We’re about a third of the way through the last quarter of the year (how ’bout THEM fractions?) and now is a great time to take an inventory of your website’s SEO. Much of your SEO actually occurs offsite through link building. However, if your foundation on your site is not solid and well thought out, you’re just spinning your wheels.
Work with your web development and web design team on these things and your search engine ranking will improve. Not overnight, but you will build a solid foundation that will make your offsite SEO that much more effective.
Titling: The title of your web page appears in search engine results as a link to that page. It should not be more than 60 characters long, as most search engines (especially Google) won’t index past 60 characters, including spaces. The title should use relevant key words.
Meta Description: This tells searchers the purpose of your site…basically what it’s all about. It usually appears below the title in search results and helps people decide if your site interests them enough to visit. Your meta description should generally be no longer than 150 characters, including spaces, and should contain the most important keywords for your website. Search engines will read 200 – 250 characters, but only the first 150 are displayed. “Trim the fat” when you write your meta description and keep it relevant, using keywords your potential clients/customers are using to search. Admittedly, Meta Tags aren’t heavy in SEO weight but they ARE part of an overall SEO picture and certainly help in describing your site.
Content: Content is king, linking is queen. You’ve heard it before. We’ve said it many times. Since we’re talking about your onsite SEO, we’re talking about your website content. Is your content relevant? Is it genuinely helpful and not just an afterthought? Most importantly, is it engaging? What style or flair do you bring to your website’s content?
Remember, there’s no magic pill. It’s a growing process. Start with your onsite SEO and make sure your content is engaging. Who cares if someone finds your site if the content is lackluster? That just means they won’t return and will tell their friends not to go there, either. Follow the simple guidelines above and you will be on your way to better online optimization for your website.
Recently it came to our attention that a site one of our web designers created for a business a few years back was redesigned. It’s not such a big deal that it was redesigned, but rather that it was redesigned poorly. One of the problems with current web design standards and web development based content management systems is the learning curve. While slight in some cases, like using WordPress, to incredibly difficult and tedious, like some CMS’s we won’t mention, the process is still time consuming. It’s not good enough to JUST have a website. You must use your website, but in order to use it you have to know how to use it. That being said, let us give a little info on the website in question for today’s lesson.
A few years back our designer was hired to a local security company. One of his task was to redesign their current marketing material and redesign their website. The hope was that the new website would #1: Sell products on the site #2: Increase their rankings on the search engines #3: Win an industry award for the website #4 Give a clean and professional look to compete with the likes of ADT and BRINKS. What was done with the website in just 3 months was nothing short of spectacular. Not only was the site cleanly redesigned for user experience it was also optimized for search and selling on the site. The site actually reached first page status on Google and appeared just under the major security competitors. This was a large jump from the 4th or 5th page that they were previously occupying. The site was also nominated for the industry award that was originally in mind. Sadly, another site took the honors, but neither our designer or us were really impressed with the end results of the other sites once we saw them. Realistically, in the whole process, the only major drawback was having someone other than our designer learn how to use the CMS, which was WordPress.
Unfortunately a short time later, our designer was laid off from the company, but not after he was also asked to redesign the sister site of the security site; a monitoring company that also had their site redesigned recently… seemingly by the same person/company. Now, to be clear, this post is not intended to bash, however, it is intended to show the difference between well thought out design and just throwing stuff on a page.
Here you can view the “Before” and “After” of the website in question. A few things to take note of… “Before” is cleaner, more professional. You see the product(s) immediately and are presented with a deal and a form, two things that are proven to convert traffic (and did) if done properly. “Before” also segments it’s target markets by providing alternate navigational items such as the “Home Security”, “Business Security”, and “Switch & Save” blocks. Unseen, but further down the page, were more links and graphic elements to display the companies top clients. On the usability side, “Before” was built on WordPress and was capable of changing content on the fly and made search engine optimization (SEO) easier. A blogging element was also implemented, however, never used after our designer was let go.
On the other side we have “After”. “After” has some necessary elements but misses the mark in a number of ways. First, the site is no longer optimized for search. In fact the “h tags” aren’t being used properly, if at all. I don’t believe I even saw an “h1″ and the “title” tags are nowhere near where they should be in order to pull traffic. “After” looks to be built in simple HTML pages, which is fine if you are just trying to get your name out there and have a presence. It’s a completely different story when you are trying to use your site to sell. Due to the loose structure of the HTML on these pages you notice things like spacing and sizes thrown off on particular pages. “After” is just not appealing to the eye… sorry, but it’s not. Functionality on “After” is completely thrown out the window. The contact page doesn’t even have a form. In fact the careers page, which had a resume upload function, now only has a “mailto” link going to the company’s Gmail account! “After” lacks consistency throughout the site. There is no one design “standard” for the pages. Visually the site is severely lacking. From the lack of a background to the shadows on the nav, the site just doesn’t make the mark.
Some things to note… what will happen to the site? Almost immediately the site will lose page rank. Since the markup is not properly done and major keywords and phrases are all but missing from the site, the search bots will have nothing good to index causing a drop in view-ability. They won’t be able to sell through the site or even take contacts from the site. Instead of having the site work FOR them, it’s just hanging out online like a buoy in the ocean… going nowhere. Of course the owners of the site could really push promotion of the site and the company, but once someone got there, what’s the big draw? What has this redesign done to improve your image or your business? And why would you promote now with a poor website, why wouldn’t you put that effort into the old site that could actually convert… and did!
Again, we do not aim to bash, but we must ask, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”
It’s been said many times over and the truth only gets stronger…while content is king, linking is queen. While it’s important to have strong content, in web development and web design your links are right up there in terms of importance. How many people link to your site? How many sites do YOU link to?
What you give is definitely what you get.
Linking not only builds your networking, it builds strong, active networks of honest interest. It’s important that you take on the mindset of initiating these contacts. Read other people’s blogs, visit other websites, leave honest feedback and comments, link from your site to posts and articles that you find most compelling. When you’re sincere in your efforts with this, you will incite natural interest in your own work, resulting in more links back to your site over time and a whole new audience will continue to open up for you.
Like any good online marketing, it’s not an overnight sensation and takes time to build. Be patient and keep reaching out and making more contacts. If you strip away the technology and algorithms, the search engines are set up to create an even playing field for everyone. It’s really not a complicated concept, but the process keeps getting more and more complicated to execute because of the large number of people choosing to try to get around the system rather than work with it.
Take time to link every day or at least every week. In addition to building your business, in the immortal words of Bill Cosby and Fat Albert “If you’re not careful you might learn something. So let’s get ready, okay? Hey, hey, hey!”
Joe Namath once guaranteed that his 1969 New York Jets would beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
They did.
George Zimmer, owner of Men’s Wearhouse has always said, “You’re going to like the way you look. I guarantee it.”
Over the years, most men have liked the way they look in the clothes they bought there.
Many web development, web design and online marketing services guarantee placement on the first page of Google and/or the other search engines.
Houston, we have a problem.
When you are working on web design and web development for your website, be aware of what can and what can’t be reasonably guaranteed by the pros you work with. It’s a process and there is no magic pill.
Being found in relevant searches on the search engines takes both time, consistency and well-written content. Here are some tips for effective content on your website that will make you more visible in online searches:
1. Avoid salespeak. One of the most prominent characteristics of salespeak is overuse of adjectives…descriptive words that tell people how great you or your product is. Descriptives are good for painting a picture of what you do, but words like “incredible,” “value-added” (barf!), “top notch” et al can make you sound cold and corporate like an infomercial. This is a turnoff to today’s consumer.
2. Know your relevant key words. If someone tells you they will get you on the first page of Google, ask them “First page in what key word search?” Then listen closely to they tell you. No one can guarantee placement on the first page of a search engine, as there are too many variables. Choose the key word search(es) that you want to be found in, and incorporate those key words on your website and in every new blog entry.
3. Boldface your key words. That’s pretty much it. When you use key words on your website, boldface them and the search engines will love you even more.
4. Look at the big picture. The first page of Google has room for 10 search engine results. Everyone cannot be on the first page of Google because there’s just not enough room, and those who are there didn’t get there overnight. And paid placement…people just don’t trust those links like they used to.
5. Finally, be consistent. The more frequently you update your website (blog entries are very helpful here), the more live your website is and the more relevant it will be to the search engines.
If you do these things consistently, you’ll like the long term results you get from your website.
We guarantee it;)
A big part of SEO in web development and web design is keyword-rich content. Indeed, content is king on your website as it is the very thing that gives people a reason to come back to your website.
It’s also the very thing that gives many business owners fits because it’s more challenging than it seems at first. Consistency is where most of your contemporaries on the Internet fall short. It’s not easy to come up with consistently engaging content and then there’s the issue of making sure your chosen key words are utilized properly in your content.
Then lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum.
Here are a couple of tips for your website content, keeping visitor readability in mind:
- Highlight (boldface) key words. You probably notice that there are words in our content that are consistently highlighted (i.e. web development and web design) and it’s because it helps when search engines are indexing our site in that given search. A little extra key word ‘juice’, if you will.
- Make content readable, don’t overuse keywords. You know the websites. You’ve seen them before. The ones with incoherent sentences and unreadable content because of overuse of key words. What good does it do for people to find you if that’s what they find? Proof-read your content or, even better, get someone you trust to proof-read it for you to make sure it is smooth, readable and makes sense.
Remember, readability and ease of navigation walk hand in hand in your web development and web design 
