Web Trends & Articles

A commonly overlooked aspect of web design is Search Engine Optimization. Good SEO is vital to any websites success. More than 80% of all Internet users find new web sites through search engines. That means that about 650 million people use search engines to find web sites. High search engine rankings result in more web site visitors, more customers and more sales.

Search Engine Optimization is the ability to make a website search engine friendly. Search engines use computer programs called “Robots” which crawl the internet, reading and indexing web pages. Search Engine Optimization is the procedure by which we make your website visible to robots. The more a robot understands your website, the better your ranking is likely to be. Internet Marketing is probably the most effective and affordable way of driving customers to your business.

Frogg Designs SEO and Website Promotion Process:

It is not enough to submit your web site to search engines and to wait for the results. Search engines use a variety of factors to rank web sites. Factors to achieve good results:

1. Finding the right keywords for your web site

The right keywords are not always obvious. Frogg Designs will find the right keywords that will work best for your web site. It is very important that we target the right keywords before you start with your search engine optimization work.

2. Optimize your web pages for these keywords

Optimizing your web pages for your important keywords is crucial if we want to have high search engine rankings. Optimizing one or two pages is not enough. Search engines analyze all pages of your web site and they put these pages in a context. It is important that the combination of your web pages shows search engines that your web site is relevant to a specific topic.

3. Submit your web pages to all important search engines and directories

After optimizing your web site for several keywords, we will submit your web site to our extensive data base of search engines and Internet directories. Although search engine submission is not as important as it was (many search engines will find your web site through links on other sites), it can still help to get your web site listed faster.

4. Get links from other web sites and make sure that these links contain your keywords

Links from other web sites are extremely important to achieving high search engine rankings. High search engine rankings are always the result of optimized web pages and good incoming links.

WHAT IS IMPORTANT FOR SEARCH ENGINE INDEXING?

Research keyword/keyword phrases are being used to search for what your website will cover.

2. Page Title: Use your #1 keyword phrase for each page at the start of the Title Tag. Title tags are best if not wordy and should never be longer than the space allowed for them. If you feel you have to use your business name, use it at the end. For example if your website is about porcelain dolls and is called The Doll Shop – here’s an appropriate title tag: Porcelain Dolls from The Doll Shop.

Remember – this tag is what will be saved to someone’s computer if they bookmark you – so they need to see right away what it is when they’re looking at their bookmarks.

3. Meta Description: This should be a short advertisement for this page of the website – again start with your best keyword phrase for the page but now you can include some other information. The idea here is to entice people with this. Using the above doll store for example purposes a possible description would be:

Find your collectible porcelain doll for sale including fairy and baby dolls. Add to your porcelain doll collection today with these and all the dolls available from The Doll Shop.

4. Meta Keywords: These are no longer used by most search engines. But, since some still might use them, fill them in. Remember, only list keywords/phrases that you are using on this page.

5. Headlines on your pages: Like the title – these headlines will let your customer (and the search engines) quickly know what the page is about. It’s best if you use the h tags when entering headlines, so that the search engines can recognize that this is a headline. A headline is just that. It is not a sentence. It is not wordy. A good headline for the Doll Store would be Collectible Porcelain Dolls.

6. Text on pages: Make sure that the keyword/keyword phrases for the page are being used on the page. Do not spam them. Do not force them. Make the copy feel natural, never forced. If you aren’t sure, try reading your text out loud and see how it sounds to you. If you cringe, you’ve overdone the keywords.

a. Spelling is important. Use a spell checker.

b. Grammar is important. If need be, get other people to read and check your text for you.

c. Bulleted lists are good

d. Highlight/Bold words

e. Use anchor text to link to interior pages from page text.

f. Unique content is VITAL. If you cannot write copy that is unique and will work well for your site, this is the place to spend the money to get it done right.

g. Do NOT use provided copy: If you are selling products – do not use the copy provided by your supplier, but write your own content – again it should be UNIQUE.

7. Do not spam in any of the elements. In other words, don’t use keywords inappropriately in the title, meta, on the page, etc. Do not try to “fool the search engines in anyway.

8. Start a blog and keep it up-to-date. If you can’t keep it going daily – don’t do it.

9. Join other forums, blogs, etc in your websites related field where you can use your expertise, even if you can’t directly link to your website. Become a member of the community.

10. Linking: There are 3 major types of linking: One-way, Reciprocal, and Paid Links

a. One-way links: These are the most valuable links you can have to your website. This means someone has found your site worthwhile enough to give it a vote of confidence from their own website/blog/forum, etc. If you are able to put the link in a blog or forum, make sure you use the best possible anchor text in doing so. For example in the doll store – good anchor text could be either Porcelain dolls or collectible porcelain dolls.

Placing links to authority sites and sites you feel will be worthwhile to your customers is good for your site. And having a site that others will feel is worthwhile to link to you is VITAL for your site. Linking, to be valuable to search engines, should be TEXT links. Banner links are valuable for advertising, but not for rating. A link within the text on a site (like in a blog or newsletter or paragraph), using good anchor text, is the goal for a good link.

b. Reciprocal Linking: Reciprocal links happen when you and someone else agree to exchange links to each other. Some search engines are no longer giving credit (or giving much reduced credit) to this type of linking.² While they are still helping with some search engines, it could still be worthwhile to do reciprocal linking, but keep your eyes on what the future in linking will bring.

c. Paid links: A paid link is simply one that you pay to have on a site. These are usually text links (a site may sell space on their site.) Use these if you feel you will get visitors to come to your site and purchase or do what your website is looking for. Do not use these for help with search engine ranking.

11. Link Baiting: This is the most important factor today in linking. Link baiting is creating your website and its content so that others WANT to link to you. This means finding a niche, product, idea, etc that will create the excitement or interest that causes others to look to you/for you. For example, offer something free that might entice others to send their own traffic to you. Become an authority on something in your field that brings those natural links to you. For example, maybe that doll site could become an authority on the history of porcelain dolls, or the repair of porcelain dolls. Do so in such a manner that people come to those pages for that information – then they use the doll stores navigation to find their products. Link baiting is a viral marketing method that doesn’t have to cost any money. But it will take time to come up with an appropriate idea for your website. And it can’t be something that can be found everywhere else on the web. Or if it is prevalent, you have to have a unique twist on it – something that will make people come to you, not the others.

More SEO

One page cannot be properly optimized for more than 2 or 3 keyword phrases. Ideally, 1-2 maximum will be the best. So, having various pages that are optimized properly will be the key to making or breaking most businesses. (There are exceptions – when a business is really targeted to the point that a single page might be all it needs – if it can get the proper traffic to that page.)

Keywords and keyword phrases need to be carefully selected. If the porcelain doll site tries to compete for the term dolls – it might take a long time to get anywhere near the results it could get for collectible porcelain dolls. Use the phrases that will bring the targeted visitors and will have less competition, while you slowly move up for the more general terms.

Also, remember – most people do not purchase the first time they visit a website. In fact, it normally takes 8 or MORE searches before someone clicks to purchase. And during this time, they may use different search phrases. One time they might search for porcelain dolls, another time collectible porcelain dolls, yet another it might be unique porcelain dolls. The more time your name appears when they search, the better the chance that when they are ready to buy, your site will be the one they purchase from (if your site is user-friendly, easily navigable and welcoming to them). People generally start with more broad terms, then continue narrowing their searches down to more specific terms, though. So, if you aren’t showing up in the broad terms, you might later show up in the specific search and have exactly what the person has been looking for.