SEO and keywords
After your new website has been set up you are ready for site visitors. Lots of visitors to get eyes on your brand. You want traffic and to place well in searches on search engines such as Google, Bing and others.
You may even be contacted by one or more 'SEO companies' who will tell you something along the lines of: 'We have analyzed your website and your ranking could be much better. We can help' or some variation of this.
Maybe they can. Maybe they can't. Below is an outline of steps they will take, that you might as well just do yourself. If they offer services beyond this, be very skeptical and vet them thoroughly. If they are up to no good, they can take steps on your behalf that Google frowns upon and will even devalue your rank for, such as link farming and other bad practices.
Here are some of the steps that you can take to make sure your website is optimized for search engines the right way, also known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Begin by being able to measure your traffic by setting up a Google Web Master and Analytics accounts. If your website is with us, we will do that for you.
Next, go through this check list below and check off as many as make sense for your market / niche and you will be well on your way to an SEO friendly website. You can always contact us to help you with any of these steps.
SEO friendly content
Set up a site map for your website. Your Web by Pixel Content Management System is already set up with this feature.
Site title (max 70 characters).
Use H1 header tags for the titles to differentiate them from the content. We will perform a free check on your website. Just ask.
Enter a meta description (max 155 characters) and keywords for your website. This meta description will show up under your link in Google searches. If you did not send us this description and a list of keywords during the site set up, you can do so here.
Enter a meta description on every page (max 155 characters). Go to the page, Click the Pages button. Click Edit. Click the Meta tab and enter title, keywords and description for each of your pages.
Use SEO friendly urls. An SEO friendly url looks like this: http://yourdomain.com/Page/Contact Your Web by Pixel site already uses this standard.
Use Alt descriptions with keywords on images. Go to a page with an image, click the Pages button, Click Edit. Enter a text in the image alt tag box.
Have unique content without being too specific or too generic. Write about your market and your niche specifically.
Start a blog and have more frequent updates on your site. The more often you add content to your site, the more often the search engine crawlers come by your site to index it.
Link detail content back to one master page or blog post. Show Google and other search engines what your most important content is. Then they will take your word for it.
Use keywords
Use Google suggest. On Google, type in a word or phrase about your niche and Google will show you what people are mostly searching for about that. Use these suggestions as your keywords in titles, content and/or anchor text.
Use keyword research. Some services are free, some are not: Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker, Adwords Keyword Estimator, Google Insight for search.
Mix up keywords and every day words for anchor text. Using all keyword anchor text (linked words and phrases) might get a negative notice from Google and other search engines. Don't use too many generic terms as anchor text either as they do not provide as much value as keyword anchor text.
Don’t over-use keywords. Use regular language. Write for people. They will be doing the clicking. Make your text engaging and worth a visit.
Grow your traffic
Use AdSense to get traffic to your site. This is a Google service where you can set up ad campaigns.
Get local traffic use CitySearch, Yelp, GoogleMaps, Local.com etc. Register accounts with these sites and supply them with a link back to your site.
Set up a newsletter with email sign up. Turn traffic into email subscribers and emails into traffic. Blogging and email sign up is available in all our packages from Personal+ and up.
Get page count up by linking to relevant content at the bottom of the page. Get visitors to travel around your site. Our blog has a 'Related post' module built in for this purpose.
Use social media where it makes sense. Set up accounts and link back to your website. Consider a posting strategy that fits with your brand.
In and out bound links
Get link-backs. Find bigger sites in your niche and ask if they will link to you. Maybe you belong to an organization in your market who link to their members. Take advantage of that.
Submit articles or features to other sites, preferably sites with more traffic than yours, that link back to your site.
Have a few curated links to relevant content on other websites. This will tell Google that you are a trusted site, when your visitors click on them. Use sparingly because you are sending your traffic away when they do click.
And remember
The age of your url (website) matters too.
Building SEO takes time and effort.
It is more of a marathon than a sprint.
