SEO in a Nutshell
 Research Current Web Site
Keyword Research
Analyze Current Web Site Linking
Analyze Competition
Link Building
Create Web Site
Set up Web Statistics
Monitor and Upkeep
Research Current Web Site
- Find out your current web ranking.
- Find out the number of links pointing to your site.
- Examine the links pointing to your site.
- Look for intentional/unintentional black hat techniques.
- Examine the structure and navigation of your site.
- Examine the web site traffic you are currently getting.
- Examine visitor’s length of stay at your web site.
- Examine your conversion rates of your goals.
You should research your own web site to use as a starting point and to set goals for your web site. By examining the current ranking and number of links you have already you can monitor if they increase over time.
Also, you should look over your web site for any intentional/unintentional black hat techniques on your web site such as hidden text, duplicate content, small text, page redirects (when used as doorway pages), keyword stuffing, doorway pages (pages designed for the search engines that the visitor does not even see), link farming (unnatural way of obtaining a large amount of links), etc.
By examining your web site’s visitors habits you can discover where they go and for how long to see if they match the goals you set up for your web site such as directing them to go to a certain page to download a pamphlet.
Keyword Research
Keyword research needs to be done to get a list of keywords that are searched for often, relevant to your site, and are low in competition. This is done by using the following methods . . .
- Gathering information on relevant terms with you
- Researching search engine suggestions
- Put together list of keyword modifiers
- Using online keyword research subscriptions
- Running left over keywords through an analysis
For keywords it is time to do a brain storming session and try to pick out keywords that are relevant to your web site. After you compile a list you can start to do some research on the internet to see how they rate.
One way you can do this is by using search engine suggestions. If you visit a search engine such as Gigablast located at http://www.gigablast.com/ you can look at the ‘Related’ or ‘Suggestion’ list that appears. Gigablast is one of many examples that show what other people are typing into search engines that are similar to what you type in.
Another thing you should do is put together a list of keyword modifiers that are related to your search terms and use them in your text alongside your keywords. For example if your keyword phrase is Web Hosting, modifiers could be Linux and Windows.
After you have a list compiled you can research these words online through such services as Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com/ ), and Trellion (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/).
After you deleted the keyword phrases that are not searched for often and are too high in competition you can analyze them further to help you choose which ones would work the best.
Find out how many times your keyword phrase is found in the titles of web sites by typing in allintitle: “your keyword phrase” into Google.
Find out how many times your keyword phrase is found in URL’s by typing in allinurl: “your keyword phrase” into Google.
Find out how many times your keyword phrase is found in links by typing in allinanchor: “your keyword phrase” into Google.
Find out how many times your keyword phrase appears in body text of web sites by typing in allintext: “your keyword phrase” into Google.
Then compare these results to the information you used from using Wordtracker and/or Trellion. We use a formula that we enter this information into to generate a ‘score’ for us to go by. Giving weight on how important the data is. For example we give more weight to allintitle compared to allintext, but you can ‘eyeball’ the results and pick out the important keyword phrases.
Analyze Current Web Site Linking
You should analyze your web site for how the linking is by examining these factors. Then you can use this information as a starting base of progress and to compare to your competitors linking analysis.
- How many links are pointing to you?
- How many are in Google
- How many are in Yahoo
- How many are in MSN
- Compare number to competition's number of links
- Where are the links coming from?
- Get list of web sites that link to your site currently
- Get list of web sites that link to your competitor's for review
- How valuable are those links?
- What PR ranking do they come from
- Are they of related content
- Is it from an authority site (Ex. .edu and .gov)
- What is the popularity of the site linking to you
- How are they linking to you?
- What anchor text is used to link to your site
- Are they nested with several hundred other links
- Are they self-multiplying links?
- Do they increase or do they just sit on a reciprocal web site and/or directory
Analyze Competition
To get ahead in the rankings and increase exposure you should examine the competition that you have. How do they achieve their ranking? How do they achieve their high number of web site visitors? This can be done by examining the following of competitor's web sites.
- Their current rankings and what search terms they rank for.
- Web Site structure and navigability
- Use of flash, DHTML, JavaScript
- Navigation structure
- CSS based or not
- Page Load Speed
- Etc.
- Who links to them
- Directories
- Search Engines
- Social Bookmarks
- Authoritive Sites
- Etc.
- How do they link to them
- Image or text
- Link anchor text analysis
- Proximity, prominence, and density of links
Link Building
A link building campaign should be started that will concentrate on generating one way links to your web site that multiply on their own. Reciprocal partners should also be considered if they are valuable enough. This is a brief list of SOME of the things that can be done to achieve this.
- Directory Submissions
- Search Engine Submissions
- Creating one-way links
- Reciprocal linking campaign started with authoritive sites only
- Article Posting
- Forum Signatures
- Press Releases
- Linkable content
- Viral content that people will want to link to
- News
- Weather
- RSS Feeds
- Etc.
Create Web Site
After you have all the information you need from doing the above you can start creating or modifying your web site with these factors in mind.
- Fast Web Page Load Speed
- Easy Navigation
- Attractive Design
- Search Engine Friendly Navigation for spidering
- Easy to Understand
- Content enhanced for the search engines
- Content entices visitors to follow through to meet your goals
- Limited use of DHTML, JavaScript, Flash, Frames, and other factors that limit the search engines.
- Proper use of source code tags to meet guidelines and not risk being penalized or banned.
- Proper meta tag usage
- Submit Google sitemap for examination
Set up Web Statistics
After your web site is created and set up you can monitor your web site visitor traffic closely to help determine ways to improve your web site by . . .
- Creating a Google Analytic Account or
- Using a Web Analytics Software
- Reporting and Analyzing the results
- Watching your rankings
- Watching your links
- Seeing what pages are popular
- Finding out where your visitors are coming from
- See if they return to your web site or if they just visit it once
- Set up goals and monitor the results
- What your visitors use to view your web site
- What country are they from (Make site bilingual?)
- Tweaking campaign as deemed necessary
Monitor and Upkeep
After examining the statistics of your web site and its visitors' behavior you will know how to tweak your web site for better performance by applying such changes as . . .
- Fixing potential navigation problems
- Fixing or deleting unpopular pages
- Enhancing areas of the web site that are popular
- Learning what your visitors want and giving it to them
- Examining the rankings and researching if necessary
- Examining the linking and improving in needed areas
- Providing better access to your niche visitors
- Monitoring site uptime and comparing it to other web sites
- Seeing how your visitors access your web site and adjust accordingly
- Connection Speed
- Browsers Used
- Screen Resolution
- Etc.
Of course much more detail and tips could have been added to this article, but it would have been in book form instead of ‘in a nutshell’. Through experience you will be able to tell what methods work best for what type of web sites, because what holds true for one type of web site does not hold true to all other web sites.
Until the next article have a great day!
Michael Rock
Web Site Design Service
Search Engine Optimization Firm
About the Author:
Michael Rock is the CEO of The Internet Presence (http://www.theinternetpresence.com) and Web Ranking Consultants (http://www.webrankingconsultants.com) and has been teaching, writing, and offering these services to everyone since 2003. Michael also has over 20 years experience in DOS, windows business applications, numerous programming languages, artistic development, and web design. His main philosophy to live by has been to find a job you love so you don’t have to work a day in your life!
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