Feb/09
SEO 10 Step Run Down - Step 4 - Optimization
Nearly half way through the run down, we get to arguably the most important part of the search engine optimization process. The optimization of your website’s content.
Content is the most effective element in which SEO’s have to work with. Content is often times described as ‘All Things On-Page’, and includes titles, tags, text, in-site links and out-bound links.
In the search engine optimization process, content optimization describes most of the hands-on work completed to create unique pages in a website place well in search engines.
Occasionaly, optimization of an existing website simply requires the SEO to perform minor tweaks. Sometimes, optimal content doesn’t exist and has to be written by the SEO. Frequently, SEOs come across pre-existing page content that needs to be totally rewritten or redeveloped.
The biggest downfall of most site owners and SEO’s, is trouble finding the balance. Often times, too much emphasis is put into the optimization process, to try and make the content most relevant for search engines. Unfortunately, this content doesn’t always seem to be the most relevant or best written content for the end user… your customer/prospect.
The first step you want to take, is to ensure you’re writing ’simple’ rules and outlines for the search engine’s robots. These robots are what control how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. You’re best to keep it simple.
Limiting to one topic per page allows you to truly focus on optimization the content around that specific topic, while providing relevant content for the end user.
As for ‘titles’. Each of your website’s pages should have clear and descriptive titles. This element is what search engines, and most human visitors see first.
Look at the very top of your screen. Notice the words beside the Firefox or Internet Explorer symbol? That’s the title of this page. Your title should be carefully written and no longer than 50 characters.
After the title, comes ‘meta-tags’… Although these don’t have the impact they used to have in search engines, they are still very much important to the overal optimization process of your website.
The most important is by far the ‘meta-description’ tag. Search engines use the meta description to help confirm the topical intent of the specific page. They also use them for a much more practical purpose. The description is often used to phrase the short paragraphs found under the Title in search engine results. When a search engine users is making a decision which link to click, a well written meta description might make the difference. Don’t ignore this tag, each page should have a unique one.
Now, it comes to visibile elements such as images, text, links etc. When starting a new search engine optimization project, SEOs usually analyze what they have to work with. The best SEOs often think like doctors when reviewing a website with the understanding that they could do a lot more harm if they are not extremely careful. More often than not, changes made to titles and meta descriptions are beneficial to clients. Frequently overlooked or under-utilized, augmenting the titles and descriptions of pages usually helps a site achieve better rankings. Changes to the text that appears on a page, on the other hand, might unleash a host of unintended consequences. Aside from the chance a SEO might mistakenly change the message the client is trying to convey, messing around with body-text might also damage current search engine rankings.
The first task in content optimization is analysis. Having a full understanding of where a clients’ web pages rank, under which keyword phrases and the degree of success current placements enjoy is critically important for making decisions about what to work on. Analysis requires data and data requires information.
Almost any page in a URL has a good chance to achieve strong search engine placement under a limited number of keyword phrase. In deciding which phrases to apply to which pages, dividing items on the keyword selection list into categories ranging from general to specific proves to be a solid system.
At first mention, content optimization might be thought to be about writing primarily for search engine spiders. It’s not. Well optimized website content should be created for live-human visitors and deployed in a way that that draws the reader towards a decision. Anyone can talk to a bot. Compelling website visitors to commit to an action and achieve a conversion is a bit more difficult.
As noted earlier, a good working rule is to stick to one topic per page and to consider the overall website as a document tree. The top of the tree is the INDEX page. Below the INDEX are the second or upper-level pages that tend to describe the company, its mission, goals, general services, and contact information. Pages found on subsequent levels of the website tend to feature more specific information the deeper a document is found on the tree.
Writing for a web-based readers and search engine spiders is much like writing for newspaper readers. Because the web is a dynamic environment, readers have notoriously short attention spans. Important points and keyword phrases need to be mentioned early in the copy and, by the end of the third short paragraph; the reader should know what they are supposed to do next. Subsequent paragraphs are used to support the story told by the first three. The goal is to hold their interest long enough to confidently direct them to the next step.
The final thing is linking. Internal linking is huge. Providing both search engines, as well as your visitors with an easy to use navigation and sub-linking system will keep everyone happy. Having links simply bounce around to various pages on your website, with no specific purpose will not only confuse your visitors, but also hurt your rankings. Use links on pages to point to other relevant pages within your website. This will help increase your ‘page-view’ rate among website visitors.