Search Engine Optimization – 8 Step Process

Why is it so important to optimize your web site for search engine placement? The answer is simple: 82% of online shoppers know exactly what they want when they log onto the internet and ½ of them use search engines to find vendors and solution resources. Most of all the searches end within the first 2 pages of search results. And this is why it is essential to have a prominent presence for the keyword phrases that you are targeting. I break search engine optimization down into an 8 step process:

Step 1: Keyword Analysis

Selecting proper keyword phrases to target for each page will ensure that you are receiving qualified visitors to specific pages within your web site. You first need to know what keywords people are using to search for. There are a couple of free programs available on the web that helps you determine which keyword phrases people are searching for. If you have a good statistics program on your web site, you can see what search engines are sending visitors to your site and what keyword phrases they are using. By using these tools, you can start to get a good idea of some keywords and keyword phrases to target.

Step2: Analyze the Competition

By looking at your competitors web sites and analyzing the keywords that they are targeting, you can get a good idea of some keywords that you might want to target. You might not decide to use all of the same keywords they are targeting, or you might get some ideas of other similar keyword phrases to target to try to get the visitors that they aren’t attracting. By at least gathering the keyword phrases they are targeting you can analyze that data against your web site for the same keywords and see who will come out ahead in search results once your web site is optimized.

Step 3: Content Development

Content and how it is displayed is a key step in the Search Engine Optimization process. You want to make sure that your Title Tags, Heading Tags, and descriptive text contain your keywords. The higher up the page your keywords are shown, the better also. I always try to make sure that I have my keywords in title tags, heading tags, bold text, italicized text, and regular text. Make sure that the content is fluent and easy to read. You don’t want to stuff your content with just keywords. Make the information informative and easy to read to visitors.

Step 4: Optimize Code

This step is in conjunction with Step 3. Optimizing the content by putting the keywords in the title tags, heading tags, and keeping them towards the top is part of it. There is more to be done also. Make sure that the "meta tags" are optimized – use keyword phrases in the meta description tag and the meta keyword tag. You want to also optimize your alt tags by using keyword phrases alternate text. Make sure to use keyword phrases in the text links that link to pages within your web site. I also use the full url when linking to pages within my web sites (i.e. http://www.MyWebsite.com/subpage.html).

Step 5: Generate Inbound Links

Another key step to having high search engine placement is having a high page rank. To get a high page rank, you must have quality inbound links to your web site. This is more than just being listed in different directories. It is not a good idea to have links coming in from “Link Farms” though. You will want to contact related sites and see if they will link to your web site. Sometimes they ask that your web site links to theirs as well. The more “one way” quality inbound links, the better. When asking for inbound links or reciprocal links, see if they will use one of your keyword phrases as the text that is the link. This also will help in your page rank.

Step 6: Promote Your Web Site to “Live”

Once you have done all of the content creation and code implementation, you are ready to upload your web site to the live web server. I like to wait to have all of the web pages created before uploading to the web site, so that the web site looks and reads the same across all of the pages.

Step 7: Submit Web Site to Search Engines and Directories

Manually submit your web site to all of the major search engines, and directories. When submitting your web site, submit all of the different pages. It is not a good idea to submit all of the pages in one day. Some search engines don’t mind if you submit a few extra web pages per day, but as a rule of thumb you might consider just submitting one page per day to the search engines. Start with the home page and then work down with what you feel is the most relevant.

After submitting your web site it might take up to 3 months for some of the search engines to index it and start displaying on their search results. Search Engine Optimization takes time. It takes time to build page rank and time for your pages to start climbing the ranks. This leads us the final step.

Step 8: Monitor and Report on Placement Progress

Keep track of your search engine rankings for the different keywords that you are targeting. I check each week and run a report for where they place. You will see progress as your inbound links grow. If you start to see your rankings decline, you might look into what you need to do to further optimize your web site.