Optimizing Your Web Site for Search Engines

As a small business owner, you need to have a list of these 10 essentials so you can speak to your web site designer and builder. If that person can’t discuss these topics intelligently with you, perhaps you need to hire someone else. Remember that not all web designers or web builders understand or are proficient in optimizing websites for search engines

Don’t make the mistake of paying your consultant for the submission of your site to search engines. Most of the top search engines and crawlers will find your site without your having to submit it. They will find and index any page on a site that is designed properly to achieve top ranking. So you want to make sure that your site is search engine optimized. This article gives you some of the basics of Search Engine Optimization.

photo credit: dannysullivan

1. Page Title
The crawlers always look first at the Title Tag or the text that displays in the reverse bar of the browser when it lands on a page. The title is also used to describe your page when someone adds it to their “Favorites” or “Bookmarks” lists. So you want to make sure it relates to what you do or how you want people to remember your business. You need unique text describing the unique subject matter of each page since the different pages deal with different material on your site (10 to 15 words, 60 to 65 characters maximum).

2. Page Description
Some search engines and crawlers support the meta description tag and look at the text, generally, 200 to 250 characters to index it, although only a smaller portion (160) of this amount may be displayed. Remember that search engines can change how they treat meta tags at any given time. Google, for example, typically ignores the meta description tag and instead will automatically generate its own description for this page based on content from the page that best matches the user query. If your meta description is the best match for the user query, Google may show that in its results. Other search engines may support the meta description tag partially.

3. Keywords
The meta keywords tag allows you to provide additional text for crawler-based search engines to index along with your body copy. Not all of the crawlers support this tag which just reinforces the information in the body copy. Remember, if you don’t use the specific words on the page, then just adding them to the meta keywords tag is extremely unlikely to help the page rank. The meta keyword tag is also sometimes used as a way to help your page come up for synonyms or unusual words that don’t appear on the page itself. These keywords should be the words “language” that your customers use to look for your product or service.

4. Site Navigation
If at all possible, you should consider a site map with text links to help visitors find what they are looking for and to point the crawlers to all of your internal pages. Try not to use frames as they tend to be difficult for the crawlers and avoid javascript and image map links. Include a static html site map and xml site maps and add a robots.txt page if applicable.

5. Page Content
Search engines try to find the best content that describes a keyword or phrase so you need rich content high up on your pages to make it easy for both your visitors and the crawlers. Try to use keywords in H1, H2 and H3 headlines and easy to read text. Include your geographic location so that you can be found easily in local searches. Avoid Flash animation and use images sparingly because the crawlers can read text nor Flash and images. When crawlers find the same content in multiple pages they tend to rank the best page and put the rest into a supplemental index that is never looked at again. Use unique title tags and publish articles first on your own site before you submit them for mass distribution.

6. Optimize Your Code
Crawlers move through your ‘code’ (your page) looking for your content so you want to have your content as high up the page as possible. Avoid wherever possible javascript and CSS and if not then place them in external files and call them from a single line of code.

7. Domain Stability
Try not to move your domain too often as you appear to the crawlers to be a SPAMMER. Try to stay with the same host and get if at all possible a dedicated IP address so that you don’t have to worry about losing the address because one of your sharers did something inappropriate and the address became banned.

8. Links
The number of links pointing to your site helps establish your importance and rank. The quality of these links are even more important than the quantity so try to get back links from quality sites using you keyword text in the links.

9. Competitive Sites
Search your keywords to see your competitors’ sites and analyze what they are doing. See who links to them and try to understand why. Try getting the same links.

10. Web Analytics
Keep track of the number of unique visitors to your site. Hits are not as important because they just simply denote the number of times a page has been pulled. Check your statistics frequently and try to understand who is visiting and why.

Remember, any competent site designer and builder will be able to give you advice on the above topics.

Here are our useful links for March 13th, 2009:

• Stop Behaving Like Cattle! – People are cattle. This does not mean that an individual person can’t think on his or her own. This simply means that the general population behaves like a herd of cattle.
• Nine steps to Powerpoint magic – Very good points about presentation techniquess.
• Best Small Businesses to Start – Money – A list of small businesses for budding entrepreneurs in 2009
• 5 Most Overrated Small Businesses – Money – The title tells the story.
• Interview with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing – John Jantsch opens up on how and why he went into the small business marketing arena.

Here are our useful links for February 21st, 2009:

• Is your behaviour damaging trust? – Great list covering just about everything in relationships both in the workplace and in private life.
• The secret to good writing isn’t commas; it’s simplicity – A good primer on writing.

Here are our useful links for February 17th, 2009:

• How Color Choices in Stores Can Influence Your Shopping Decisions – Color is believed to be one of the most powerful elements of design for web sites, direct mail, ads, and other marketing materials.
• B2B Marketing for $100 – B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #173 – A good list of marketing tools for minimal cost
• How You Can Leverage Lay-Offs – Starting Your Own Business – Entrepreneur.com –
• Which comes first, the product or the marketing? – If someone comes to you with a 'great' product that just needs some marketing, the game is probably already over.
• Road To Becoming A Rich Idiot – The title speaks for itself.
• The Relationship Between Color And Sales – Understanding that color influences the way a buyer behaves.
• Short-Term Loans 101 – Everything you wanted to know about short term loans

Here are our useful links for February 2nd, 2009:

• 10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2009 – ReadWriteWeb – Social media today is a pure mess: it has become a collection of countless features, tools, and applications fighting for a piece of the pie.
• Tom's Sixth Law – Always talk it out. In so doing you get to the heart of your problem.,
• 10 great quotes from 10 great people – Some interesting perspective from 10 successful business people.
• New Local Search Listing Resource – Something of interest to the small business.
• 10 Advantages of Being a Young Entrepreneur – Nice write up
• Entrepreneur Tip #1: Start An Internship Program – Very good write up on starting an internship program for a company.

Here is our list of useful links for January 22nd, 2009:

• The Best Decision Doesn’t Always Make The Most Financial Sense – Getting your finances together and winning financially doesn’t always make sense. In fact, sometimes, it defies financial logic.
• Defining an Entrepreneur – What is an entrepreneur?
• 9 Golden Rules of Investment – Start as early as you can in your investment game. Time is a great multiplier. If you make sound investments early in your life, you are sure to make some money later on with no exceptions.
• Is Obama A Relationship Economist? – Just like money, the change in our relationships induces an incentive or disincentive to behave a certain way. For better or worse, incentives will reflect reality rather than reality reflecting the incentives. That’s a game change
• 7 Simple Steps to a Clutter Free Home Office – Good advice for keeping the clutter in your office in check.
• Do It Yourself Debt Consolidation – If you want to get out of debt, these steps can help you accomplish your goal more quickly and efficiently. Remember the key is to change your spending habits and not go further into debt, otherwise, your debt repayment plan will fail.

Here is our list of useful links for January 21st, 2009:

• Success and failure are the hero and sidekick – It speaks for itself.
• You Don't Need an SEO Expert! – Because all of the money spent on search engine optimization by small to mid-size businesses is unnecessary and it’s a racket.
• Click here to find out more! Next Post Previous Post Trends for Rural Small Businesses in 2009 – Being in business in a small town or a rural area is different from being in a metropolitan area. Your local economy is certainly different from the national big picture. That’s why rural small business needs its own list of trends for 2009.
• 5 Recession Business Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make – Cost cutting is a natural response to uncertain economic times, and done properly, it can certainly help your small business stay profitable. But some of the things you're thinking of jettisoning are too valuable to lose.
• Jim G, Mr. Detroit, and a Saloon Fight: What Makes You a Fiercely Loyal Customer? – My dad cared about the people who were his customers and so they cared about him. He looked out for them and they looked out for him. Investment made investment returned. It’s the ROI of relationships — in spades.

Here is our list of useful links for January 20th, 2009:

• Some of the biggest Domain Sales ever! – If you have a domain name saved, you might want to pay attention to this post.
• Descent Into Dumb iPhone Apps: Now You Can Have Your Own iGirl – Here we go. Now you can finally have that girl be where and when you want her.
• IT as bad as Red-Tape for Small Business? – Small businesses should not spend time trying to learn computer skills
• Sox First: Beware of Twitter: lawyers – The lawyers see an opportunity in Twitter. Here we go!
• What I Don't Know – The things we don't know could be holding us back from success in our business.

Here are our useful links for January 17th, 2009:

• 25 tips by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs – A worthwhile list of tips for the budding entrepreneur.
• Personal Branding: Be Aware of Your Pigeonhole – It’s Hard to Switch – When its time to change our lives it might be difficult to get people to think of us differently because they have already pigeon holed us over time.
• The Power of Gradual – How taking it bit by bit, ever so slowly adds up.
• The Power of Less: Changing Behavior with Leo Babauta – How to change your behavior by doing less.
• The Margin Manifesto: 11 Tenets for Reaching (or Doubling) Profitability in 3 Months – A great list for start ups
• Charmin Kicks Butt – In rolls Charmin with what amounts to a public service as much as a branding campaign.

Here is our list of useful links for January 15th, 2009:

• HELLO, my name is BLOG!: The Hangout Factor: 16 Secrets for Leveraging Local Networking – Great advice for the SOHO type.
• LINK BAIT and COMMUNITY – A fresh look at this topic from a Twitter point of view.
• Change.gov – Speak your mind | Business in General – Share your ideas on any issue facing the new administration, then rate or comment on other ideas. The best rated ideas will rise to the top — and be gathered into a Citizen’s Briefing book to be delivered to President Obama after he is sworn in.
• Brief Obama With Salesforce.com’s Idea Generator – Have a good idea for the President, try this