Search Engine Optimization Guide

Choose the right keywords
Let's assume that your website sells baby bedding. Although the keyword "bedding" probably gets a ton of traffic, the people who type in this keyword aren't nearly as pre-qualified to purchase products from your website as people who type in "baby bedding". Better yet, let's assume that you only sell designer baby bedding. This means that in addition to the keyword "baby bedding", "designer baby bedding" is also a great selection. Better still, let's assume that your website sells "snoopy baby bedding", guess what? That is also a great keyword. The point is that specific keywords bring targeted visitors. Your website no doubt need eyeballs to be successful, but those eyeballs have to be focused. The more specific the keywords you target are, the more likely your visitors will find what they are looking for at your website. An excellent resource for selecting keywords is Wordtracker. This is an online application that can show you what people are actually typing into a search engine. Wordtracker offers a free trial, so check it out. Also, Overture offers a free search term suggestion tool. Although neither of these tools offer accurate information on exactly how many visitors your website will really receive if you rank well for the specified keywords, these services do offer a good idea of what people are searching for and should give you some ideas for keywords that you may not have though of.

Write Descriptive Title & Meta tags
Several years ago the Title tag and META tags of your website were the key criteria for how search engines determined what your website was about and where it should rank. Today these tags are no longer quite as significant, although they are still very important. The title tag of your website should have a few keywords in it that are related to your website. Normally, these should be your most important keywords. The META tags should also reflect your most important keywords. Don't overdo it here though. stuffing hundreds of keywords into your meta tags will not improve your rankings. We generally recommend 15 to 30 keywords maximum per page. Of course this can vary depending on the competitiveness of the phrases we are targeting. A very competitive keyword should have an entire page of information dedicated to it.

Build webpages with lots of content (text)>
Content truly is king on the internet. There is no doubt about it. In order for a search engine to understand what your website is about and make a determination on where your site should rank, it must have loads of content. The more the better. The keywords that you are targeting should be included in this content. For example, if your website sells designer baby bedding, write a webpage about the benefits of designer baby bedding including profiles of the manufacturers that you sell and maybe even information on your favorite designers and why. The point is that your website must have text in order for it to communicate successfully with the engines. Although websites that have lots of pretty graphics may look cool, they most likely will not rank well in the search engines unless they have a good amount of keyword rich content.

Use text links on every page
Most search engines do not follow fancy javascript and graphical links. If you want the engines to find the pages deep within your website then put text links on all of your pages so that the engines can reach them. These links don't always fit into the award winning design websites, but they are almost always a component of the websites that rank well in the search engines. Every page should have text links to every other page that you want indexed.

Get links from other websites
Asking for links from other websites that have an interest in linking to you will increase your website's link popularity and link popularity is one of the main judgments that search engines will make on your website. Google and other advanced search engines use link popularity as a tool in evaluating your website's credibility. If your website sells baby bedding then you should request a link from the manufacturers or wholesalers of all of your products. You should also contact other websites that sell baby related merchandise such as a baby stroller website to ask for a reciprocal link. You can even contact webmasters of personal baby websites to see if they would be interested in adding a link to your website. Basically, target webmasters who would have a bona fide interest in adding a link to your website. Building your link popularity is one of the most important components of successful search engine optimization. Do not overlook this part!

Add your website to the directories
There are two major directories; Yahoo and DMOZ. These are called directories because they are human edited. In order for your website to be included in these directories it must be evaluated by a live human editor and placed in the database. Submitting to DMOZ is free. Just visit dmoz.org and find the most relevant category then submit. Yahoo charges a $299 annual review fee for commercial websites. If your websites sells something, or if you want your website indexed ASAP (within one week) then by all means pay the $299. It will most likely be the best $299 you ever spend to market your website. Yahoo and DMOZ add a tremendous amount of credibility to your website. In effect, they build your website's link popularity as discussed above. When making your submissions to these directories be careful not to use marketing hype in your descriptions. Directory editors do not like to see subjective words like "best", "cheapest", or "#1". Directory editors like objective phrases. Look at the descriptions of your competitors, submit to the categories that they are in and model your description after theirs.

Buy the right paid listings
The search engines have finally figured it out - If they are going to stay in business they must make money. Unfortunately, one revenue stream that the search engines have identified is the paid submission model. This means that, for a fee, the search engines will include your website in their database within a stated period of time. Almost all of the engines offer a program like this, but not all of the programs are worth spending marketing dollars on. This is because the benefit from traffic may not justify the expense. In our experience, Inktomi is one of the best values on the internet. For about $40 you can submit one page of your website to the Inktomi database. This page will then be picked up by all of Inktomi's partners including AOL, MSN, Looksmart, Overture and Hotbot (plus lots of others). Oddly enough, you cannot submit to Inktomi directly through Inktomi's website. You must submit through an authorized reseller. Inktomi is actually the only paid inclusion program that we require our optimization clients use. The others that we recommend are AskJeeves/Teoma, Lycos and occasionally AltaVista. Each of these programs charges $25 to $40 per page submitted. All fees are annual fees.

Don't over-submit
There was a time in the not so distant past that the more frequently you submitted to the search engines, the more likely your rankings would improve. Today that is no longer the case. We typically recommend submitting each page of your website to the major search engines once per month. There are penalties for over-submitting and effectively spamming the search engines, so don't do it. Just submit each page once per month to each engine and you should be fine.

Conclusion
Above are the fundamentals starting points of search engine optimization. Of course, we understand that even the most "hands on" webmasters do not have the time or resources to dedicate to the fundamentals and the more advanced concepts of search engine optimization. That is why our service exists. Please contact us to discuss search engine optimization strategies for your website. We are always delighted to help with search engine strategies. We're looking forward to your call or email.