keyword search or a referral links). We strongly recommend Google Analytics, a free tool that your web designer can integrate into your site. Link building is a slow process. It generally takes three to four months before you see significant changes in your site traffic. Just remember that persistence pays off. It s not unusual for sites to double or triple their traffic after a year of ongoing SEO efforts. A Word about PageRank Final Notes Throughout this document, we ve referred to PageRank as a measure of a site s importance and web visibility. Many SEO professionals dismiss PageRank as being too simplistic. In a way, they are correct. The major search engines use complex algorithms that consider many factors far more than you can determine from a single number. Nevertheless, for the non-professional working on acquiring links, PageRank is the most readily available and generally accurate piece of information you can obtain for determining a site s importance. Social Networking Social Networking has become a very popular way to publicize businesses. Social networks can be very powerful tools! However, web searches are still the primary way that most people find out about products and services. Almost every business will see significant benefits from a strong, ongoing SEO effort. We ll discuss techniques for social networking in a future paper. Additional Resources For a great explanation of all the basic techniques, recommend the book Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, by Peter Kent. (Be sure to get the most recent edition, because things change quickly.) You can also learn some of the basics of Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing by viewing a series of short, informal videos by Bob Nicholson, LunaGraphica s VP of Technology, at: http://www.youtube.com/lunagraphica Copyright 2013, LunaGraphica Inc. All rights reserved. Page 7