seo principles--zrii Distributors
OVERVIEW The following document outlines the best practices to use when optimizing a website for the major search engines. Search engines use two major factors to return websites in their search results position pages: relevancy and popularity. Relevancy is based on how targeted a website is to a particular keyword. We control relevancy by adding keywords and keyword phrases to important areas on a website. Popularity is determined by external factors, mainly links. The more sites that link to your site the more popular you are to the search engines. However, the sites that link to you should be relevant and high quality. This guide will review the best practices for achieving both relevancy and popularity.
TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Keyword Research II. III. IV. Keyword Architecture HTML Head Tags URLs V. Body Tags VI. VII. Linking Dos and Donts VIII. Zrii Microsite Linking Guidelines
I. KEYWORD RESEARCH The first step in optimizing a site is selecting keywords that are relevant to your website and that are being searched for. Keyword Research Steps: Start by making a list of the top 3-5 single words relevant to your site. Use those terms to create longer phrases (see image below). Once you have generated a list of 20-50 keywords, it is time to condense this list into the top 10 keywords. To do this you must determine the competition and search volume. Determine the competition by searching for your term in Google. The number of results returned represents the number of competing websites. Divide each number by 1,000,000 to generate a more manageable number. As an example, a phrase that returns 4,000,000 results would have competition of 4. The search volume is listed in the Google Adwords keyword tool. Eliminate any terms with an unfavorable ratio of search volume to competition. For most Zrii independent executives sites you will want to eliminate any terms with competition over 1 million. Final keyword table will look something like this Core Terms Keyword Search Volume Competition TIP: Google Adwords has a free keyword tool that offers keyword ideas and lists important metrics for each keyword including global search volume and local search volume. Global search volume is the number of people searching for a term globally and local search volume is the number of searches locally. TIP: The Google Adwords keyword tools lists competition but do NOT use this for organic search keyword research. The competition in the Adwords tool is based on pay per click information. TIP: The competition should be less than 1 million for most distributor sites and the volume will vary greatly but you should aim for a search volume of at least 1,000. A general rule of thumb is the higher the volume the better and the lower the competition the better. Zrii zrii amalaki juice 1000 1 amalaki amalaki juice 500 0.5 juice zrii juice 12,000 20
II. KEYWORD ARCHITECTURE Search engines crawl across the web looking for webpages. Google wants to return the best webpage for the keyword the user is searching. For instance, if you are looking for zrii amalaki juice Google wants to direct the user to a webpage about amalaki juice, not just the Zrii homepage. For this reason, it is best to assign a keyword to each page on your site. KW= Auyrveda Health Products Page: URL Keyword Architecture Steps: List top 5-10 pages on your site. Assign the most relevant keyword from your final keyword list to each page. Determine most important page (Primary page) and most important keyword. The primary page will be the top box in your diagram (see diagram to right). Determine next important 5-10 pages. these are the secondary pages. The secondary pages are listed under the primary page (see diagram to right). You can continue adding tertiary pages and so on, but for most websites primary and secondary structure is sufficient. Amalaki Juice Page:/zrii Weight Management Shake Page: /nutriveda Page:/zrii/nutrition Page:/zrii/testimonials TIP: You don t need to assign every page on your site a keyword. Some pages will be used as supporting pages. The supporting pages in the diagram are listed under the primary or secondary page they support.
III. HTML HEAD TAGS The html head tags are the tags contained in the head portion of a webpage before the body (see example on right). Most of these tags are called meta tags and provide search engines with valuable information about your site. Title: The title is one of the most important tags for SEO. It is the blue, underlined text that shows up in the search engine. Remember the following when writing titles: Limit to 65-70 characters. All the titles on the site should be consistent in style and organization. Put the most relevant keyword first. Use hyphens (-), pipe( ) or arrow (>)as separators. Avoid commas (,) as they will make your title look like it is stuffed with keywords. <html> <head> <meta name="description" content="description text" /> </head> <body> Meta Description: The meta description shows up in the search results page under the title. The description isn t used to determine relevancy so don t stuff the description with keywords. Its purpose is to summarize the page and encourage users to visit. Limit to 156 characters. Use a keyword phrase in description; the term the user searched for is bold in the title and description in the search engines. Good Title and Description Bad Title and Description
IV. URLs A URL is the address of a webpage. It contains the domain name, folders and subfolders. Below are some guidelines for optimizing URLs. Include a keyword in the URL as close to the domain as possible TIP: Whenever you change a URL make sure you apply a 301 redirect to the affected URLs. The 301 redirect tells the search engines that the URL is permanently changed and directs all links from the old URL to the new one. Only include a keyword in the URL if it is relevant to the page Keep URLs short and simple; the shorter it is, the easier it is to share URL Examples Best: www.domain.com/kw Good: www.domain.com/folder/kw Worst: www.domain.com/folder/subfolder/kw
V. Body Tags The body of a webpage includes the content, navigation and images. The following are some guidelines for using keywords throughout the body of your website content. Use keyword in the first 100 words of a webpage. Use variations of the keyword. Split keyword phrases and use single word on the page. Don t stuff keywords! Use the keyword 2-3 times in a short page, 4-6 for longer pages. The list below describes tags that search engines use to determine relevancy. It is good to include a keyword in the following tags: H1: The H1 tag is the headline of the page. Include the primary keyword of the page in this tag. Alt Attribute: The alt attribute is used on images. It provides an alternative to the image if the image can t be displayed. Use a keyword in the alt attribute but make sure it is relevant to the image. Bold/Stong: Making a keyword bold has a small affect on SEO. Use bold/strong tags only on headings and subheadings most of the time. Italic/Emphasized: Making keyword italicized has an affect on SEO. Italicizes consistently throughout the site and don t go overboard. Only use it for emphasis.
VI. Linking Linking is very important to achieving favorable search position. Linking must be done properly with long term strategy in mind, not short term gain. Use your keyword architecture diagram to develop a table similar to the one to the right. Anchor Text: The text of a link that displays on a webpage. The text is generally blue and underlined. Then create a strategy to acquire links to your site s top pages. You want your linking strategy to appear organic. You do this by: Acquiring a consistent number of links per month to appear organic. Including a keyword in the anchor text. linking to the specific page on your site; don t just link everything to the homepage. Use the table you developed to keep track of where links should go. If you have a blog add links to your site using optimized anchor text. Add links between the pages in your site. Use the keyword architecture to create an organized system of links. Links aren t just about numbers. Links are mostly about quality and reputation. Linking to larger established sites can help your site s reputation. You should link to Zrii.com, ZriiProducts.com, MeetBillFarley.com and other Zrii microsites to associate your site with a worldwide brand and to add credibility to your site. Use the information on the last page to add links to your site.
VII. SEO Dos and Donts Don t keyword stuff. Keyword stuffing is the practice of stuffing as many keywords in your site as possible with no regard to whether or not they are useful to site. Most major search engines now penalize sites that practice keyword stuffing. A keyword stuffed site will also won t serve users or the goals of your business. Do get the maximum benefit from keywords on your site by using the tactics described in this SEO Principles guide and include keywords in important tags. Write for users, not search engines, and develop a keyword architecture that places the most important keywords high up in the site organization. Don t blog comment spam. A common external linking strategy a couple of years ago was to add comments to blogs advertising a site and linking back. This was a spam tactic because the comments didn t add anything of value to the site and cluttered relevant content with irrelevant information. Now the majority of blogs either don t allow links in the comments or they add an attribute to all links that makes them worthless to search engines. Do add comments to blogs that are relevant to your product or service and write comments that add value to the community. Pose questions on your own blog to generate dialogue. Don t use schemes for link exchange. An old tactic in the early days of search engines was to ask for links from sites and agree to give a reciprocal link. Avoid any scheme that generates a large number of links for the sole purpose of search rankings. Do ask for links and link to relevant sites that offer value to your site. Like, the Zrii microsites. Zrii corporate developed a number of informational sites that you can link to to add credibility to your site. The table on the next page lists the sites along with the linking guidelines for each. Don t use the meta keyword tag. The meta keywords tag was used to list the keywords relevant to the webpage. However, the tag has been misused to the point that no search engines read the tag. It is a best practice to not use the keyword tag at all, since competitors can view the tag easily and will have a list of every keyword you are targeting. It s pointless and actually makes your site look outdated. Do use titles and meta descriptions to drive targeted search traffic to your site. Search engine optimization is an ever-changing art. Avoid schemes to get better rankings and optimize your site for the user and you will generally come out ahead.
VIII. ZRII MICROSITE LINKING GUIDELINES The following table lists all the Zrii micro-sites that you can link to from your site to add credibility to your site and give users useful information about Zrii products. The contents of the third column called code contains the link tag. You or your webmaster can copy and paste the contents of this column directly to the location on your site that you want to add the link to appear. Site Anchor text Code ZriiProduct.com Zrii Health Products <a href= http://www.zriiproduct.com >Zrii Health Products</a> ZriiProduct.com ZriiProduct.com Zrii Amalaki Health Drink Zrii Weight Loss Products <a href= http://www.zriiproduct.com/zrii.html >Zrii Amalaki Health Drink</a> <a href= http://www.zriiproduct.com/nutriiveda.html >Zrii Weight Loss Products</a> MeetBillFarley.com Bill Farley <a href= http://www.meetbillfarley.com >Bill Farley</a> TryAmalaki.com Amalaki Fruit <a href= http://www.tryamalaki.com >Amalaki Fruit Drink</a> ZriiAnswers.com/ Zrii Answers <a href= http://www.zriianswers.com/ >Zrii Answers</a> ZriiJuice.com Zrii Amalaki Juice <a href= http://www.zriijuice.com >Zrii Amalaki Juice</a> NutriiVeda.com NutriiVeda Weight Management Shake <a href= http://www.nutriiveda.com > NutriiVeda Weight Management Shake </a> ZriiScam.com Zrii Scam <a href= http://www.zriiscam.com >Zrii Scam</a>