Search Engine Optimization
Understanding Search Engine Optimization
A search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.), uses a combination of techniques to gather information about web pages so they can organize, index and categorize that data for use during search requests. The search engine ranking is particularly of importance as it determines where your page will appear amongst the list of returned search results.
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO is the active practice of improving internal and external search engine factors to improve search engine ranking.
Below is a list of some SEO factors you can influence or control:
1. Friendly URLs – Using URLs that reflect the contents of a page is a very good way to increase the chances of having that page listed at or near the top of the search results returned by a particular search engine
2. Page Title – Short description of the contents of the page
3. Page Description – Longer description of the contents of the page
4. Page Keywords – A comma-separated list of words that identify the key subjects covered in the page
5. Site Map – An easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling
Managing Your SEO – Quick Review
1. Customize your SEO data by using the Manage tool found under the admin bar for each page in your site
2. Create your Site Map page if it does not exist
3. Notify [email protected] when you would like us to publish your Site Map to Google and Yahoo
Managing Friendly URLs and Page Title To Manage Your Friendly URLs and Page Title:
1. Select the page you wish to manage
2. Enter or change the HTML Title to identify the primary page content. Ideally, you should create a unique title for each page. Your home page title is a good place to briefly describe your focus or mission statement
3. Enter a value for ‘Friendly URL’ that best describes the primary page content. You may use a phrase separated by dashes or underscores, but avoid overly long phrases. o NOTE: Using keywords in your title is very helpful, as is lowercase names.
For example, let’s say we have a site focused on Autism, with a Facts page:
/facts is not a very friendly URL. /autism-facts is much more search engine friendly. IMPORTANT: Remember to include the leading slash (/)
Managing Meta Tags, Keywords, and Meta Robots: To Manage Your Friendly URLs and Page Title:
Enter or change the Description to more fully describe the primary page content. It should support your page Title.
Enter Keywords that best describes the primary page content.
Effective keywords involve setting the value of the Meta Tags – Robots section to “no follow” will tell search engines that all links on this page shouldn’t be followed and it will prevent your page’s reputation from being passed to any linked content.
Resources:
Maximizing Your Description
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/09/improve-snippets-with-meta-description.html
Google’s Keyword Planner allows you to search for keyword ideas by entering a keyword related to your organization
1. To access Keyword Planner, sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com
2. Click the Tools and Analysis drop-down menu and select Keyword Planner 3. If you don’t have an Adwords account, learn how to create one
at https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/4390198?rd=1 o NOTE: Review the Help contents, too
Using the ‘Robots’ section, you can assign a ‘Page Priority’ to improve a page’s importance in search results compared to other pages within your site or exclude a page from being crawled and exclude it from the Site Map.
1. After editing your site's page Titles, Friendly URLs and Meta Robots values it will be time to notify Google and Yahoo about your updated Site Map.
2. Create a Site Map page, if one doesn't already exist, by adding the Site Map container to a new page (Add Application | Content Management | Site Map)
3. Notify [email protected] when you would like us to publish your Site Map to Google and Yahoo and we will gladly assist.
4. You may elect to publish your Site Map to other search engines, such as ask.com, Bing (Live.com) or Moreover.com. Visit the target search engine sites directly for instructions or you can utilize a submission service.
Creating Your Site Map:
1. If you don’t have a Site Map page, simply select Add from your admin bar, and from your drop-down select the option to add a new page.
2. Next, place it where you want the page to appear (i.e. under the Contact Us page) and title it Site Map
3. Next, select Add from the admin menu and click on the Content Management group to expand it, then click on the Site Map container and drag into position on your new page. The Site Map will be auto generated.
Other Steps to Consider:
1. It is important to have a strong presence on social media sites. Open an account on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and others and post updates and cross-link to content on your site.
2. When linking, avoid always linking to one page or linking to a single anchor text. Avoiding this tendency helps you build a natural link profile which improves ranking. 3. Write your content for your audience, not search engines. Search engines are
increasingly modifying their algorithms to detect search-engine targeted optimizations and are discounting such targeted content.
4. Keep your content fresh and update it frequently and monitor your rankings with search engine reporting to guide your ongoing SEO efforts.
How to Avoid Being Banned by Search Engines:
1. Do not redirect to another domain – this should only be done in a very controlled manner, such as a sub-site redirection from a page with a low priority.
2. Do not link invisible images.
3. Do not include invisible text on your pages (text with a color the same as the background or text with an ultra-small font size, such as 1px).
4. Do not create doorway pages (very simple pages that are written to optimize heavily on one or two keywords or keyword phrases that are designed so that search engine spiders see them, but regular visitors are taken to the real site).
5. Do not display different content to a spider/robot/crawler than site visitors. 6. Do not try to use large lists of keywords.
