Search engine optimization is a giant subject so we are going to stick to the main rules and discuss some places where you can get additional information on the subject. Search engines use programs - robots and crawlers – to creep through the internet and catalog the pages that are currently out there. They inventory the domains they travel through so they can recall them and make them quickly available to you next time you search. They are complex and based on many factors too secretive and complex for us to cover. Below are the main rules you should follow to get a good placement in search engines.

The main rules of SEO:

• Content Quality
• Content Quantity
• Keywords
• Links
• Navigation

Content Quality

“Content is king” is a common phrase in the world of search engine optimization and website design. The pages of your website should contain useful and valuable information about your products and services as well as your industry and profession. The content should be about your subject matter as well as your products (e.g.; if you sell boats, include content about the best regional places to fish and water ski as well as information about boats) and answer questions customers might have about your products or services and offer descriptions, definitions, explanations, and lessons. Put your teacher hat on. Think of the questions your clients normally ask you the first and second times you speak with them on the phone. Go even further and include topics your clients tend to discuss casually when they talk to you (e.g.; boat buyers might talk about skiing and where to ski). Your sales force is an excellent resource to tap for this kind of information and getting them involved will make them feel like they helped create the website. Quality content about your subject matter and products will be picked up by search engines.

Stated in very simple terms: Search engines are built to help web users find information. When you add useful and relevant information to your site, you are helping search engines do their jobs and you will be rewarded with good placement in search engine listings. You will be rewarded for updating that information periodically as well – monthly would be great but every six months is acceptable. We will discuss writing copy to incite action that produces sales later in the book.

Content Quantity

Once you have written amazingly high-quality content, you will need to add more pages on a regular basis. Each of your new pages should maintain the same quality standards as the initial website. For the boat website example, you might add a page about a great place to fish or about how the Master Craft XXXX was crucial to winning the latest fishing tournament.

Adding new pages is like cast-fishing with a bigger net. Adding new pages gives you a bigger reach to catch the interest of search engines. New pages add breadth to your subject matter as well, providing opportunities for search engines (and visitors interested in your products) to find you and for other sites to link to your site, increasing your status in search engine rankings (read on about links). If I have a site or a blog about fishing I might not link to your site about boats because I can get boat stats anywhere but I might link to your new page with the article about how the Master Craft helped win the tournament.

Keywords

It is important to use keywords relevant to your products and general subject matter throughout your site. There are three main places where you will need to use keywords effectively:

• Menus
• Content
• Meta Description Tag

Menus are, almost by default, little lists of keywords. Use them where they are needed throughout the site. You do not need to four menus on each page of your site. One will do and maybe two IF that extra menu is in a convenient location that helps your visitors navigate your site.

Use relevant keywords carefully and thoroughly throughout your website’s content. Without overdoing it, try to replace a few references with the actual word. After you write your content for a given page, go through it one more time (hopefully you will edit anyway) and replace a “they” and a “them” with the actual keywords to which the “they” and the “them” are referring. Don’t overdo it or you will end up with unreadable text.

Don’t know what keywords to use in your marketing campaigns? Download the keywords your competitors use.

Finally, Meta description tags are html tags used near the top of the source code for your web page. The Meta description tag is used by most (not all) search engines to determine the content of your site and to create the description show in the search engine results page (SERP). You can, and probably should, use a slightly different description for each page of your site. For more information about meta tags, visit http://www.searchenginewatch.com/

Use the appropriate keywords on the appropriate pages, course. If your website is about species of wood in Texas, you do not need to list pine in the Meta description tag keyword on the live oak page.

Links

Links are like votes for your website. Each link from an outside source to your website is one more constituent for your content – at least by search engine logic. There are two kinds of links – natural and artificial. Natural links are links embedded in the body of the content of a page because they add value to the content and the site visitor.

Artificial links are links added to a site because they add value for the site owner and a third party and typically NOT for the site visitor. The most common examples of artificial links are those on “links pages” that are there as reciprocal links to other pages. The owners of the reciprocating sites benefit because they have more lengths and greater reach where search engines are concerned. Artificial links are not usually simple to find – and might even be hidden - on a site as they tend to draw traffic away from a site which is the opposite of what you, as a site owner, are trying to achieve.

You want natural links to your site because search engines look upon them more favorably than artificial links. You should welcome all links to your site, though. Remember, each link is like a vote for the content on your site.

Navigation

Visitors to your site should be able to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. They should also be able to find their way back to where they started. Sean Timberlake put it very simply in his article “The Basics of Navigation” on http://www.efuse.com/. He said site visitors want to know three things:

• Where they are
• Where they can go
• How to get back to where they were

The genius of that is that it is simple, clear, and all-encompassing. You need to decide upon a site architecture – a map of your website – that will make moving throughout your site simple and effective. I personally do not like to create more than four levels of pages, and usually only three, including the home page (level 1). A great way to get started is to base your navigation plan on that of another website you find very simple to navigate. Choose a site that is in your industry or sells a product in a similar way to how you sell yours.

Another great way to get a clear idea of what you want is to draw the plan. Use a clear sheet of paper and draw a box for each page of your site as they relate to one another. Label each page box with a general name. Expect to repeat this exercise at least 5 times. Your finished drawing will also be great for communicating your vision to your designer(s) and for keeping yourself on track through the design process – check off each completed page as you progress.

Navigation should be consistent throughout your site. You want visitors to always feel comfortable on your site and know where they are, where they can go next, and how to get back to where they came from. The most common style options for site navigation are:

• Navigation bars (side and top)
• Tab Navigation
• Site Maps
• Embedded Links
• Bread Crumb Trails

Navigation Bars The most common method of maintaining consistency throughout the pages of a site is to use a navigation bar. Navigation bars are the lists of links that are usually on the left margin of a website and sometimes at the top.

Tab Navigation Sites with few pages often use tabs at the top of the page. Tabs are great because they leave space in the body of your site for content and images and are easy to understand because they intuitively function like a hardcopy filing system most people are accustomed to using.

Site Maps Site maps are preferred by some people because they are a simple outline of the link structure of the site. Site maps are also useful for search engine optimization but not necessary.

Embedded Links Embedded links are links inserted throughout the copy and content of the site that lead to other areas of the site that are related to the current subject. They are used very commonly and are highly recommended. Embedded links are excellent for “upselling” and for generating leads from your website. To repeat: Embedded links are very useful for generating leads from your website.

Breadcrumb Links Finally, breadcrumb trails are very useful for visitors to a site. Most sites do not use them but they are useful when available. he most common placement of breadcrumb trails is just below the title of the page. The link trail represents the path you took to get to the page you are on and you can click on any piece of that trail to get back to the corresponding page of the site. For example, the breadcrumb trail for the page I am on might be “Home/North Pole/Santa Claus/Toy Shop”, meaning I am on the “Toy Shop” page and if I want to get back to the North Pole page, I need only click on that portion of the breadcrumb trail. Breadcrumb trails are very useful and you should consider using one, especially if you are designing a very deep and broad site.

Another aspect of navigation that is very important is how you name your links. Name your links very clearly so people will understand where they have the option of going. Designers often get too cute with naming and use words that are confusing and even misleading. For example, if your site is about cars, you might be tempted to name the home page link (which should be on every page) “the Garage.” There is no logical reason for it. It is irrelevant to practicality. Even your biggest fans are only looking for information and do not care about your subtle ways of maintaining the car theme. You will not win extra brownie points from search engines or your visitors for cute names so stick with the simple and clearly understood “Home.”

Other SEO Factors

These are some other factors worth mentioning but don’t get a headache over them. Most are easy to take care of or there is little you can do about them. Do what you can because every little bit helps.

Age of Your Domain How long your domain has been around will play a role in how it is seen by search engines. This is kind of related to the next topic, Domain Permanence and is also related to the fact that when a domain has been around, it usually develops some traffic, links, and a bit of a presence overall.

Obviously, there is nothing you can do about the age of your domain (except wait) so don’t worry about it. If your website has been up for a while, even if it is very simple and has no links, well then at least you have age on your side. If you have not even purchased your domain yet, then get to it! Register it and put something on it, even if you just post contact information and a list of your products until you get your full site designed.

Domain Permanence The length of time your domain is registered for might affect your domain’s search engine rank. Spammers often register domain names for one year then use that domain as the address from which they send thousands, if not millions, of spam emails. Therefore, search engines sometimes use the expiration date of a website’s domain name as a factor in determining its legitimacy.

Google stated in their March 2005 patent filing release that they consider websites with one year registrations to be related to spam websites meaning they will certainly not give them much consideration, if any, for ranking. This is obviously not true across the board as I have seen brand new websites with one year registrations that were ranked within one month of going online. Those sites were very niche-oriented, though, and typically the only searches that brought up the site were near replicas of the domain name itself. For example, typing in “gluhwein” and getting http://www.gluhwein.net/ in the search rankings.

While registration expiration is not the largest factor in your search engine optimization it is a simple and inexpensive factor to control so go ahead and keep your domain registered at least five years out. The maximum number of years you can register a domain name for is ten.

Submit Your Domain If your domain name is brand new - and even if it is not – submit it to the major search engines, especially Google and Yahoo. It is free and literally takes about three minutes. For Google, go to www.google.com/addurl and for Yahoo, go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit. Many SEO professionals will tell you this is a waste of time but it does not hurt anything and ensures you are listed. You do not need to submit more than once. Once you are in the catalog, you are in. Go ahead and submit to any others such as Teoma and Lycos also. MSN is beginning to grow in the search engine market as well.

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