Search Engine Optimization – SEO

In addition to creating visually pleasing websites, we code with Search Engine Optimization in mind during the entire coding process start to finish. You should know SEO is its own field separate from web design. SEO is very technical and takes a ton of active ongoing research. So while very often our clients’ websites perform quite well in Google and other search engines, we don’t guarantee top 10 ranking. Here are the SEO factors in order of importance. Remember this is an overview. Each point has services and techniques to maximize your SEO.

SEO Factors

Domain Name – Your domain name is vital to your search engine success. If your keywords are a part of your domain name, you’re already ahead of the curve.

Incoming Links – This is a frustrating factor because often you don’t have a say in who’s linking to you. However, search engines place a high priority on incoming links because it gives relevancy to your site. A good service to use that tracks incoming links is Alexa. Another great incoming link is YouTube.com. If your company hosts any video on YouTube, link them back to your site.

Title Tag – Yes, this more important than the meta “keywords”. The title tag is the description of your site that shows up at the top of your browser. Stuff your keywords into your title. Keyword density is important here. Do NOT put things like your phone number or hours of operation. It will devalue your title tag potential.

Proper Coding – 95% of the time websites work they way they are supposed to work with broken, improper code. Yes, it’s true, code sometimes does not need to be perfect. However, if you have too many errors your site relevancy will take a hit. You can use a validator service to check the coding (even if you’re not an expert). If your errors are under 50 you’re stylin’. Fifty to 100 errors is probably okay. Over 100 errors and there’s a good chance you’re getting dinged.

Keyword Density – This is how many times your keywords are used in your home page. Its very important to stuff your home page with your keywords to have a good density. However, if your keyword density is too high you’ll actually get penalized. Today Google might consider 5% a good density, but tomorrow 5% might be considered too high (spam ) and your site could actually be penalized.

Meta Keywords – Yes, finally your meta. This is the one internet novices freak out about. “Make sure my keywords are coded right”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to code

meta name=”keywords” content=”web design, seo, wordpress, consultant”

At one time this particular meta tag used to carry a ton of weight in SEO. The fact is that nowadays it’s only a small consideration. One service that could help you determine keywords is Google Adwords, but you have to know how to use the service to realize the benefit.

Post Tags – This is WordPress specific. Even if you do not use a tag cloud you should still tag your posts with post relevant keywords and site relevant keywords.

Link, Alt Tags, and File Names – This is a big one. When you name images, at the very least use your company name, or better yet, use your keywords. For example, an image on your home page might be called “widgets.jpg” (assuming “widgets” is your keyword). Widgets.jpg is a MUCH friendlier SEO file name than r2s21.gif. Check out the image on AT&T’s wireless home page:

The file name is “B2C-33363_708×258_0925_marquee.jpg”. The ad is visually appealing, but do you think the Google spider knows how in the world to index “B2C-33363_708×258_0925_marquee.jpg”?

There are probably another 50+ factors that can determine your overall SEO relevancy. The factor that weighs the most today might not weigh as much tomorrow. Put together a solid website that performs well with SEO, but don’t overdo it. You could drop 10k today to get on Google’s first page but the criteria could change tomorrow.

WordPress vs. Html

If you’re still on .html, you’re missing the SEO boat big time. Google loves WordPress. WordPress sites are indexed on entire body of content, not just a homepage and a few keywords. For example, you may create a post or a page in WordPress that’s a tangent of your business. That tangent will probably have very good results in Google. Hopefully the end user will be impressed with the tangent and continue on to view/purchase your services and products.

Determining Your Keywords

Think through how people will search for you. We’ve have had better success when we target two words that make up the keywords. For example, as a custom neckwear manufacturer, Adverties would love to be in the top page for “ties”. However, Adverties doesn’t produce retail neckties. Narrowing the focus to “custom ties” produces a top 10 result in Google.

We also had an acupuncture clinic who insisted on “acupuncture” being their keyword. There’s several problems with this. This Chicago-based client doesn’t benefit if someone from Denver finds their site as result of a Google search. Also, “acupuncture” returns 14,700,000 results, compared to “Chicago acupuncture” with a return of 1,180,000 results. You have a much better chance of getting a higher ranking when you use two keywords.

Other Search Engines

A good distance behind Google is Yahoo, Bing, and AOL search engines. What logarithm works with one search engine doesn’t necessarily work with another. Again, it’s best to build a solid site that targets the biggest search engine (Google) and let the chips fall where they may with the rest.

Google Adwords

Google Adwords is a great way to advertise on a pay-per-click method. We’ve had many clients express good results with Adwords. Adwords are the ads you see at the side of the Google search result. Sometimes the Adwords will be highlighted at the top of the search result. There’s a $50.00 minimum and the pay per clicks can vary from $.50 – $3.00 per click, depending on your keyword competition. There are also some SEO bonuses in having an Adwords account, such as keyword reports, etc.

Advanced SEO Trick

Study what the top dog in your keyword is doing. What are his meta tags? How many incoming links does he have? What is he using for a title?

Choosing a SEO Company

“Great overview, but I NEED to be #1 in my keywords or I’ll just die.” If that describes you, then you should probably invest in a SEO company (we can recommend a few). But you have to be VERY careful because we’ve had a handful of SEO companies we’ve designed websites for that know less about SEO than us. Don’t get confused with fancy terms and acronyms. The most important factor is their portfolio. Ask for a list of five to ten references/portfolio links. Anyone can get lucky with one outstanding result. They should be able to perform consistently in keyword results that are over 50,000,000. Besides the “buyer beware” notice, get ready to back up the piggy bank because some top keyword rankings are pricey.

Flash

Flash can do some pretty cool things. We code in Flash but rarely use it. In fact, we’ve found a javascript alternative to pretty much all our Flash coding. The reason Flash is problematic is it runs off a file name such as “intro.flv”. That intro file could have information critical to your business and SEO. Unfortunately, search engine spiders can only index the file name, not the content of the file. Flash can also really bog down website load time (even for broadband users). Nine times out of ten we have a better option than Flash, yet some people still think Flash is the hot coding language when professionals in the know hardly ever use it.

Domain Names

What is the strategy on purchasing domain names? I usually use a trusted reseller of domain names such as GoDaddy.

Purchasing Strategies

Purchase your business name as a .com if possible. This is the be-all end-all rule of domain name shopping. If your business name is already taken, use the “whois” function (available at the site you’re purchasing domains from), contact the domain name owner, and see if it’s available. You can expect to pay between $500-$10,000.00 for the domain. If you’re a mid-size company or bigger you should purchase your .com name at all costs. Your competitor would just love to own your domain name if you don’t.

Purchase your keywords. If your company name is “Jack” and Jack produces “widgets”, widgets.com is your best next best option. It might not describe your whole business but your domain name is the absolute #1 factor when it comes to search engine optimization. In the end it might be more beneficial to have the domain name “widgets.com” over “jack.com” due to SEO.

If both your company name and your top product or service is unavailable, the next best option is a combination of the two. JacksWidgets.com is both “rememberable” and effective for SEO. If some combination of company name and keywords is not available, the next important factor is “rememberablity” (yes, I think I just made up that word. I should buy rememberablity.com ) Think of it this way — if you’re driving on the highway going 60 mph past a banner advertisement, will you remember the domain name two or three minutes later? If your domain is not at least rememberable it will be utterly useless. This is where having a different domain suffix (rather then a .com) might be advantageous. We would suggest going .com, then .us, then any other suffix (called a TLD or top level domain) that might work, such as Jack.org.

One last tidbit on domain name purchases. You might consider purchasing your name and your children’s .com name. If you or your children end up in a professional field you’ll be happy you have access to the .com name. A highly technical friend had to settle for a .net name. The attorney that purchased his name (his son had the same name) offered to sell the domain name for his son’s college tuition — OUCH!

Defensive Domain Name Strategies

So you’ve landed that great domain name — now what? We would suggest you consider protecting your interest by purchasing all the domain suffixes. Going back to the example of Jack.com, it would be a good idea to purchase Jack.us, Jack.net, Jack.org, etc. because search engine logarithms change fairly often (sometimes weekly). And while .com tends to rule the SEO world, you don’t want to miss out should Google one day determine .us holds more weight. You also want to prevent a competitor from infringing on your traffic/customer base.

Another consideration is the hyphen. Very often hyphenated domains score just as good as regularly spelled domains. For example. JacksWidgets.com will probably rank #1 in Google under the search “Jacks Widgets” but there’s a good chance that Jacks-Widgets.com will be #2 on Google. It’s not that great of an idea to use a hyphenated domain as your main domain name because its harder to remember. It is a good idea to grab that domain to protect your entity.

Lastly, you might want to purchase the misspelled domain name that might leak traffic elsewhere. If you have two words in your domain name that end and begin with the same letter (for example ChicagoOvens.com), consider purchasing the misspelled domain name ChicagOvens.com, then have it direct to the correct domain name.

Web Design

Build your corporate and brand identity, increase your sales volume, or create a powerful and highly effective tool for your sales staff. These are a few of the functions a well designed, attractive website can perform for your company. We know … it has worked for us!

Additional Resources
Search Engine Optimization
Domain Names