Even the best websites out there are useless if no one is able to find them. Learn the basics of how to optimize your site for search engines like Google and get access to tools that will help you along the way.

Professional Services | Avoiding Traps | Targeting Keywords | Optimized Content | Implementation | Tools

Search Optimization: Professional Services

• Search Optimization Services from DonSchaefer.com - If you're looking to improve your rankings in the search engines, the last thing that you want to be told is that you're going to have to completely re-do your website if you want to make any progress. If you're looking to design a new site and get it off to the right start, please look over my available search optimization services and contact me - I'll be happy to assist you.
• Apps Communications - Apps Communications offers professional search engine optimization services to businesses looking to improve their rankings in Google and other search engines. If you are looking to get serious about your search rankings, these are the guys to contact. They'll assist you with all of your optimization needs from start to finish and provide ongoing monthly assistance and results tracking.

Search Optimization: Avoiding Traps

A lot of people want to get to the "top" of Google, but don't really understand what that means. The only thing they understand is that every day, more and more people are using Google to find what they're looking for, so, if they can manage to come up at the top of the search results, it'll translate into more business for their company. Armed with that understanding, many begin to make bad choices... some will fall victim to companies claiming that they can get you a #1 ranking in a matter of days, others will pay top-dollar to Google Adwords in order to be displayed in sponsored links that appear at the top of the results. With that said, allow me to explain the two largest pit-falls that people usually find themselves in by not properly researching the optimization process before they go to spend their money...

• Sites don't show up at the "top" of Google. They show up as the "top" listing for a specific word or phrase that someone searches for. Now, think for a moment about what this means for your business. Let's say you're in the business of selling cars - go ahead & do a Google search for the word "car". Now do another search for the word "cars". This simple test will show you that something as trivial as adding an "s" onto the end of a word can change the results that you see & companies looking to make a quick buck off you will use that to their advantage. You might be ranked #1 in Google in a matter of days... for the phrase "cobalt blue 3-door cars" - they'll fulfill their end of the bargain & because no one is searching for that phrase, you'll end up with just as few website visitors as when you started.
• A good percentage of the "clicks" that you receive from AdWords campaigns are fraudulent - you're getting charged for the clicks, but people aren't actually visiting your site. Now, you may be wondering... "Google is such a well-known & reputable company, why should I believe that they'd engage in doing that?" The answer is, they don't. Google makes more money by displaying advertisements though, so rather than stop at simply displaying the advertisements on their own site, Google devises several ways to get website owners to install Google advertisements on their sites as well. Sometimes it's by providing useful website features for free (such as the customized search results you'll find by doing a search in the lower left corner of this site), while other times, Google will actually PAY website owners based on the number of times their users click on Google Ads! Herein lies the problem. Programmers actually design programs that browse the web on their own just like a normal website visitor would, clicking on the AdWords links & making their owners rich in the process! When the program is designed well, Google can't tell the difference & they have no financial incentive to do so either, since they are being paid for every click that occurs. Another scenario might also arise for particularly competitive ad-spaces...a competitor might design a program to click your advertisements repeatedly, thus driving up your monthly bill to get you out of the game so that they can slip into your ad-spot when your adwords account runs dry of funds. Google tries to limit both of these scenarios for the sake of maintaining a reputable business, but as long as it is in their financial interest to let these practices continue, I doubt they'll ever stop them completely.

Search Optimization: Targeting Keywords

Having read the pre-face, you're probably thinking... "Ok, so... I understand that I can't optimize for everything at once, but which words/phrases SHOULD I optimize for? Furthermore, when is it a good idea (if ever) to use AdWords?"

I'll tackle the simpler question first. AdWords (and other "cost-per-click" methods of advertising from other providers) can still be beneficial for getting your name out there quickly, but you should measure the success of these campaigns based on the number of additional sales they yield (tracked by setting up goals in website traffic analytics software such as "Google Analytics"), rather than the number of "visitors" they supposedly bring to your site. Also note that many internet users are savvy when it comes to identifying a "sponsored" result & differentiating it from an "organic" or real search result. This means that while AdWords may be a good way for your company to buy it's way into some quick & easy visibility, the more cost-effective way to market yourself over the long-term is to optimize your site for the words & phrases most-relevant to your business so that you appear in the search engines naturally without having to pay for the exposure.

This brings us back to the first question... which words/phrases should you optimize for? The answer will depend on a variety of factors.

• What type of business are you involved in?
• Who is your target market?
• What geographic location do you serve?
• How much are you willing to spend?

Usually, individuals will create a list of words/phrases based on the industry that they're in & what they think their customers will search for. While this is always a good starting point, it's rarely the finishing point of the "keyword" research phase of the optimization process. Does your company sell to average consumers, or do you target a specific type of person who is already very familiar with the technical language of your industry? If your target is the average un-informed consumer, you might actually be better off asking your mom, dad, or a friend what they would type in if they were looking for what your company does. You'll need to resist the urge to correct them, as the words they come up with might not actually be what you do, but if that's what the average person is thinking when they think of your product or service, it's worth serious consideration!

Ever noticed those little maps that Google sometimes displays with 5-10 links next to them when you do a search for something like "restaurants"? If not, go ahead & see for yourself. Notice how all the results next to that map & even some of the regular results are coincidentally in your area? Google KNOWS what area you live in & is intentionally catering it's search results for certain phrases towards businesses that are local to your area. With that in mind, wouldn't it make sense to optimize for your local city, state, or country depending on your geographic market if you're not a national or international company? Afterall, if you're in the heating & air business in New York, it'd do you no good for someone in California to see you at the top of their search results! Unless you're financially prepared, don't waste money optimizing for terms that are broader than the geographic scope of your business.

Similarly, don't waste money optimizing for terms that are too vague. People will often come up with a long list of words related to their industry that they'd like to optimize for, only to find out that 2/3 of the words will do them no good. Imagine a lumber company wanting to optimize their site for the word "wood". Think of how many people out there are searching for that word... then compare that number to how many are actually looking for a lumber company. The average user might be looking for any number of wooden products/furniture, or types of wood, or doing research on trees, or even searching for the word with an entirely different meaning in mind. After considering all of these factors, go ahead & make your list of the words you think are related to your business, but filter the list in the ways I just mentioned to weed out the phrases or "keywords" that won't provide a good ROI ("Return On Investment"). When you're done, plug your list into the Google Keyword Tool to find out which terms are searched for the most. You'll then be able to prioritize which of your terms will yield the most new visitors to your site & possibly get new keyword ideas to start this process over again!

Search Optimization: Optimized Content

So, you're now ready with a list of keywords that you want to rank for & you're wondering where the html code is that you paste all of them into in order to instantly get to the top of the search engines... right? I have bad news for you...the "Keywords" meta-tag is dead.

That's right, Google does NOT support the "Keywords" tag, nor do most other major search engines in any way that significantly affects your rankings for any given phrase. What this means is that your website content needs to reflect what you want to rank well for, because the days of sneaking your keywords in where no one will see them are over.

Now the question becomes "what should I write about? How should I write it? How much writing is enough?" The good news is, you're already armed with a list of topics that you need to write about in the form of the keyword list that you compiled. The task now becomes thinking carefully about what questions your customers might have on each of those phrases, then writing a thoughtful response to each question a customer might be looking to have answered. In some cases, you may be able to integrate this text into pages you already have set up. In other cases, new pages may need to be created in your site in order to accomodate the extra text.

The most difficult part of this process though is establishing the right style of writing, and this is where content writers can come in very handy. You'll want to provide enough information that your site is informative, and perhaps even gets you recognized as an authority in your field. On the flip side though, if you give away too much information, you may drive your customers right to the competition, or simply allow them to leave without ever needing to contact you. The balancing act then, is writing a wealth of information & presenting that information in such a way that your visitors are still looking to contact you when they're done. You can do this by discussing a range of details, but leaving out a few key points & asking the customer to contact you for additional information, or by presenting the facts in such a way that your business seems like the obvious solution to the customer's needs. Either way, you don't want to optimize yourself out of a conversion, because in the end, you're still trying to run a business.

Search Optimization: Implementation

One of the key things to understand when you're optimizing your site for a search engine, is that a search engine's main goal is to find the websites IT thinks are most relevant to what its users are searching for. Now you're probably thinking "Duh... can we just get on with this so I can find out what the 'trick' is to this optimization thing?" And there's the problem - there are no "tricks".

Allow me to clarify... there are companies out there who will claim that there are different ways of hiding/embedding text or doing certain things to trick search engines into ranking you higher. And, to an extent, this is true - but it can cost you dearly. Like any other business, search engines are constantly evolving to meet their customer's needs... and this includes updating their own search algorithms to improve their results & close loop-holes that people are exploiting to unfairly improve their rankings. So, when a search engine updates it's algorithm every so often & in doing so, finds websites that were attempting to "trick" their way into good rankings, it often penalizes those sites with lower rankings & sometimes even removes sites from the results completely!

On the other side of the coin, sites that have perfectly good content in the form of images, videos, or Flash animations may not be given full credit (or get overlooked entirely) until search engines become capable of reading all the information about what is contained in each of these forms of media.

To avoid these pitfalls, it's important to understand that 99% of organic search engine optimization is simply a process of following "best-practices" for presenting users with relevant content in a way that is easy for them to navigate. In short, if your site is truely user-friendly, odds-are, it's probably search engine friendly as well.

Not sure? Consider the following:

• Can someone find out everything they need to know about your industry on your website, or does it only provide information that directly leads to product sales? Consumers are increasingly turning to the internet not only to make their lives easier, but to make informed decisions. This presents an opportunity for you to provide better customer service & appear more relevant to search engines as well. If your site doesn't have an informational aspect to it that allows customers to find out everything they need prior to their final purchase decision, you're missing the boat & you should consider building informational content into your site.
• Is your website easy to navigate? Your site navigation (how you link to the different sections of your site) should be easy to see and use. Menu options should be text-based when possible (using images as backgrounds when they are needed). This will not only improve a search engine's ability to read the site, but it will also help handicapped individuals who are using screen-readers to navigate the site with less problems. Menu text should be intuitive to the content it relates to, but should also be based off of keywords that you're targeting whenever possible.
• Do your page layouts make sense? Search Engines & Users alike both read web pages like a book or a newspaper article. Accordingly, they know that the most important information should be at the top of your pages, and the least important will be at the bottom - your pages should be structured the same way. Furthermore, when a "heading" is given, the assumption follows that the text below the heading will be about the same topic. If a certain section of text is more important than the rest, don't be afraid to make it bold, increase it's size, or change it in some other way that will help it stand out - it will help users & search engines alike to understand its importance.

Of course, there are many ways to maximize your SEO efforts, but if you keep these tips in mind while you're building your pages, you'll be well on your way to some decent search engine rankings.

Search Optimization Tools

• Google Analytics - Everyone wants to optimize their site to do better in search engines, but why? The answer of course, is that they want more traffic to their sites, but even ranking #1 in Google won't always accomplish that. The trick is, knowing how much traffic you're getting from each of the terms you're optimizing for AND how much of the traffic from each keyword is being converted to legitimate leads. Google Analytics provides a free way to do just that!
• Google Webmaster Tools - While Google Analytics provides a way to monitor your site's performance, Google Webmaster Tools actually will help point out things that are wrong (i.e. broken links, etc.) and help you make improvements that could lead to better rankings, but at the very least lead to a better site.
• Google Keywords Tool - Considering optimizing your site, but not sure which keywords you'd like to target? This tool from Google will tell you how many people search for each of the keywords that you type in (to determine how popular the word is & consequently how much/little traffic you can expect from it) & even goes a step further to suggest a list of similar words that might also be of interest.
• Google Places - Ever wondered how sometimes when you're searching for nearby businesses you'll get a miniature map on the Google results page with a list of 10 local businesses? Want to get in that list or take control of a listing that's already there? The first step is registering yourself with Google Places & establishing yourself as a local business.
• Search Engine Land - A site dedicated to the community of search engine optimization professionals. Contains tips on how to optimize your site, as well as all the latest news on what's going on with the major search providers. If you're willing to pay the subscription fee, there are also some very informative articles in their archives.
• Search Engine Watch - A site dedicated to the community of search engine optimization professionals. Contains tips on how to optimize your site, as well as all the latest news on what's going on with the major search providers.
• Search Engine Ranking Factors - Exactly what the average person is looking for: a quick list of SEO DOs & Don'ts, organized by impact.