Introduction
As many of us
web developers already know, Google is rated by many as the number one search
engine in the world. We personally know that our websites get about 90% of their
search engine traffic direct from Google searches.
Getting indexed by
Google can be a pain, but getting highly placed rankings for specific keywords
seems to be the nut that not many web developers without SEO (search engine
optimization) experience can crack.
Today we’re going to give you an
informative primer on the basics of search engine optimization techniques —
many of which we use everyday to optimize our websites and stay ahead of our
competitors.
4 Steps to Better
Rankings
We personally believe in the
“practice what you preach” approach to all things business related — especially
SEO. So, before we continue, here’s a sample of keywords and Google rankings for
some of our websites:
| Website | Keywords | Google Ranking |
| Activekb.com | Knowledgebase software | #2 of 4,980,000 |
| DevEdit.com | Online HTML editor | #3 of 9,080,000 |
| MyFreeTemplates.com | Free Dreamweaver Templates | #4 of 93,600 |
Step 1. Choosing The Right Keywords
Choosing the right keywords to base your site optimization
around is an important first step. General or generic keywords are usually not
the best approach, and sometimes it’s better to be a little more specific and
focus on niche keywords relating to your product or service.
For example,
let’s talk about www.devedit.com — DevEdit is our WYSIWYG HTML editing
component that drops into browser-based applications.
The problem is,
there are a LOT of WYSIWYG HTML editors, but how can we get DevEdit to appear in
Google’s top 10 rankings? Well, let’s see. Trying to optimize for the keyword
“HTML” alone would be a tough task, as it’s too general. There are HTML editors,
HTML tutorials, HTML articles, etc.
We need to be more specific, which
means:
-
Targeting a
more suitable market that is looking for a content editing solution -
Competing
with fewer websites targeting the same keywords -
Optimizing
for keywords that people actually use when performing searches
Targeting a
suitable market will depend on your website, as well as the products and
services you offer. Try to be specific with your keywords, and remember that
people no longer use single keyword search phrases - the average search phrase
contains 3-5 related words.
For example, if you’re optimizing for a web
development site and you’re located in Sydney, Australia, use keywords such as
“web development Sydney” or “web development services Australia”.
To find
out how many websites are competing with your keywords — either intentionally
or not — simply do a search on Google and note down how many results are
returned. In our case, for “online html editor”, we’re competing with 9,080,000
sites. The more sites that are competing for your keywords, the harder it will
be to get on the front page.
Alternatively, to get a rough indication of
how many people are actually searching for the keywords you want to optimize
your site for, use the Overture search suggestion tool. It’s not exact, and
doesn’t measure Google searches, but it does give a very good
estimate.
The Overture search suggestion tool will also provide you with
a list of similar keywords, based on the keywords you enter. This can be a great
way to find other keywords to optimize your site for.
As a rough
guideline, try to optimize every page on your site for a different search
phrase. Each search phrase should contain 2 to 3 highly targeted
keywords.
Step 2. Your URL and
Title Tag
Two of the most determining
factors in Google’s ranking are your domain name and title tag. For example, a
domain name such as:
http://www.web-development-sydney.com will generally get
ranked higher than http://www.companyname.com, assuming that they had identical
keywords and page content.
For some of us, keywords in the domain name
look too unprofessional, and we’ve already registered our domain, so it’s too
late to change. An alternative — and also a useful tactic — is to add your
keywords into the names of your pages, such
as
http://www.companyname.com/web-development-services.html
Your title
tag is equally as important as your domain name. Using keywords in your title
tag can improve your Google ranking significantly. Trying to achieve a balance
of professionalism with keyword density in the title tag however is sometimes a
little more difficult.
Going back to our example of a web development
company earlier, a good title tag would be:
<title>”Company
name provides professional affordable web development services in Sydney
Australia.”</title>
Usually, the
closer to the front of your title tag the keywords are placed, the
better.
Step 3. H1 Tags and
Keyword Density
<h1> tags seem to
have been depreciated by stylesheets these days, and are not used as often as
they used to be.
The Google ranking algorithm dictates that if you’re
using a <h1> tag, then the text in between this tag must be more important
than the content on the rest of the page. Here’s a quick example:
<h1>Google sees
this text as more important</h1>
<p>… than this
text</p>
By default,
H1 tags aren’t the prettiest in terms of formatting, so using a CSS style to
override the default look is usually a good idea:
H1 { color: blue;
font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px }
Sprinkling
keywords throughout your page content can also improve your sites keyword
density. Keyword density simply means the ratio of optimized keywords to the
rest of the content on your page. It is usually expressed as a percentage, and
should be between 7% and 10% for each page on your site.
Don’t overdo the
keyword density, however, but don’t overlook it either. A good example would
be:
BEFORE:
-
Company name
provides web design and site management services to our clients.
AFTER:
-
Company name
provides web development services to the Sydney region in Australia
Notice how
we use the keywords more efficiently the second time
around?
Step 4. Links, Links and
More Links
And this leads us to the
toughest part of the Google SEO process — back-links. Back links are websites
that link directly to your website. The general principal is the more back links
you have, the higher your pages will be ranked, as your website must be good if
so many other sites are linking back to it.
If you run a web development
company, then adding a simple link to the bottom of each of your client’s
websites, such as:
<a
href=http://www.yoursite.com>Web development by Company Name</a>
… (With
your clients permission of course) can help boost your back links, which will
help boost your ranking position in searches.
Submitting your site to
dmoz.org, Yahoo! and other directories is also an important step to increase the
number of sites linking back to yours. Do remember however, that setting up back
links takes time. I would recommend emailing 5-10 websites each and every day to
request back-links or partnership links (keeping in mind that the sites
contacted should be relevant but not competitive) e.g. - If you sell chocolate,
partnering with a company that sells Roses may just be a good idea. Within a
couple of weeks, you should have a good 100 or so sites happily linking back to
yours!
Conclusion
Google can be one
tough search engine to crack. Hopefully, however, in this article we’ve provided
you with enough basic tips to get started optimizing both yours and your clients
website.
Are you a web designer, developer or freelancer whose looking to
get the edge on your competitors? If so, we can help. To learn more about us,
how we can help you attract new customers, increase your profits, product and
service offerings, please visit our website at http://www.interspire.com
[Copyright strictly
enforced © 2003 Interspire]
