Professional tips on website SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Tips on website SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which will help you to obtain high page rankings on Google and other search engines.

To begin, here are some common terms that will be useful to better understand the tips that follow:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization or Optimisation): Creating a user-friendly web page for humans and web bots with the goal to be first in the page rankings of search engines.

Search term: The keyword or keyword phrase to be typed into the search request.

Page ranking: Where a web page is found in a search result, determines its rank.

Relevance: Search terms repeated to show web the legitimacy of an offer Google and other search engines want the REAL DEAL. The tips will help you to communicate this, since you are the real deal.

Web bots or web crawlers: Programs created by the search engine to surf the Internet, to gather and store data about the content of each website.

Algorithms: These are programmed instructions that control the web bots through a myriad of instructions that will influence how a website will perform on its search engine.

url: This is the website pathway that is shown in the address bar and starts with the domain name. The extension contained therein should be written in text form at or near the top of the page.

Top Level Domain (TLD): Domain names with the following extensions: com, net, org, info, biz and co.

Meta tags: A precis that tells what the web page is about. The link to click on in a search request is the Title Meta tag that has be assigned while the written passage shown under this is the Description Meta tag.

Image tags: Text that describes and image using Title and Subject tags are just two of many descriptor tags attached to the images. This SEO tactic is recommended.

To be #1 for the desired search term’s page rankings, means that the search terms strive to be in alignment with the algorithm of the search engine. Providing this legitimate RELEVANCE will give you the SEO edge over the competition. 

To secure and maintain that edge, build the website well from the start, or, remodify the existing text and tags, using the tips prescribed herein. It is imperative to continuously devise new tactics that will enhance the presentation for the search engines’ web bots. 

A website, being much like a CV or resume whose purpose it is to get the interview, is to spur a prospective customer or client to respond to the Call to Action (CTA). Dressing up the website design and layout has an impact on SEO performance, yet given their importance, the focus should be on the web bots as the primary target market. 

Following are some surefire ways to “schmooze” with the bots:

The ultimate goal of SEO is to have your website rank first in the search results. For business online, presenting the CTA is important because you are telling them what to do next. Remember that if there is no immediate gratification when a potential customer or client responds to the CTA, they will move on to the next entry because they can do so easily. 

STARTING OUT: Domain Name Selection 

When building a new website, the best domain name for a hosting site is the dot com (.com). In fact, it would be ideal to secure the rights to all the top level domain names (TLDs).

There are four categories of TLDs in the order of SEO strength:

1.   dot com (.com) – this is the best domain name to have

2.   dot net (.net) – Casting a “net” to gather customers

3.   dot org (.org) – not-for-profit and is short for “organization”

4.   dot info (.info) – sharing information

dot biz (.biz) – business theme

dot co (.co) – company or commercial theme

Although dot ca (.ca) and dot us (.us) are country codes and not TLDs they can also be effective for SEO.

 When all the other TLDs are taken, most often they are parked and are of no competitive concern. However, even the least powerful TLDs can be forwarded to your website. When integrated correctly, this tactic can help give an SEO boost to climb to and/or maintain top spot in the page rankings.

BUILDING WEBSITE CONTENT TO CLIMB TO THE TOP OF THE SEARCH

Two rules for successful SEO:

1. If the “Search Term” (word or sequence of words) is not written, it is not possible to compete for this search term in organic searches. For example, “High Park Condos” does not equal “High Park Condo,” although the latter is contained within the former’s character string.

Desired Search Terms = What is the Customer going to type in to find you? You know your customer or potential customer or client best, so you are the best person to identify which search terms rank highest for them.

2. What is first, must be more important than what follows. By placing the most important word(s) first, the degree of RELEVANCE is created, which is essential for the bots that function with a binary logic: 0 or 1; yes or no. The bots are programmed like elephants, they never forget!

Two Notes of Caution:

1. PLAGIARISM will kill any opportunity for a web page to achieve good organic or natural SEO performance. For example, in real estate sites many take the exact words presented by the main brokerage and reproduce it on their Buying Real Estate page. It would be better to link to the brokerage page. Even better, rewrite the text in your own words.

For example, to avoid plagiarizing a statement such as, “The red house on the hill.” It could be rewritten as: “The house on the hill is red.” To check for plagiarism, simply copy and paste the passage into a Google search.

Image tags are excellent in that they give the opportunity to mention, “red house”more than once. The more a term is repeated legitimately causes it to “trend.” Yet be careful not to over-use the word, instead use variations. This includes videos and closed captioning too, which get converted into written form.

2. LINK FARMING will shut down an entire website. According to WhatIs.com, it is defined as, “A link farm is a website (or a group of websites) created only for the purpose of increasing the link popularity of another site by increasing the number of incoming links.”

In other words, it is a website that might have a header and a footer but there is no content in the body. If there is content, it doesn’t link to anything of RELEVANCE. These tactics are known as black hat SEO which is used to generate traffic to that website via increasing the number of backlinks. Thus the analogy of “farming.” When that happens, the search engine’s program blacklists the website.

Mistakes can happen, diminishing SEO strength or, worst case scenario, being shut down or blacklisted. However, the web bots are forgiving when mistakes are caught early enough. We can coach more about this aspect of protecting the online brand.

THE NEXT STEP: Suggested Changes

It’s critical that the desired search terms are threaded throughout the text in a way that shows you are the real deal. For existing websites, the first task is to conduct the Suggested Changes Process.This is done by combing through the text looking for ways to include valuable search terms that are missing. Here are some more ideas to help with this SEO thinking, some of which we have mentioned:

·       Ensure both singular and plural as well as variations of the search terms are written. Reinforce these keywords in the Meta tags, image tags, videos closed-captioning, etc. Force the web bots to read good content.

·       Always consider what the customer will type into the search request to find you.

·       Remember to use the correct spelling for your target market or target markets (e.g. colour and color).

·       The more precise the wording, the better. It’s a good idea to re-read one’s website pages occasionally and test drive the site as this is where creative web development ideas happen.

META TAGS: Providing a precis of what is to be found on the web page.

The web bots like organization: The title and description Meta tags give a short textual synopsis of what the web page is about. Google discontinued the use of the keywords Meta tag because it was misused.

An effective Meta tag follows these parameters:

·       Title Meta Tag: Google assigns 67 characters for this tag although it can be maximized up to 80. For good SEO the title tag’s exact text is at or very near to the top of the page.

·       Description Meta Tag: Google assigns 167 characters for this tag although it can be maximized up to 380. For good SEO the tag’s text should match the text on the web page exactly.

A common error is to have the same Meta tag for every web page. Don’t duplicate Meta tags to save time. Another mistake is to have fabulous text written that does not match any text on the web page.

Here are some tips to help with crafting Meta tags:

·       Capital letters express importance – use sparingly

·       Use the EXACT text from the web page. Include both singular and plural terms whenever possible

·       Close the Description Meta tag with a call to action (CTA)

KEYWORD MATRIX: Tracking Search Terms Used

The keyword matrix is a data analysis system that gathers the text permutations of all the search terms (of value), contained within the website. Having the information recorded on a spreadsheet makes it easy to examine all the data page by page. Having the full view of all the terms used is a huge advantage when it comes to ensure important search terms are written.

Here are the steps to crafting this document using a word and xls document, once the text has been finalized:

The X axis are the columns across the top of the page, which list the web pages of a specific website and the Y axis lists the desired search terms.

1.   Web Page by web page, once the keywords have been assembled, there will be one paragraph. Only a comma separates the keywords with no spaces. Double click this paragraph to copy and then paste directly below.

2.   Now click on each comma to highlight it and hit return, as fast as you can without erring. The result will be the list of keywords as they appear on the page. Remember, What is first must be more important than what follows. Check if the most important word or words need to be rewritten to, or near the front.

3.   Next, copy this list and paste it to a spreadsheet, placing an emblem, such as a single letter, in the column designated for that page. The page is identified at the top of the column. Add the pages as they are completed.

4.   Once completed, make a copy of the sheet and sort alphabetically. This will pinpoint where search terms are missing and ensure that singular and plural search terms are included and so much more.

The completed Matrix also shows the saturation levels for each search term: How many pages does the search terms appear on? Much data is generated which is useful for analysis.

IMAGE TAGS: Great for Connecting with the Web Bots

According to the internet founders’ website (www.w3c.org) the web crawlers/bots can be considered blind and therefore they like and favour a website that serves adaptive technology.

There are three main points to keep in mind when labeling images:

1.   Choose a descriptive file name with hyphens-in-between-words.

2.   For the Title tag replicate the file name and replace the hyphens with spaces.

3.   For the subject tag describe the image for the person who uses adaptive technology, ensuring the desired keywords are used.

While Meta tags are limited in the number of characters, image tags are not limited and are a great way to schmooze with the web bots as they force the bots to read RELEVANT copy to gain the competitive advantage.

Because many do not pay attention to image tags, it will benefit those who do! The old adage applies here: “pictures are worth a thousand words.” People do search by images as well.

Using Image tags is one strategy in SEO to stay ahead of the competition. If anyone says SEO takes months to go into effect, experience has shown differently. It may take time to revamp the website, but once changes have been published, cause and effect should be recognizable within a week or two, if not days.

In one example, a lift truck company needed a boost to compete against an assault on their brand. We crafted a section highlighting cities and towns within their service region, which produced 40 new pages on their website that gave relevance to the products and services. It worked so well that when they expanded to another region, another 10 web pages of cities and towns celebrating these locations, were added. As Google visits this top ranked website frequently, the change was picked up within a few days, firmly entrenching this company as a leader for lift truck services!

ALT TAGS: What Causes Something To Trend Can Include How Many Times It Is Written

Alt tags are also useful and different from Image tags in that the text becomes visible to the visitor when they hover the cursor over the top of the image. Because it is independent from all other tags, why not ensure desired search terms are written here also?

DOMAIN NAME MINING: When integrated correctly it is like buying search terms!

One supporting SEO tactic that we highly recommend is domain name mining for desired search terms.After completing the Meta tags and image tags and given that you know your business and Customers best, consider investing to secure the rights to the TLDs that match desired search terms. The wealth of TLDs is unending!

Perhaps the second most important question for someone who wants to have a web presence is, who to shop with, or who will be the Registrar? Because this requires a lot of subjective information from you, we’d be happy to share our specific recommendations with you when we speak. We can share many case studies of how registrars and web-oriented companies play the ‘game’ so that it favours themselves vs. the clients.

When you do invest in domain names and web forwarding, make sure to connect the RELEVANCE for the web bots. Google and other search engines are looking to find this within the website and within your web presence.

Another important note is to remember that if you have secured the rights to all the TLDs, then no one else can secure the rights to ride coattails of your brand, to your detriment.

Other SEO tactics can include Social media, videos including closed-captioning, generating back-links and selective Paid Ads. There are numerous ways to generate FREE Online Marketing, this could be the opportunity to groom the next “Star” of your company or organization. Maybe it’s you!

Please know that we are here to serve and can coach SEO and Marketing for FREE!!!

Notes about our SEO Process:

In helping our clients to climb to #1-page ranking, we choose not to post our link at the bottom of the web pages we have developed – we give the importance to our customers’ brand instead. It also minimizes the chance that the competition will study our methods. They do not need to see how you gained your page ranking, just that you are #1!

We avoid cross-pollinizing of ideas by having individual strategy sessions with each client that include understanding short-term and long-term goals first, which will lead to online success. As our client, you are our first priority, which means that should another company in the same industry request our SEO service, we would inform of this and will act on it, only if we have your permission.

In this climate of so much business closure, our motto is to get back to helping each other where we can and offering these SEO tips is one way we can do that!

External Links

The use of external links can help add RELEVANCE to a web page, though it is critical to regularly check that the external link is current and working.

It is just as critical to ensure a new browser is opened for external links. You don’t want to lose the people you worked so hard to get to your site, only to lose them when they close the site that you link them to. When linking to other sites, make sure you don’t forward the viewer to a site that offers competing products or utility value.

THE EXTENSIVE SITE MAP: Owner’s manual for the website

It is recommended to include a site-map web page that lists all the web pages within the website. For SEO “behind-the-scenes,” we encourage creating a site map that is even more extensive that identifies all the website’s parts.

Whether building a new website or preparing to improve an existing website’s SEO, it can provide the checklist for each page’s Meta tags, image tags, closed-captioning for videos, PDFs, etc.

The process requires an intensive analysis of every element and thus is an excellent tool to conduct a SWOT analysis (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). Also part of this spreadsheet is a search sheet, which records both the Domain Name Mining Report and the trend of page rankings for desired search terms. How do you know you are #1 if you don’t check?

Launching A New Website

For a new website, it is absolutely critical to put a “New and Exciting Things to Come” web page up and then when launched, ensure that no errors occur.

Other tips include ensuring only unique pages, in other words, no duplicated text content. DO NOT PUBLISH THE SITE UNTIL ALL IS SET IN PLACE TO GREET THE WEB BOTS FOR THE FIRST TIME. Also no plagiarized text as the web bots are brilliant at identifying this.

Website Maintenance

Once the website has been published there are various tactics to help in maintaining the site. We take “house calls!”

SOCIAL MEDIA: For Facebook and Announcing Website Changes to the Web Bots

Connecting with family and friends on Social Media may be fun, but SEO strategy can apply even here. Consider that Google and other search engines monitor all social media platforms continuously. We want the changes picked up by the bots as quickly as possible. After making improvements to a website, announce those changes on social media platforms. This will with speed up the results in verifying page-ranking performance.

We trust that these SEO tips are helpful to enhance your web presence, generate sales and awareness of your product or service and allow you to stay current with your client or customer.

Again, we are grateful to have met you at the Home Show. This marketing service has expanded to include two professionals:

Mark (markmueller.biz) has the specialty knowledge on SEO for websites, marketing knowledge and business experience.

Aileen (pieceofcakecopywriting.com) has the writing and journalism skills for presenting compelling copy that reads well.

Both bring many other skills to the table. As a team, Mark can fulfill his penchant for pushing the envelope on radical tactics of SEO and climbing to the top of the organic page rankings for desired search terms, while being grounded by Aileen’s skills of writing clear copy to deadline that is factual, accurate and full of creative flair.

We hope these tips will help in your business / online marketing activity and wish you all the best while thanking you for investing in being at the Home Show. Please remember we are here to be helpful. We offer reasonable rates and as mentioned, we can coach for FREE!

Get help with SEO at https://semperfi.design/seo