Is Your Website SEO Friendly?

10/10/2011

Search Engine Optimization is the ever-changing and never-changing practice of organic (or free) Search Engine Marketing that appears pretty simple yet remains full of mystery.  While we’ll probably never know exactly which tactics we’ll need to execute to absolutely positively reach the prized first SERP (Search Engine Result’s Page) slot, there are a few things every Search Engine Marketing and SEO professional will need to do for baseline optimization of their website.

There are no sure-fire tactics to guarantee traffic to your website, but there are some relatively easy things you can do to ensure you’re giving yourself the best chance at optimizing your website to be properly listed in the natural search results listings in the search engines. While the below is not a comprehensive list, it does provide a high-level view of some critical tactics to employ while executing your SEO strategy, and dives a little deeper into the lesser-known tactics you may want to do more research on during the process of optimizing your website.

1. Content is still King
   1. Do your keyword research
   2. Write informative content without trying to keyword-load each page (don’t try to game the system by overloading your content with keywords--just write naturally).
   3. Organize your content in a clear hierarchy that search engines will understand. Ensure the relationship between the different sections is clear.
   4. Bold your important keywords. Don’t do it each instance, but bolding keywords gets them noticed by search engine spiders.
   5. Use original imagery when possible and appropriate.
   6. Include sub-headlines (H2s).
   7. When appropriate, use numbered and bulleted lists.
   8. Learn the difference between “White Hat” and “Black Hat” tactics, so you can avoid getting dinged by search engines.
   9. Write and publish News Articles, Press Releases and Blogs on a regular basis. Know the different purpose behind each and when to use them appropriately.
2. On-Site Optimization
   1. Navigation - Internal linking structure should be easy for users and search engine spiders to crawl.
   2. Create a sitemap. (XML, a document structure and encoding standard, is what web crawlers use to find and parse sitemaps, so do your research on the benefits of XML sitemaps).
   3. Limit or omit Flash (search engines can’t crawl Flash).
   4. Use header tags (H1, H2, H3) to alert search engines on the hierarchy and use meta descriptions.
   5. Ensure that in your Text links / Anchor text you use keywords associated with that page (Don’t use links like “Click Here” but instead hyperlink the actual keywords associated with the page, like “Find out more about Atlanta Flexographic Printing Processes”).
   6. Use cascading style sheets (CSS) which helps enable keyword-rich content.
   7. Use robots.txt files (Robots Exclusion Protocol) that give instructions to web robots about your site.
   8. Canonicalize internal duplicate pages (use 301-redirects or canonical tags)
   9. Use keyword rich images that are readable to both the bots and the human eye
3. Social Media
   1. Create profiles/accounts on sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Social media sites are visited daily by hundreds of millions of people who share information with each other, and your website should be included in the mix. And if you’re a product or services company, nothing works better than word-of-mouth referrals and testimonies.
4. Backlinks
   1. Research the sites that link to your website. Make sure they are valuable and trusted sites, not link-farms, and thus harmful, to your website. And work with them to ensure their anchor text is in-line with your SEO plan.
5. Search Engine Listings &  Submissions
   1. One of the easiest tactics for optimizing your site is getting listed in the search engine directories. While this means you’ll be paying (most likely) to get listed, it also means you’re serious about being a “legitimate” site/business on the web. It’s a small price to pay to buy your ticket into the game.
6. Don’t Stop
   1. SEO is not a one-time event but a continual process that you should always be working on.  Your SEO strategy should include tactics that continually improve and enhance the great work you’ve already done to make your website SEO friendly. Adding new, relevant content to your website, acquiring backlinks, article submissions to related website properties, SEM (Search Engine Marketing), and other tactics will only help improve the relevancy of your website to the search engines, but it’s important to realize that SEO is a process, and one that you should always be improving upon.

Remember, climbing your way to the top of the search results is a marathon, not a sprint. You don’t have to get it all done in one day--you just have to make sure you’re getting it done, step by step, tactic by tactic.