Friday, February 24, 2012

HOW TO USE SEO TO DEVELOP A BETTER WEBSITE

In the digital age, most successful businesses already know that properly used SEO practices on their website will reap rewards that far exceed its cost.  While you may have already known this, did you know that using SEO before and while a website is being developed can help set your site up for success instead of failure?  Because most digital marketing firms perform SEO as an afterthought once a site is already live, they miss out on the value that it can add while developing a site.  It’s kind of like the old saying, “you only get what you put in.” While this may sound like a tired old cliché to you, its meaning in regards to digital marketing couldn’t be any truer.  Listed below are SEO tasks that should be performed on a website before and while it’s being developed.  Performing these tasks makes sure that any future online marketing you perform will be a success because you didn’t set it up for failure.
Pre-Web Development (SEO Expert)
Competitor Analysis
  • Figure out actual competition
  • Conduct competitor research & Analysis of all Titles, Descriptions and Keywords from competitors in the source code of their website
  • Conduct competitor Keywords analysis using AdWords
Meta Title, Description, and Keyword Creation
  • Come up with a large list of keywords that are highly searched and have mid to low competition
  • Use the 25 best keywords in your sites source code, you don’t want to keyword stuff
  • Come up with an additional 10-20 keywords that best describe each page that links off the home page
  • Build Titles and Descriptions that are keyword dense but readable by customers
Website Content Creation
  • Create home page content using the 25 Keywords that you put in the source code of your home page
  • Create secondary pages content using the 10 – 20 keywords that best describe each page that links off the home page
  • Use Bolding(‘’ or ‘’ tags)  Italics(‘’ or ‘’ tags)  , Anchor Links and keywords on the home and secondary pages to create content that is searchable and relevant to search engines

During Web Development (Web Developer) On Page Optimization and Accessibility
Title Tag
  • Must contain keyphrases that come from good keyword research. Generally should correspond or even duplicate what is in our h1 tag.
  • Crucial for labeling the page and letting readers discern at a glance the contents of the page.
Page URL
h1 tags
  • Must contain keyphrases that come from good keyword research. Generally should correspond or even duplicate what is in our title tag
  • Good for labeling the page and letting readers discern at a glance the contents of the page, depending on how we style these tags
Image tags or alt attributes
  • May contain keyphrases that come from good keyword research
  • While ensuring that keyphrases are incorporated, the focus here should be on making sure that images are appropriately labeled and not just stuffed with keywords
  • Rename files to correspond with what the photo is about so Google bots can find it during a search query
Anchor tags
  • Should contain similar or close keyphrases to our page’s keyword targets in the anchor text as well the URL to which we are linking
  • Anchor tags can help guide internal linking ( ‘link juice’) or passing on link juice from one page to another, also called PageRank
  • Good for labeling the page’s resources as well as providing supplemental information on the topic being sought
Meta description
  • This can be used to describe your page, so while not as important for search-ability purposes as other attributes, it can do as much harm as good in your PR or marketing efforts if not set up properly
Meta keywords
  • Of low importance or weight overall. Should contain the page’s target keyphrases as well as relevant or closely-related sets of keyphrases
Site-wide Internal Linking and Site Mapping
Install Google Analytics or Omniture for analytics tracking
  • Find your personalized Google Analytics Tracking Code in Google Analytics
  • Add the Tracking Code immediately before the tag of each page you are planning to track
Website Launch (SEO Expert)
Link Building Strategy
  • Utilize (SEO PowerSuite) Software to review competitors’ link building strategies (ones with high page rank)
  • Create a link building strategy for your client before the site goes live
Search Engine Submission
  • Submit site to as many top Web Directories (Google, Yahoo, Bing, DMOZ, ect.) as you can
Blog set up
  • Tumblr Account Setup
  • Google Blogger Account Setup
  • Word Press Blog Setup
  • Submit blogs to RSS Feed Submission Sites
  • Brand each blog to look like your website if possible
Social Bookmarking
Article Submission
  • Setup Accounts on Bizsugar, Slide Share and other article submission sites to promote your content
Business Directories (Optimization)
  • Places: Google Maps… For Businesses that are location based
  • Local: Google, Bing, Yahoo, Super Pages, Search Local, etc… For maximum exposure for location based businesses
  • ECommerce: eCommerce business directories… Only if your site is an eCommerce site
  • Specific Directories: Submit your site to directories that are specific to your Business type (Music, Food, Investment banking, etc) to help target your niche market
Google Analytics
  • Conversion Tracking: Create goal & ecommerce tracking in Google analytics to track how many people are buying a product, contacting a client, or requesting information

1 comment:

Web Designers said...

When developing a website that you want to do SEO on, you need to make it SEO friendly for search engines to notice it and give it due credit...