Web Design in Oklahoma City

Your site has officially launched and since you took my advice in part I of this series you have an awesome website. Now all you have to do is sit back and rake in all the money your new site will bring in, right? Unless you have very little competition on the search engines for your goods or services or everyone in your market goes to your site because you are as awesome as your site, you will probably have a tough time taking the “if we build it they will come” approach.

If you chose a partner who has an understanding of how to develop sites for search engine optimization then you have a start. If not, you may have to go back and change the site structure when considering search engine optimization. I will share some of my knowledge about what it takes to have a good foundation for search engine optimization, most people refer to this as on page optimization.

1. Research –This is key in determining what, if any, market is out there for your products and helps you identify which keywords you should be targeting and which keywords will waste your time. I don’t know how many people (and search engine optimization companies) brag about having a top five placement for a keyword that has less than five searches conducted per day, who cares. You really want to be listed for a phrase that has more than five searches per day and describes what you do, if you sell tires getting listed for trucks probably won’t help tremendously.
   
   
2. HTML/CSS – No I’m not talking about controlling the font size and color of fonts on your site, although that is part of HTML/CSS. I am talking about having a fully HTML/CSS design. This helps to cut down on your HTML to text ratio and helps search engines get to what your site is really about, Content.
   
   
3. Content, Content, Content – Everything below this point should have something in common; they all need to be talking about the same thing. As much as search engine experts and search engine tools will tell you, they have a proven method to get you ranked no matter what, everything revolves around content. Sure all search engine marketers do the latest trends and have their own little bag to make sure you get ranked better and faster, but without a good foundation and supporting content you could be here today and gone tomorrow.
   
   
4. Title tag – This is one of the most important aspects of on page optimization. Not only is it what will display on the SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages), but also search engines view the title tag as having a very high weight when deciding how to rank your page.
   
   
5. Meta Keywords & Descriptions – There is still a huge misunderstanding about what it takes to have a well defined plan to get ranked on the search engines. Most of that stems from these two items. Search Engine optimization was once as easy as having the phrases you wanted to be ranked for in your keywords and descriptions, but nowadays you have to take many more factors into consideration.
   
   
6. Headings – When creating content for your pages make sure to separate your sections with subject headings. Be sure to use keywords in the headings and be sure to use the H1, H2, H3 tags in that order for best results.
   
   
7. Alt Tags – Not only is it good to have alt tags for search engine optimization, but also it is good for vision impaired people who visit your site.  You won’t be penalized for having more than three or four words on an alt tag, but I would keep it in that range. Remember the real reason we have alt tags and be kind to people using a site reader.
   
   
8. Image/Site Optimization – Here I am referring to the size of images and pages on your site. You want to make sure you are delivering your content as quickly as possible. Make sure you resize your images for web standards before you put them on your site.
   
   
9. Internal Linking – Why not share some link love to yourself. Linking plays a very big role in search engine optimization, so why not make sure the pages you are really going after have as many links as possible by putting them in the main menu or at the footer of your site. Jason did a great job on City Bible Church sharing the love.
   
   
10. URL naming – Make sure to have keywords in your URL if at all possible (http://www.yourdomain.com/keyword-phrases) dashes are best then underscores. SPACES ARE BAD. Our Content Management System can handle this task for you, so check it out.  

This is a brief overview of what our Internet Marketing department does every day, so why not take the time to get a Free Search Engine Analysis by some people that are pretty good at what they do.