You must have a relationship with your website. And like all successful relationships, you gotta commit yourself to the process. SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment.
Here are 12 steps we recommend taking to improve your site’s traffic over the long haul. (This strategy can be implemented in 10 minutes a day.)
1. Install web analytics. You obviously need to track your progress, install the Google Analyics code on every page of your site, and monitor it daily.
2. Include a site map page. Be nice to the spiders, some tend to get lost without a map. Your pages will not be indexed if the spiders cannot crawl them. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. UseGoogle Webmaster Tools to understand how the spiders see your sitemap, and monitor it’s health daily.
3. Use friendly URLs. SEO-friendly URLs are important. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such ashttp://www.automobiles.com/2009/03/automobilescom-to-offer-free-classifieds/ Also, use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.
4. Keywords. Keywords. Keywords. Chose a few words that describes your page and type them intoKeyword Discovery or WordTracker. Look at the relative volume of one keyword to another, and keep them in mind when choosing text for your page. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool.
5. Use unique and relevant title and meta descriptions. The page title is one of the most important on-page SEO factors to consider. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag will often appear as the text below your listing in an index, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) as well, but be worded to entice searchers to click on your listing. Keywords meta tag is close to meaningless. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don’t appear on the page.
6. Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tells spiders what the linked-to page is about, instead of just using the phrase “click here”, which does nothing for your search engine visibility.
7. Build links intelligently. Submit your site to quality, trusted directories such as Yahoo, DMOZ,Business.com, Aviva, and Best of the web. Seek links from authority sites in your industry.
8. You domain needs a blog! Google seams to love blogs for the fresh content and highly-structured data. Reading and commenting on other blogs can also increase your exposure and help you acquire new links. Publish your blog on your domain, such as www.cs3solutions.com/blog so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts
9. Use social networks effectively. If you’re a service-oriented business, use something like Yahoo Answers to position yourself as an expert in your industry by answering questions that relate to your service. Be an active, contributing member of the site, you can interact with potential customers. (More on using social networks effectively later.)
10. Use the free tools. Sign up for Google’s webmaster Central and Yahoo’s Site Explorer to learn more about how the search engines see your site, including how many inbound links they’re aware of.
11. Don’t put all your traffic sources in one basket. Google may bring you 70% of your traffic today, but what if the next big algorithm update hits you hard? Newsletters and other subscriber-based content can help you hold on to traffic/customers no matter what the search engines do. Creating great content, starting a blog, using social media, etc.—will help you grow a loyal audience that may help you survive the whims of search engines.
12. Content is King. This is important for everyone. “Build it and they will come” does have some truth to it. The IT being great content or a great application. Google’s goal is to connect you with the sites with relevant, quality, trusted content. For example, if you are a retailer, writing your own product descriptions using the keyword research you did earlier to target actual words searchers use may make your pages stand out against the other sites using the standard manufacturer’s product descriptions. Great content is a great way to get inbound links.
One final thought…BE PATIENT. But expect results. There is no instant gratification in the world of SEO. Think months, not days. You will get the best results over time if you are consistent.
Spend just 10 minutes every day tweaking your site. Enjoy!
Tags: seo
Great blog post.Thanks Again. Great.
06.13.11 at 1:46 am
For webdesign, should one focus on functionality before going into the design aspect?
07.08.11 at 7:45 pm
First having a general understanding of your site’s look and feel is useful before you think about needed functionality. But yes, for most sites, the functionality comes first, as it will guide the design elements quite often.
07.08.11 at 8:27 pm
Mighty useful. Make no mtisake, I appreciate it.
07.24.11 at 4:58 pm