Website Search Engine Optimization Tips

We have been meeting with many new clients lately, and in doing so, realize that most of their websites are NOT properly optimized. This is in part because today's website designers and web master's have not yet caught up with SEO tactics, knowledge and practices.

MarCom's Mike Keesling, who has been doing SEO since the beginning, says the most important element of website optimization is NO SPLASH SCREENS AND NO FLASH! Next is if you are going to opt for an open source solution for a database driven site (such as Big media USA) make sure you can do individual title tags.

It is unfortunate because most companies would be realizing much improved traffic to their sites if they were optimized. These skills have taken our MarCom SEO experts years to develop and hone, so it's not likely that a company can do it alone - or if they do it will take longer than if they hire SEO specialist teams like MarCom.

The first tip is that you can never use Flash on your home page. It may look nice, but Flash blocks the search engines from reading a web page. Embedded Flash is OK. Remember the more content that has been optimized in your pages the better. Most designers hate this, because white space in design has long been preferred. But when it comes to website optimization, make the pages above the fold or middle pretty, then add more optimized content below the fold.

By optimized content we mean that it has your key words and phrases embedded in the copy. Take for example MarCom. Our key words are website optimization, search engine optimization, social media marketing, online marketing, SEO, social media marketing strategy and so forth. NOTE how I linked the main key word pertaining to this article to our website? I would typically link it to a page on our site with focus to website optimization. Once our new MarCom New Media website is up I will do that.

Website Optimization and other Search Engine Tactics

The last year has been particularly interesting. Having been in this space now being called social media marketing, since before it even started, means that we have been able to test many of the practices that PR professionals are just now learning to use as mainstream. In fact, my associate Mike Keesling was doing Search Engine Optimization in Los Angeles for Pacific Island Reservations, a Hawaii Vacation Rentals site, back in 1996, when they only had one website. Today they have 12 websites, and for more than a decade he has helped them maintain a top ten ranking in Google, MSN and Yahoo. In fact - check it out if you are looking for a place to stay in Hawaii for vacation this summer! It'll save you money.

Onsite Search Engine Optimization (SEO) defines your website and targets your visitors. Whether you are a small business or a corporation you need an Internet marketing strategy that includes a website with interactive content that to attract your customers who are online using the search engines to find what they want. Then when your potential customers type in the keywords associated with your products and services, your website will come up within the first page of the search engines.

We call this Website Optimization – and just FYI, most web designers (no offense) do not install Meta, Title or Alt tags properly, and in fact they can cause more damage than good. For example, Flash websites cannot be SEOd, and this is critical to the search engines and your customers finding your website.

Another tip - with the right keywords we will make sure every page on your website is optimized properly with those words. More subject-specific content means better qualified traffic. This text is optimized if the search engines can find it via keyword-density. And your site should also be a good read.

Sitemaps are another thing you should consider. There are two types of sitemaps: 1) An HTML page listing the pages on your site by section so users can find the information they seek. 2) XML sitemaps, a way for Google to find all the pages on your site, and that includes URLs that may not be discoverable by their standard Web crawling processes.

Website Analytics –This tells us the behavior of your website visitors, allowing us to use data collected to determine which aspects of the website are working, such as which landing pages encourage people to take an action. We can use it to track visitors, sales or measure month-to-month SEO results and tweak online strategies.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) content syndication feeds are also a social media and Internet marketing must these days for better search engine visibility and better qualified traffic to your site.

And my favorite, being a PR professional, electronic press rooms and optimized releases are a must. Our eco-friendly electronic press kits are also optimized for the search engines making it easier for the media and your customers to find you. Here is another one of our client's online press kits that has been getting alot of attention lately. A company with a Los Angeles recording school, plus film schools and a radio DJ school known as the Entertainment Career Connection.

Our Small Business SEO and Social Media Teleseminar

Last week our MarCom associate Carole Hodges hosted a free teleseminar where I focused on small business websites, SEO and social media marketing. Carole's latest venture is The Yes Connection at http://www.carolehodges.com where she assists business partners and individuals with their start-ups and small business decisions.

There is a lot of confusion these days about what is needed on the Internet to market new and existing websites. So our teleseminar addressed the questions that the non-techie business owner may have.

The free teleseminar is about 40 minutes long, but in the end has some really good tips and information. To listen online: go to http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WXcl1C3s

In summary, some of the points we covered included how you should spend your marketing dollars wisely insofar as the complexity of web marketing. We answered questions including:

Does every business need a website? Are there times when an inexpensive “Website Tonight” type product from GoDaddy is an appropriate choice? If you don’t have a lot of money, is a free Blog a good starting place? How do you differentiate between the types of websites? For example: Brochure – e-commerce – Membership Site – Services (online purchase and not.) Do you NEED to be selling something online to benefit from a website? What brings traffic to a website? Why do I care about SEO – Couldn’t I just pay for clicks to my site? What are traffic statistics? What are keywords? How do I know what keywords are right for my business? How do I determine how much traffic I really want on my site? What makes people STAY on your website and look around? Why should I look for competitors on the web? What if I have BIG plans for growth... is there a way to structure my website so that I start out simple and later add product sales or a membership site? What advice do you give to someone who is starting out and does not yet have a website? What advice do you give to someone who has spent a lot of money on their website but it is not giving them the results that they want?

Social Media Marketing and Revising Websites

Given the fact that folks are beginning to notice some changes in business and the economy, MarCom Broadband is getting lots of new business referrals. I think it is because we have little experienced competition out there. Few companies have been doing search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing as long as we have, which is basically since it all started.

I got a call today from a prospect who is planning on revising his website. This often happens. We even had one client who refused to listen to us a couple of years ago, and they redid their website, ditched half the content and lost traction with their rankings on Google, even though we warned them!

Point is that you do not want to change the name of your url if you don't have to, but if you do, then certain SEO tactics must be put in place. My associate Mike Keesling often works very closely with website design firms, like Rigney Graphics, right from the start of a client's redesign on their site to make sure their site SEO is done right. Their newsletter, called LunchMeat" is pretty fun BTW.

As an example, MarCom is about to change our company name from MarCom Broadband to MarCom New Media -- and we have a new url, so we will be redesigning our own website. The only way we can salvage our current ranking with Google is to point the old site to the new site. And we need to salvage much of the old site content and rework it with our key words on the new website.

Also what many people do not understand is that the Meta tags on each website page must correspond to content and keywords inside that particular page. There are many other little intricate tactics that we have learned to use to improve client rankings.

Search Engine Statistics in SEO

I was doing some research and found that 75 to 80 percent of traffic comes through the search engines. Most people do not look beyond the first two pages of search results. And even less click on Pay per Click (PPC) ads. So if your website does not rank in the first two pages of engines like Google or Yahoo! it is probably only getting about 20 to 30 percent of traffic, and even less for your revenues. The bottom linbe is that you need to rank high on the search engines with those "key" words that your customers will use to find you on the Internet. It is all about relevance.

At MarCom we have noticed that many of our new business clients worry about how much traffic they are getting on their websites, but few really notice or know how many of these convert to sales, or even where they came from. Recently we had one client -- www.peternity.com -- mention that since we have been working on a keyword and social media marketing strategy of pet urns/dog urns/cremaiton urns and her ranking on these words has improved, she for the first month she actually had orders for these urn products It's nice when we can take credit for revenues for our clients.
Another client that we have been working with for reputation management - RoccoBasile.org - has improved in just a week and gone from ten to eight in the first page rankings on Google.

Another thing we recently put together because of all the confusion about social media marketing services, is a standard rate sheet. Our services are actually very cost efficient. We typically charge a one time fee for keyword analysis of $650. Online website optimization depends on each client's current ranking, number of web pages and their situation.

Linking in press releases and wire services

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I was submitting my client Peternity.com's press release, when I called tech support at the wire service that I use and was told that I could add my key words - and that I was allowed one key word per 100 words. The release was 800 words long, meaning I could add eight keywords. I did this but, to be honest, it really looked stupid. So I contacted my colleague, and social media marketing mentor Sally from Expansion Plus, who said that three links per article "work best." We changed the release.

We've been practicing social media marketing at MarCom Broadband for quite some time, and every day I learn something new. For article submissions, I have only been using three links per article. And the same rule applies for articles as for releases. It is best to link to a key word phrase in the first paragraph, and at the end -- because, as I have been told, the search engines read from the bottom up, and top down, and pick up words most used on the beginning and end of sentences.

One more issue. When in the article submission sites, they do not allow linking in the main text of your article. However they will allow a maximum of two URLs in what is known as the RESOURCE BOX. You are allowed to use HTML code to make the link work. If you don't link up your URL they will automatically assume that you only wanted it displayed, but not linked. Oh, and they also do not allow these links in the resource box to contain a downloaded file of any kind. Plus they won't accept articles that have the same link in the box more than one time.

And as always -- stick to white hat, not black hat SEO practices, or they may reject your articles.

Links: To Buy or Not to Buy

Now that Google has taken the gloves off against websites and firms that they consider in violation of link building protocols, we must pause to reconsider our link building strategies. Initially, Google indicated their policy was to disallow, or even penalize, any paid links as well as websites who purchase paid links. Google may be the purveyors of the one of the world's most advanced linguistic parsing algorithms, but my associate Mike Keesling of MarCom Broadband's SEO expert found their statement to be full of holes.

Would a website be banned or penalized because they had paid for a Yahoo! directory listing? Aren't Pay Per Click (PPC) ads essentially paid links? Would Google really penalize their own adwords users? In the following months, Google has zigged and zagged through this semantic minefield of their own making. Google clarified its Yahoo! Directory position, saying that since inclusion was not guaranteed until approved by a human this did not constitute a paid link. Google clarified its PPC position by saying these are ad buys so they also do not constitute paid links. All well and good, but we are still confused.

If one buys a link on a site that sells them, couldn't this also fall under the safe harbor of being an ad buy? Who determines this and what are the guidelines? The definitive answer is probably many months away. In the meantime, one certainty is that the value of reciprocal links has actually gone up (provided the linking partners are legitimate and within the same or related business categories or markets). How long this bump in reciprocal links lasts is anybody's guess at this point.

So what would Mike recommend? For reciprocal links, choose your linking partners carefully. Make sure their page rank is the same or better than yours. Make sure they aren't blackballed by Google. Look at potential partners websites ... Do they look and feel like a legitimate company website or do they have the barnyard smell of a link farm?

For directory listings (one of the best places to get one-way inbound links) exercise the same smell tests just described. Double up on the inbound links you can control--press releases and article submissions. Mike said he would take a pass for now on the pay per link or pay per blog post outfits. Figure it's at least 50/50 that these will be next to feel the wrath of Google.

"In a weird way, I welcome Google's position, stance and actions against paid link builders--Link building is the most pain-in-the-butt of all SEO practices and this allows people who hate building links (like me) to slack off on it for a damned good reason," said Keesling.