Definition and Overview
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is broken down into two major disciplines; on-site and off-site. Through implementing both of these practices a website has the ability to increase visibility in search engines.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is broken down into two major disciplines; on-site and off-site. Through implementing both of these practices a website has the ability to increase visibility in search engines.
Benefits
One of the key benefits of SEO services is the positive return on investment (ROI). Additional benefits are increased brand visibility, targeted traffic, and higher sales. If a website is properly designed, optimized and marketed it stays for a long term in the rankings compared to the pay-per-click (PPC) option. The benefits of SEO range from selling more products and services, to increasing a websites ability to load a web page in a browser.
One of the key benefits of SEO services is the positive return on investment (ROI). Additional benefits are increased brand visibility, targeted traffic, and higher sales. If a website is properly designed, optimized and marketed it stays for a long term in the rankings compared to the pay-per-click (PPC) option. The benefits of SEO range from selling more products and services, to increasing a websites ability to load a web page in a browser.
Service Offering Details
Search Engine Optimization Analysis: in order to understand the SEO needs of a website, an SEO Specialist conducts a site analysis focusing on both on-site and off-site SEO. This analysis is created to define optimization needs and give recommendations. The recommendations can then be used as a statement of work for a campaign or a reference point to the website owner.
Search Engine Optimization Analysis: in order to understand the SEO needs of a website, an SEO Specialist conducts a site analysis focusing on both on-site and off-site SEO. This analysis is created to define optimization needs and give recommendations. The recommendations can then be used as a statement of work for a campaign or a reference point to the website owner.
Search Engine Optimization - On-site: the process of optimizing; meta keywords, HTML tags, descriptions robots.txt file, body text, URL structure, H1-H6, internal site links, outbound link texts, image alt texts, and keyword density of a website.
On-site optimization is the process of enhancing elements in "web pages". This step is important website owners want the search engines to recognize what the website is about quickly. On-site optimization is the process of optimizing website features as well. These features come in multiple different formats; FLASH, links, images, RSS, HTML etc. SEO campaigns take on a flat structure. In other words, the closer the SEO'ed web pages are to the home page of a website the better.
Meta Keywords, Meta Tags and Descriptions: are optimized when creating web pages. Pages within a website have <head> sections. Within these sections there are HEAD elements.
Title Element: the title of a web page appears in a browser´s title bar when viewing a page. The title is one of the most important aspects when optimizing for the search engines. The search engines use the title of the web page to determine what the page is about. The code that gives the title is: <title> Organic Marketing - SEM - Anne Haynes Consultant</title> And this is how the code displays in the browser:
META Element: gives the search engines some basic information about your HTML document such as the most important keywords that appear inside the document and a short description of the document's content. An example of a META element would be : <meta name="keywords" content="keyword1, keyword2, ..."> <meta name="description" content="This web page is about bla bla bla ..."> The META is important because this information is displayed in the search engine results as a description of the page.
Web Page Encoding Element: if a website owner wants the content of a web page to be displayed correctly all over the world, the META should tell a browser which character set you are using. An example of this type of META is: <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> The W3C requires that all websites be valid. W3C Website Validator Tool
Headings Elements: H is the element name that stands for "heading". There are 6 levels of headings beginning with H1 being the biggest and ending in H6 being the smallest. Search engines use these headings to determine what is important on a specific page. An example of H elements are the following:
<h1>H1 - the biggest headline</h1>
<h2>H2 - smaller than H1</h2>
<h3>H3 - smaller than H2</h3>
<h4>H4 - smaller than H3</h4>
<h5>H5 - smaller than H4</h5>
<h6>H6 - the smallest headline</h6>
Body Text and Keyword Density: are used to give the search engines more of an understanding of what a web page is about. Keyword density is the number of times a keyword is repeated within a web page, expressed as a percentage of the total number of textual words on the page. Within the body text of a web page the keywords and content existing. The search engines measure keyword density to narrow down the meaning of the web page. When creating content it is best to write naturally but stay focused on the primary focus of the web page.
Optimize Internal Site Links: when building out a website it's important to link relevant pages together. For example, if a web page has press release content discussing a new product, the press release should link to the product details page. When architecting a website it's important to define the internal linking sections before building out a website. Linking pages that are similar and compliment each other - support a good user experience. And a good user experience is essential are to a successful on-site SEO campaign.
Optimize Outbound Link Text: by using <titles> embedded within links it helps the search engines know what the link is linking to. This is done by using <titles> tags. This optimization works for both on-site and off-site strategies. An example of what an optimized title link looks like would be: <a title="Anne Haynes" href=http://www.annehaynes.com/contact>Anne Haynes - Marketing Consultant</a>. Following is a more detailed breakdown of the proper format:
URL Structure: URL structure is important when creating websites because the search engines prefer to have keywords within the URL structures. For example, if an ecommerce store is selling scented candles the URL needs to have the word scented candle some place within the URL. http://www.thecandleshop.net/scented-candles.
As a user goes deeper into a website the URL should continue to add more details about the page. Let's say someone is buying a Trapp Scented Candle, following would be an SEO friendly URL drilling down to the product details page: http://www.thecandleshop.net/scented-candles/trapp/fig-trapp-votive. While this sounds very simple in the description, finding an ecommerce cart that supports the removal of dynamic database queries is very difficult. Most of the ecommerce shopping carts out today are built using a Content Management Systems (CMS). These CMS that not only produce excessive amounts of code on a page, but they don't utilize keyword friendly URL structures.
Robots.txt: the robots.txt files are used to tell the search engines where they should NOT crawl within a website. For example, if a website has a userid and password feature, the website owner doesn't want the web pages behind userid and password to be indexed by the search engines. Utilizing the robots.txt file allows website owners to command the search engines to keep out of those pages on a website.
Optimizing Images: image optimization is important not only for the search engines, but also for users that are visually impaired. The W3C suggests the usage of image alt attributes. In 2006 The National Federation of the Blind sued Target and Amazon for lack of alt attributes on target.com. It is best practices to have images optimized for the keywords being targeted on a specific page.
Site Maps: site maps are important to on-site SEO because these maps tell the search engines and the users the most important pages within a site. The site maps are a place to encapsulate all the optimized pages of an SEO campaign. When website owners and SEO Specialist are working in together on building out a website, the site map is a good place to communicate the pages within a website that are special and part of an SEO campaign. Additionally, because search engines like to have "relevant" internal pages linking together, utilizing a footer site map supports the search engines ranking those pages in the search results.
Blogs: blogs help with on-site optimization for several reasons; the website becomes bigger and the search engines take into account the size of a website when ranking specific pages. Additionally, search engines love fresh content to crawl. There are many fun and easy tools to integrate into blogs; feeds, tagging and bookmarking, are easily implemented by installing plug-ins. Additionally, blogs are a great tool to enhance internal linking within a website. Following are a few steps when creating a blog for your website:
Blog Creative and Development: process of determining which blog software to use for your site. If your website is created using open source than you would use an open source blogging software like WordPress. If your site is built using custom software consult with your development group on which blog software works for your website. It is important to have your blog resemble the look and feel of your main site. Most of the blog software out today have "skins" or "themes" that are easily plugged into the blog software.
Blog Content Creation: process of researching specific topics and writing an article around the topics and referencing other resources on the internet. A website owner can create these blog posts internally or hire an SEO Specialist or intern to write content for the blog. In my experience, this is the toughest part when implementing a blog. Most website owners don't always understand the meaning of a blog, in other words, they are responsible for the content.
Blog Marketing: researching the internet to find other blogs or websites that compliment the topics discussed on the website owner's blog and requesting a link to the blog post as a resource. In general this is a basic marketing activity. While marketing a blog is considered an off-site SEO tactic, it plays an important part during the process of installing a blog.
Blog Optimization: process of integrating keyword research from the SEO campaign and adding these keywords throughout the blog post. Many times this activity is given to an SEO Specialist because most website owners don't want to learn the HTML needed to optimize the link structure.
Search Engine Optimization - Off-site: refers to search engine optimization techniques that are not performed on a website or page and are therefore termed "off-site". This is the process of doing the following activities; requesting websites to link to your site, directory submissions, creating press releases, social networking/media, etc.
Press Release Distribution: is an off-site optimization tactic that is used when an SEO campaign is targeting competitive keywords or to increase the time to optimization. The traffic generated from a press release happens for a certain period of time 3-4 week. I generally recommend sending out press releases quarterly. Following are the steps in an SEO press release process:
Press Release Content Creation: This can be done in-house or an organization can request a PR Firm to create the press release.
Press Release Optimization: after the content is created the SEO Specialist receives the content and optimizes the content focusing on approved keywords the website owner would like to target. The keywords are "naturally" added to the press release copy and hyperlinked to point to optimized pages on the website.
Press Release Submission: is completed by logging into PR Web (a news wire aggregator), paying a hard cost ($250-$600), entering in the press release content, PR contact, regions, keywords, photographs, videos and submitting the press release for mass distribution. PR Web also offers podcasting or a recorded audio interview. This podcast can be embedded in the press release. Following is an optimized press release and while many PR professionals would argue that this activity should be within the PR firm's hands, it shouldn't. The individual that creates the SEO keyword campaign should have ownership of the submissions.
Reporting is offered by PR Web that gives you how many people viewed, read and forwarded the press release to a friend. These reports are broken down by Global regions and on a state-by-state level.
There are hundreds of other "Free" article submission sites, to list them would take significant time, however know that good SEO Specialist have this list and submit to these site regularly. While there are no hard costs to using the "Free" article submission sites, understand that the labor is a factor and it does take time to do things right.
Social Media: is an off-site tactic because accounts are created on different websites and these accounts point to the website owner's website and support "relevant" inbound links to the website. These social media sites allow for organizations to gain more positions in the search results. Twitter and social networking sites as an off-site tactic are successful strategies to not only take over additional search engine positions, but these sites generate a good amount of traffic. The services have the ability to change the dynamics of the traffic to your website. Instead of receiving the majority of your traffic from search engines, you will see more traffic coming from referring sites.
For example, Twitter is considered a micro-blogging social media services. Woot.com has a profile on Twitter. When product specials are released, announcements are made on Twitter. People who "follow" woot.com, receive updates on Twitter and are notified every time woot.com publishes any type of update. Based on the number of "followers" when woot.com publishes an update on Twitter 9,260 people will receive the update.
In the above example Twitter is used as a communication channel to keep people informed; on special product deals, a new blog post, an article, however, this strategy is also considered an off-site SEO strategy. In the search engine results page, Twitter comes up position 4 for the brand term "woot".
Another off-site optimization tactic is video optimization. I would enjoy another author to finish this section.
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