Here are the basics of what should be done to help your site be found under Google and other engines. Now I’ve gone into quite a bit of detail so I’m going to sum up the most important right now, with no explanation, then go on to explain later in the document:
1. keyphrase in title
2. that exact keyphrase as first thing in description tag
3. that exact keyphrase as first thing in keyword tag
4. that exact keyphrase as first thing at top of visible page if possible, and in <h1></h1>
5. that exact keyphrase at least taking up 5% of the words on the page.
6. that exact keyphrase as LAST thing on page
7. reciprocal links pointing back at you that are relevant
8.
Key Phrases:
pick 6 key phrases that you're convinced people will type in to find your services. People rarely type in one "keyword" to find things, they usually type in a phrase such as "Advertising agencies boston ". I'd advise you to add a geographic location to each phrase as it will be much easier to get you listed well under a "regional" listing than a "national" or "global" listing. In other words, there may be only 10-12 websites competing for the first page of Google under "Landscape Contractors Waterville Maine" but 9,785 competing for "Landscape Contractors". Understand?
Obviously, if you’re target market is not geographic in nature, this is irrelevant. Do try to narrow it down as much as possible, however. Once you pick your keyphrase it will have to reappear several times in the exact same order. (i.e. advertising agencies boston if that’s what you picked, don’t use boston advertising agencies later, keep it in the same order)
Title Tag
Pick the most important phrase for your home page. use it in the title tag followed by a space followed by a dash followed by your company name. example: "Country Bands Maine – Cherokee Band". So again, the formula is keyphrase dash company name. Make sure the keyphrase you picked is the VERY FIRST PART of this tag.
Description Tag
Use the description tag but don't make it too long. And use the words of your key phrase in there. No more than 110 characters and DO NOT repeat your title tag. DO use your key phrase, but just don’t repeat your title tag. It may hurt ranking more than help. Some of the keyphrase(s) written in your Description tag ought to appear in some variation on your page, the closer to the top of the page, the better. Some professionals say 1,000 characters is ok, but I have found that your description is often used on the search page, and they only use the first line or two, so I stick with short, powerful descriptions without superlatives. DO NOT write “Best, fastest, cheapest, etc. as the search engines are getting smarter and tend to “penalize” or at least “ignore” these words. Make sure the keyphrase you picked is the VERY FIRST PART of this tag.
Body Text
Most important of all! (you won’t find this info everywhere) Use the words of your key phrase in the visible readable body text. This is the number one way Google and many other engines find you. The accepted ratio is 7%. In other words 7 out of 100 words should be landscape, contractors or Waterville. This poses an interesting challenge to be creative and write smooth flowing copy while still working inside this "box". Also use bold <h1> or <h2> headers on each optimized page. If a page is about your lawn mowing services put <h1>Lawn Mowing Services</h1>in bold at the top like a “header”. Search engines love this. It’s important to actually use the <h> tag as this is what most search engines recognize. I must stress, however, to always concentrate on content first, then optimization when writing the visible copy for your pages. I’ve made the mistake a couple of times concentrating only on getting my key phrase on the page as much as possible, and the result tends to be awkward and “cheesy”. Again if you can use the <h1> as the VERY FIRST item on your page (or after the header) you’ll be even better off.
Use image alt tags. If you have a picture of something on there, add an alt tag that's relevant to your key phrase. If it’s the page about fertilizing, and you have a picture of a man spreading fertilizer, use something like <img src = “spread.jpeg” alt = “fertilizing services Waterville”>. Again, use your exact keyphrase in at least the first alt tag.
Reciprocal Linking. Very important to have your website appear “important” to the search engines. A search engine “thinks” you’re important when it sees your site “mentioned” on other websites of the same or related nature. But…it thinks you’re spamming when it sees your site mentioned on hundreds of ”guestbooks”, “link farms” and “online casino” sites. There is actually so much controversy around all the reciprocal linking stuff so here’s my rule: When in doubt, do what seems like the professional, right thing to do. Is it right if you are a web design firm to have 125 web design firm links on your page? Uh .. no. But you might have some SEO directories or forums, etc. And just in case everything is true, I try to keep it relevant, jewelry links on jewelry sites, web design on web related, etc. etc.
Use Text links and Menu!
If you have a java menu, flash or something like that, make sure you have plain old, pure text links at the bottom or margin of the page. When a search engine comes to your site, they cannot read that fancy java stuff, so they stop right there. If you have text links at the bottom, they will be able to spider out and index all your pages, some of which will be optimized for different searches. I repeat, make certain every page you want the search engines to see is linked to your home page with TEXT based links. (i.e. <a href = “about.html”>About Us</a> ) Also, if you can do it without being cheesy, make your text links be your keywords or phrases. So instead of Bracelets, the link might be Sterling Silver Bracelets, etc. also good to have your keyphrase be the very last thing on your page. If you can’t you can’t.
Articles: Write articles and submit them. Searchwrap is one place but type “submit article(s)” in Google and see what comes up.
OK!! That's all for now! Any questions, please call any time.
** DO NOT**
use keywords in your meta keyword tags that are NOT in your key phrase or are NOT in the body text of your page. I just learned this one recently. I understand that it can hurt you in the rankings. You definitely WILL NOT find that info. in too many places. I'm now in the process of correcting it on a few of my client's sites. Also, FYI, Google now ignores the keyword tag. (that's the one in the head of the code that goes <meta name = "keywords" content = "blah blah blah">
Use “refresh tags”, redirection, frames, or too much “flash”. Search engines are in the process of updating to be able to handle these things, but right now, static, content-rich pages work best. Trust me when I tell you that flash and animations are more annoying than anything else. I personally have software that prevents most of it from showing up as it’s a distraction to surfing. It impresses the person who creates it, that’s about it!
Use “tricks” like putting your name and website on tons of guestbooks. Search engines are looking for your site to be on other ‘relevant” sites, not just pasted on every guestbook and link farm. By the time of this writing, search engines are beginning to introduce algorhythms which penalize sites for having too many “nonsense” links. Don’t ever put keywords in the same font color as your background. (invisible keywords). This is the oldest trick in the book, is considered “spamming” the search engines and can easily get you banned from Google. Ouch!