Search Engine Optimization for your Website
More Secrets to Getting your business listed on the 1st page of Google
Submit your Website to all of the major search engines and directories
This page was updated on:
09/04/2011
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Tip #1
Figure out the right phrase
You have to figure out what phrase people are typing into google when they are searching for your service. If you live in a big state like California, they will not type in "California House Cleaning " to find a house cleaner in their area. If they live in Anaheim, they will type in "Anaheim House Cleaning". However, in some small states like Maine, they might type in "Maine House Cleaning Service". This is because in a small state like Maine, they do not have many cities, and the cities are closer together. But in the majority of situations, they will be typing in the city names.
Tip #2
Know how many keywords to use
Do not put 400 city names into your keywords, description, and page title. Search Engines look at the percentage the search term appears on your site compared to the rest of the content. If you put in 400 city keywords and someone searches for one of them, your percentage is 1/400. That's not very efficient. You have to pick the top 5 cities that you service, either the top 5 largest or the 5 closest to you. On other individual pages within your website, you can go ahead and list the other cities that you service. You can list a few different cities on each page. This way, your page title and description have a 20% occurence rate. If you only work in one city, that's even better. Just list that city only into your keywords, description, and page title and you will have a 100% occurance. The higher percentage you have means the higher ranking you will have.
Tip #3
How to name your website pages.
Search Engines need a way to know that your website is relevant to what the potential customer is searching for. You have to let the search engines know why your site is relevant. One of the best ways to do this is to include your keywords inside your website address. If you can get it into your main domain name, that will be optimal, but getting into individual page names work great. So if your domain name is AnaheimHouseCleaning.com, it will help you in the rankings. If your website is already setup, you should focus on the names of your pages. You want your URL's to have keywords in them.
Tip #4
Keep your website shallow.
Search engines do not like to search deeply through your site, so every page on your website should be accessible within 2-3 clicks from your home page. Visitors are the same way. Visitors to your site want everything simple, so keep it simple and make everything easy to get to with very few clicks. You can do this by creating text links on the bottom of your site, which makes it easier for search engines and visitors to jump around. You will even further help your rankings if the text links include some of your keywords.
Tip #5
Make Photos work to your advantage.
When a search engine spider looks at your site they actually skip over images, so photos usually don't help your rankings at all. This is what the image looks like to the search engine, <IMG src="URL" ALT="Insert your Alternative Text Here">
This ALT text is a great place to put some keywords but you have to make sure that the text that you put in is relevant to the actual image. You should have an ALT text for every image on your site.
Tip #6
Heading Tags
The heading is the at the top of the webpage. It's kind of like the name of the chapter in a book. Make sure you put your keywords in the heading if possible. Here is an example of what it should look like in the code: <h1>Anaheim House Cleaning</h1>
Tip #7
Don't copy content
If search engines see the exact same content on your site as they see on other sites, it will hurt you in the rankings.
Tip #8
Don't hide text on your site
Some people try to load up keywords on the bottom of their pages with tons of keywords and make the text the same color as their background color to that humans can't read the text. The problem is that search engines can detect that and will penalize you if it looks like you are trying to outsmart them.
Tip #9
Don't overload your page with the same keywords over and over. It's important to have keywords on your page, but if you over do it and list your keywords 60 times on the same page, the search engines will penalize you for "keyword stuffing". You have to find the right balance.
Tip #10
Anchor Text
Anchor text is the text that people click on to get to your site. For example, if your business name is ACME Cleaning, it won't do much good to have links to your website that say http://www.acmecleaning.com. The link might take someone to your website but it doesn't help your rankings at all. By using keywords in the anchor text, a better link would be "AnaheimHouseCleaning". If someone clicks on that phrase, it will still take them to your website, plus the search engines will associate your website with that phrase which will help your ratings. So just remember that anchor text is important for people linking to your website and also how you link from one page on your site to another page within your site.
Tip #11
Add RSS to your site
Using this method, you can insert news stories about local cities, which will improve search engine rankings for those terms. Creating one page per city would work great. *This method will not work on all webservers. You will need to try it out to find out. Some free servers don't allow it. Your server must allow PHP files.
-
Understand that RSS feeds are a way for publications to easily share what they write by distributing it through whatever method you choos to read it.
-
Identify an RSS feed you would like to add to your Google homepage. Go to http://www.wikihow.com/Find-RSS-Feeds-on-the-Web for ideas.
-
Note the URL of the RSS feed you wish to subscribe to. If you click on the RSS link, you will go to a page with a lot of data on it.
-
Copy the URL in the Address field of your browser to the clipboard, because this is what you will use to identify the publication that you wish to subscribe to.
-
Set up a Google personalized Homepge if you don't have one already. If you have one, log into it. Click here to go to it: http://www.wikihow.com/Set-Up-a-Google-Personalized-Homepage
-
Click on the "Add Stuff" link in the right corner of the page, below the Google search box. A list of content options to add to your homepage should appear.
-
At the top of the page, to the right of the search box and "Search" button, is a link to "Add by URL"
-
A small window will appear right underneath the Google search field.
-
Paste or type the RSS feed URL in the field provided and then click the Add button.
Tip #12
Multiple Domain Names and Websites
If you purchase multiple domain names and point them all at the same website, it won't help you in the rankings. Search Engines do not list sites that redirect to another site.
But there is a great way to get help your business get tons of new customers if your business covers more than five cities. If you have three different domains, build three different websites. You should have one main website that targets your five most important cities. This will also be the website that you list on your business cards, brochures, etc. Website #2 should target the next five most important cities that you service. Website #3 should target an additional five more cities. So, for example, if you have a very large business that covers 25 cities, you should use 5 different websites. By doing this, it's possible for your business to show up first in google search results whenever anyone in those 25 cities searches for your service. I have personally done this for my business, and the phone still rings off the hook with all of the calls that I get. Also, don't forget to link each of your sites together.
Tip #13
Update your site frequently
Fresh Content helps your rankings. Make little changes or add things to your website frequently. If your website sits untouched for a year with no updates, google will consider your site less relevant and rank you lower.
Tip #14
Build links to your site.
Build lots of quality links to your website. Remember quality is more important than quantity. One good quality link from a site that is relevant to your site, is much better than links from 12 unrelated websites.
Tip #15
.edu Domains
Search engines love it when you have links from .edu domains. These are educational domains, so if you have a link on one of those, google figures you must be important.
Tip #16
Get links from High Page Rank Sites
If a website has a Page Rank of 6, it is considered more important than a website with a Page Rank of 2. If all of the links to your website are coming from websites with high page rank, your site will be ranked higher as well. You can check a websites Page Rank by clicking here: http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
Tip #17
Google Analytics
Use Google Analytics on your site. This is a free service offered by Google. It will tell you how users got to your site, what keywords they typed in, what pages they look at on your site, the average amount of time they spend on your site, etc. This will keep you knowledgable about the details of your website and allow you to make changes when you need to.
Tip #18
Search Engine Spiders
Search Engine Spiders crawl through the internet and your website to see what type of content your website contains. You have to check for errors because sometimes the spiders aren't seeing anyting on your site (or maybe just part of your site). This will negatively affect your rankings. To see what the spiders are seeing on your website, click here: http://www.iwebtool.com/spider_view
If you don't want to do the Search Engine Optimization work yourself, you can always pay someone else to do it. Click here for more information and prices: Drive local customers through your doors!
American Business Builder | How to do Search Engine Optimization | Startup Business Guides
Custom Search