Time to chime in, its great to talk about content and keyword optimization and such, but for most non search people, even designers & developers with out search experience, I notice things get lost very quickly.
Here is a (hopefully) decent strategy for 'designing' a search campaign for your site.
Lets call this site Blue Widgets Co.
1) What are your goals?
I've been brought into a lot of campaigns where people just say "SEO this site." Then after the cold feeling of dread passes, it is time to roll up my sleeves and ask some questions:
1a) In your mind, what would you expect to rank for?
Always start with the clients (or your expectations), it is the fastest way to start a foundation for your site.
1b) Do you have a site map?
A site map is a visual representation of your site, it shows the navigation structure and how pages are interlinked. Don't have one? Make one.
From a site map you can start to determine the overall objectives of each page on the site.
(That is right, each page needs to have a goal - too many people try to make their whole site rank for one keyword or phrase. When really you are actually hurting yourself.)
1c) Determine goals for each page
Things are getting fun now. With your site map (even a paper drawn sketch will do) - determine what the goal of each page on the site should be.
For example, in Blue Widget Co. they have 2 main products, a homepage, and a contact/order section; of which the goals are:
-- Home - Attract people Searching for our company, Blue Widget Co.
-- Products Main - Attract visitors searching for Widget products as a whole.
-- Products > Small Widgets - Attract visitors searching for Small Widgets
-- Products > Big Widgets - Attract visitors searching for Big Widgets
- Contact/Order - Funnel site visitors to this page and attract searchers who are looking for widget ordering information (and or prices).
Now that we know our goals, we can determine some keyword strategies.
2) Keyword Strategies
Yes I know, you now exactly what 100% of your customers are typing into search engines, you (after all) have been in the business for 100 years.. blah blah blah
Frankly you will always find surprises when doing keyword research, at the very least ideas. So bloody well do it.
Happily if you are following this guide, you have (1) a site map, and (2) goals for each page on the site map.
Keyword Research isn't rocket science, I use:
Google Keyword Tool
Word Tracker
Google Trends
The first two are the most important, Wordtracker takes data form more sources than the Google tool, and there are plenty of tutorials out there on how to use each tool.
The net of what they do is give you approximate search volumes for different keywords and phrases. The idea being that you start with broad terms and then narrow them down into targetted ones.
So using the goals we've set for each page as a foundation, you then do your keyword research around them.
My research might tell me that a significant amount of users are search for the keywords, Widgets, Cheap Widgets, Small Widget Deals, Big Widget Info, and Widget Order Form.
So once you have your research done, you can start the process of optimizing your individual pages for the words and phrases you find that most people search for. Keep in mind that (rougly) 40% search using 4 words, 30% 3 words, 20% 2 words, 1 word, 5 words, etc...
So most people basically use 3 or 4 words in a search query.
3) Setup your pages based on this awesome insight.
Ok so now we know the goals for the pages on your site and what people are typically typing in to find those pages. So how do we make sure our pages are optimized for them?
This is where some of those general rules come in, like:
- Ensure unique relevant content on each page of the site.
- Don't make more than 1 page on your site relevant for an individual word/phrase.
- Make the content useful and readable.
- Use images (with alt tags).
- Use videos (like you tube embedded ones which link back to your page).
If you are going to do anything on your page, do these 3 things:
1a) Title Tag
1b) H1 Heading Tag
1c) URL
So if we're optimizing our "Big Widgets Page", which keyword research shows us people type in "Big Widget Info" the most when trying to find, our 3 things will look like this:
a - Title) Big Widget Information from Blue Widget Co.
b - H1) Big Widget Information
c - URL) www. bluewidgets .com/widgets/ big-widgets/
For extra credit include:
d - h2 sub title) Your source for Big Widget product info, prices, and deals.
e - body copy that is well written and gives some really solid and readable info on big widgets.
So now you are well on your way, next up you need to get people to link to your site (starting with you).
4) Link Building
There is good and bad link building, I don't recommend going around buying links or resorting to spam to get links to your site. Search engines continually refine their police robots and its not worth all the hard work just to get de-listed.
4a) Start with internal link building.
I mentioned it before, do not make more than 1 page be optimized for a phrase on your site. In our case I wouldn't want 2 pages with the title and h1 tag of "Big Widget Information".
Beyond that make sure all the other pages on your site link to your big widget page using the (clickable) link text "Big Widget Information".
Here is an example:
--boo got removed, that is cold...
Here is a different example,
Designers Community Forum
I'm now creating relevance for my site to my chosen keyword to optimize for. And in my case that is Calgary Web Design. (For anyone inquisitive enough, I don't rank for this yet as I just went freelance a few weeks ago, be patient I will - just need to get a site up first.)
That is the basics of link building, get your own pages and other sites to link to pages in your site using (when possible) the keywords you have chosen to try and rank for.
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I am totally tired of typing now.
I hope this was helpful, please always feel free to PM me, hit me up on twitter (@
miketighe) - or e-mail me through either of my sites (found in the signature below).
Cheers,
Mike