Having been "online" since 1998, I've seen many web sites over the years and helped a lot of people make web sites. So far I've not really met any who are totally gung-ho as far as making their site as successful as it could be, in terms of marketing and search engine ranking. Seems as if many online businesses these days really care about high search engine rankings, but don't really strive to commit to all the basic steps required to get them.
So what's the secret to success with the search engines? Well, we all know that Google and other major search engines seem to change their "rules" and algorithms every once in awhile, so much so, that it seems hard to keep up. But there are always going to be basic fundamentals. "Secrets" which aren't really secret, that everyone should follow if they are serious about being "found" online, resulting in getting targeted, quality web site traffic.
Here are those 6 basic "secrets", to getting off on the right foot when starting out your web site, whether you work with a website professional (like me, for example) or do it yourself.
1. Specify and Focus your site's subject matter.
If you specify and focus what your site is about, rather than having it be about a number of unrelated things, your will have a better chance of being found for whatever special thing your site is talking about. For example, if your site is focused on collecting vinyl records, the possibility of being found more often for a search like "record collection", than if your site also contained a whole bunch of information about beer coasters, fixing computers and caring for pet rabbits. It's true that specializing in one specific subject area on your site is more successful than trying to cover too much info at once.
2. Keep your design and code source clean and accessible
Excess JavaScript, re-direct scripts, excess HTML code, too large or too many images, etc., can all keep search engines' at bay and possibly even block their ability to crawl and index your web site. If a search engine can't read your site's source code because of it being cluttered with too much junk, the search engine robots will stop crawling your site in many cases and never index your site in the first 10 pages of search results. Keeping your code clean doesn't mean you have to have to sacrifice images and dynamic things to make your site great. You can learn to optimize your graphics so that they retain their quality but load faster, and you can also link to JavaScript files and extraneous code, rather than include the full codes in your head tags. The World Wide Web Consortium [1] has a complete guide on accessible and valid web site code, for following when building your site. Doing so means you are standards-compliant, and that is, as Martha Stewart would say, "A good thing." You can also ask your web site designer what they do to be standards compliant when they design your site.
3. Use your proper keywords in your site's text copy
Know what? Search engines are not magic. They can't "guess" what your site is about. You must tell them, in your web site body text. Key words in your site establishes relevance for words that people are using to search online for your product or service. Figure out what key words and phrases you want to be found by, make sure they are absolutely relevant to your subject matter and then ensure that your web site text copy contains plenty of them. This does not mean to scatter them randomly about the page, or jumbling up a whole block of keywords into a paragraph which makes no grammatical sense. It means that you honestly write from your experience, what your site is about, and what it is you are trying to get across, at the same time emphasizing the key words by placing them in the most natural way possible, into your text copy. By natural, I mean, when you go to look for a product or service, how do you type in your search request? If you were looking for Goodyear tires, you would probably type in "carries Goodyear tires" or "goodyear tires retailers". This is called organic search requests. Organic just means that it's more human and less of a technical response. Think of what you yourself would use in a request to search for your site. I know you are not going to type in "joestiredepot.com" or "joe's tire depot"! if people don't know about you, they most certainly won't be typing in your company name to find you. For more on organic searching, read,
4. Link up those keywords in your pages
Search engines find and index your site by what you show them in your navigation (or menu), and the links you list on your site's home page (or index). They follow links inward, to the rest of your site, from the home page, to the next page, etc., remembering and indexing each page's text and content as it keeps moving. If the pages they come across contain the keywords and phrases that are relevant to your site's content, it's very likely that your site's ranking will get a boost in the results of their site's database for people to search. You should also use keywords and phrases in the site's navigation (menu), as those terms are (or should be) highly relevant for the page they link to. Think of how your site is like a book, in that your site's menu or navigation are your 'table of contents'. If your table of contents contains a link to a page about Dolly Parton, that page better well have something about Dolly Parton on it, or the search engine won't like you very much!
5. Specific and different titles for each page in your site
If you look up a certain search term and look at the sites that come up as the first few listed in the results, you will See that the pages almost always have unique page titles. Your website's page title (the one in the browser bar, usually blue) should tell the search engines what your web page's subject is, first and foremost. Page titles are a very essential way for search engines to figure out the order that sites are listed in search engine results pages for whatever search term people are looking for.
6. Good back links which rank well and relate to your subject
It's true that the amount of other sites you can get to link to your site's pages is important, but really, it's the quality of those sites, and the text used in the link, that mean more to the search engines. For example, one relevant link from an "authority" site such as one that's proven itself as a reliable source, provides more value than several links from unrelated or "unproven" sites. A site which is "proven" to Google for example, would be one that has been around longer than yours and ranks well in their results. A site which is considered "unproven" is one that is newer, has little to no ranking in Google's index, or doesn't contain relevant info or subject matter that is related to yours.
Naturally, these 6 basic things are not the only things you could do to increase your 'findbility'. Several other factors go into determining your website's ranking, but these are some of the most important.
Since these are all pretty simple (not to mention free), there is no reason why you should not be taking advantage of them. If you are serious about ensuring your web site is found online and visited by as many people as possible, follow these 6 basic "secrets" and the rest will happen!
Thanks for reading :)
Bobbi Jo Woods, CEO/Fanatic
B. Woods Design - Steering Professional Managed Websites for Business
© Bobbi Jo Woods - B. Woods Design
