Introduction
As
many of us web developers already know, Google is rated
by many as the number one search engine in the world.
I personally know that our website gets about 90% of
its search engine traffic straight from direct Google
searches.
Getting
indexed by Google can be a pain, but getting highly
placed rankings for specific keywords seems to be the
nut that not many web developers without SEO (search
engine optimization) experience can crack.
Today
I'm going to give you an informative primer on the basics
of search engine optimization techniques --
many of which we use everyday to optimize our websites
and stay ahead of our competitors.
4
Steps to Better Rankings
I
personally believe in the "practice what you preach"
approach to all things business related -- especially
SEO. So, before we continue, here's a sample of keywords
and Google rankings for some of our websites:
Website
Keywords Ranking in Google
activekb.com knowledge base software #2 of 4,980,000
devedit.com online html editor #3 of 9,080,000
myfreetemplates.com free dreamweaver templates #4 of
93,600
Step
1. Choosing The Right Keywords
Choosing
the right keywords to base your site optimization around
is an important first step. General or generic keywords
are usually not the best approach, and sometimes it's
better to be a little more specific
and focus on niche keywords relating
to your product or service.
For
example, let's talk about www.devedit.com -- DevEdit
is our WYSIWYG HTML editing component that drops into
browser-based applications.
The
problem is, there are a LOT of WYSIWYG HTML editors,
but how can we get DevEdit to appear in Google's top
10 rankings? Well, let's see. Trying to optimize for
the keyword "HTML" alone would
be a tough task, as it's too general. There are HTML
editors, HTML tutorials, HTML articles, etc.
We
need to be more specific, which means:
1.
targeting a more suitable market that is looking for
a content editing solution
2. competing with fewer websites targeting the same
keywords
3. optimizing for keywords that people actually use
when performing searches
Targeting
a suitable market will depend on your website, as well
as the products and services you offer. Try to be specific
with your keywords, and remember that people no longer
use single keyword search phrases - the average search
phrase contains 3-5 related words.
For
example, if you're optimizing for a web development
site and you're located in Sydney, Australia, use keywords
such as "web development Sydney" or "web
development services Australia".
To
find out how many websites are competing with your keywords
-- either intentionally or not -- simply do a search
on Google and note down how many results are returned.
In our case, for "online html editor", we're
competing with 9,080,000 sites. The more sites that
are competing for your keywords, the harder it
will be to get on the front page.
Alternatively,
to get a rough indication of how many people are actually
searching for the keywords you want to optimize
your site for, use the Overture search suggestion tool.
It's not exact, and doesn't measure Google searches,
but it does give a very good estimate:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
The
Overture search suggestion tool will also provide you
with a list of similar keywords, based on the keywords
you enter. This can be a great way to find other keywords
to optimize your site for.
As
a rough guideline, try to optimize every page on your
site for a different search phrase. Each search phrase
should contain 2 to 3 highly targeted keywords.
Step
2. Your URL and Title Tag
Two
of the most determining factors in Google's ranking
are your domain name and title tag. For example, a domain
name such as: http://www.web-development-sydney.com
will generally get ranked higher than http://www.companyname.com,
assuming that they had identical keywords and page content.
For
some of us, keywords in the domain name look too unprofessional,
and we've already registered our domain, so its too
late to change. An alternative -- and also a useful
tactic -- is to add your keywords into the names
of your pages, such as http://www.companyname.com/web-development-services.html
Your
title tag is equally as important as your domain
name. Using keywords in your title tag can improve your
Google ranking significantly. Trying to achieve a balance
of professionalism with keyword density in the title
tag however, is sometimes a little more difficult.
Going
back to our example of a web development company earlier,
a good title tag would be:
<title>"Company
name provides professional affordable web
development services in Sydney Australia."</title>
Usually,
the closer to the front of your title tag the keywords
are placed, the better.
Step 3. H1 Tags and Keyword Density
<h1>
tags seem to have been depreciated by stylesheets these
days, and are not used as often as they used to be.
The
Google ranking algorithm dictates that if you're using
a <h1> tag, then the text in between this tag
must be more important than the content on the rest
of the page. Here's a quick example:
<h1>Google
sees this text as more important</h1> <p>...
than this text</p>
By default, H1 tags aren't the prettiest in terms of
formatting, so using a CSS style to override the default
look is usually a good idea:
H1
{ color: blue; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px
}
Sprinkling
keywords throughout your page content can also
improve your sites keyword density. Keyword density
simply means the ratio of optimized keywords
to the rest of the content on your page. It is usually
expressed as a percentage, and should be between 7%
and 10% for each page on your site.
Don't
overdo the keyword density, however, but don't overlook
it either. A good example would be:
BEFORE
Company
name provides web design and site management services
to our clients.
AFTER
Company
name provides web development services to the Sydney
region in Australia
Notice
how we use the keywords more efficiently the second
time around?
Step
4. Links, Links and More Links
And
this leads us to the toughest part of the Google SEO
process -- back-links. Back links are
websites that link directly to your website. The general
principal is the more back links you have, the higher
your pages will be ranked, as your website must be good
if so many other sites are linking back to it.
If
you run a web development company, then adding a simple
link to the bottom of each of your client's websites,
such as:
<a
href=http://www.yoursite.com>Web development by Company
Name</a>
...
(with your clients permission of course) can help boost
your back links, which will help boost your ranking
position in searches.
Submitting
your site to dmoz.org (http://www.dmoz.org/), Yahoo!
(http://www.yahoo.com/) and other directories is also
an important step to increase the number of sites linking
back to yours. Do remember however, that setting up
back links takes time. I would recommend emailing 5-10
websites each and every
day to request back-links or partnership links (keeping
in mind that the sites contacted should be relevant
but not competitive) eg. - If you sell chocolate, partnering
with a company that sells Roses may just be a good idea.
Within a couple of weeks, you should have a good 100
or so sites happily linking back to yours!
Conclusion
Hopefully
in this article I've given you a good outline of how
to get started with Google search engine optimization
for your site. Good luck and hope you get Google'd :)
==============================================
Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper are the lead developers
at
Interspire (http://www.interspire.com/).
They provide web
developers with powerful, re-brandable web tools and
free web
templates ((http://www.myfreetemplates.com/)
to help them
increase their customer base and increase revenue.
===============================================
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