Web Design in Oklahoma City

You may have heard the terms search engine optimization , search engine marketing and search engine advertising, but didn’t know exactly what they meant, whether it was relevant to your site and if should you pay for these services?

Search Engine Optimization

Starting with search engine optimization is the logical place to start when thinking about getting your site listed on the search engines. Search engine optimization is the act of altering a web site so that it does well “organically” (Non-Paid or crawler based listings) in the search engines.  So how do you begin to think about search engine optimization or choose a company that specializes in search engine optimization?

Going at search engine optimization alone

There are many variables to making your site search engine friendly. Here is a broad, high level overview to help you get started:

Keyword Research 
It does not benefit your website or company to be listed at the top of the search engines for a keyword that no one is searching for. Make sure you do your homework and find out what terms your potential clients are searching for on the search engines.

Writing Content 
Once you have your keywords chosen, it is time to conduct your research.  This determines what content needs to be developed to make the content on your website relevant to the keyword phrases that need to be high in the search engines?

You need to first go to the search engines and do some competitive research to determine what the competition is doing to get ranked. Once you have determined the density of their pages your job is to create a plan to develop content that will compete with their content. Copying their content is not the answer, because content is only one variable to the equation.

Dos:

1. You usually need 350+ words to accomplish the rankings you want for the selected keywords.
2. Make sure you are very descriptive with the content and mention the keyword phrase throughout the content.
3. Make sure the title tags on your page include the keyword phrase(s) you are attempting to get ranked in the search engines.

Don’ts:

1.  Copying text and changing the company name. Your text needs to be unique.
2. Hidden text is a definite No, No and can get you banned from the search engine.
3. Repeating the keyword phrase over and over to get the density higher than your competition. Always remember that your website visitors will land on this page and you want your text to make sense and be relevant.

Site Structure

The structure and organization are important factors in search engine optimization. If you are attempting to handle the search engine optimization by yourself you may need to bring in some design help during this phase. Items you want to keep in mind during this phase of the process are as follows:

1. Is your website HTML/CSS compliant? This is probably not the biggest hang up, but you do need to make sure you are using minimal HTML in your design so your content stands a chance against the competition.
2. Do your images have alt tags? Are the alt tags relevant to the phrase(s) you are attempting to get ranked?
3. Do you have H1, H2 and H3 tags? Once again do they contain relevant keywords?
4. Do you have a link on the page that contains the keyword(s)?

Linking, Linking, Linking
Once you have your site up and all of your pages are optimized you need to work on your inlinks. This refers to how many sites link to you on the Internet. There are various ways to build your inlinks, but the most common and trusted way is to contact your partners/affiliates and ask them if they would be willing to place your link on their site.

This article is a very broad overview of the basics of search engine optimization. It is not intended to be a guide to allow you to get ranked at the top of the search engines for any keyword possible. It covers the bare minimum of what to look for on your site and tell you what steps are involved in search engine optimization. Stay tuned as I will cover search engine marketing (preferred method) and search engine advertising later this week.

If you would like to know more about our search engine marketing please contact one of our Internet Consultants and they can help you get started with a search engine strategy that will work for your business.