Search Engine Optimization Checklist

There are simple things that you can do to increase your rankings on the search engines through search engine optimization (SEO). The list below is not exhaustive but can give you great start in having a site can shows up well in the search engines. If you implement these suggestions, you are probably farther along than 99 percent of the other web sites out there.

Keyword Research

Choosing the right keywords for your site is probably the most important aspect to SEO. You should create a theme for each page that revolves around a certain keyword. You put those keywords in the META tags, on-page title and in the content of the page. A good place to do keyword research is www.wordtracker.com. You can buy a one-day subscription for a couple bucks and do your research there for all your pages. Wordtracker will give you a list of keywords and the number of sites that are competing for that phrase. Try to pick phrases that you realistically think you can compete on—ones that have a good amount of searches and fewer competitors.

Number of Pages in the Site

Search engines love content, especially fresh content. You should look for ways to add more content to your site. You can do this by adding a blog, white papers, and press releases. You can also add articles that you write or get free from such sites as www.ezinearticles.com.

Incoming Links

Your site will benefit from having good links coming into your site. An incoming link is like a vote for your site. But some of the votes count more than others. You can see how many sites are linking to your site by typing in the Google search bar: link:www.(yourdomainname), i.e. link:www.secondstorysolutions.com.

Internal Linking Strategy

Internal linking can provide great bounce to your optimization, especially if your site is very narrow in focus. The search engines see each page on your site was if it’s a standalone web site. So getting links from these other pages can count toward your incoming link total. The best way to do this is by having text links at the bottom of each page that go to as many pages as possible without looking silly. Try to use the keyword you’re going after in the text link, i.e., if one of your pages is about laser mirrors, then the text link should be Laser Mirrors.

Keyword Prominence

Keyword prominence means having your content as high as possible in the HTML code behind your web site. Try not to have a ton of lines of code that would hinder the search engines from getting to your content. Your web designer should be able to use some tricks to eliminate code, such as CSS and Javascript Includes.

Keyword Density

Keyword Density is how often the keywords you are concentrating show up in the content of your page. This where the art of SEO comes in. You need to write the content of your site to include the keywords as many times as possible without it sounding stilted or odd.

On-Page Title

Each page on your site should have a unique on-page title with your keywords included in it. The title should also be put within an <H1> tag.

Unique META tags

Each page on your site should also have unique header tags, which is the Title tag, META Description, and META Keywords. Be sure to include the keywords you are concentrating on the page in these tags. The META description should be written as a sentence since many of the search engines use the META Description when they display information on the search engine results page. A good Description can increase your increase your chances of having someone visit your site from the search engine results page.

Sitemap

Having a site map that has links to all the pages on your site is helpful for the search engines, as well as it aids usability for your visitors.

XML Sitemap Feed

An XML site is a way for you to tell the search engines about all the pages on your site in case they missed some of your pages when they indexed your page. You create an XML site map and then tell Google, MSN and Yahoo that the site map is up on your site. All three of the search engines are supporting the same format so you don’t have to create something different for each of them.

Age of the Domain Name

It normally takes 6-8 months for Google to index a site and start showing results. Search engines look more favorably on domain names that have been around longer. If you are creating a site from with a new domain name, you might consider buying a domain that has expired. You can find these at www.pool.com.

Alexa Ranking

If you want to see how you compare to other pages, go to Alexa.com and type in your domain name. It will show you how you rank compared to other web sites. The lower your number, the better. It’s also a good way to see how well your competitors are doing. If your site isn’t included, then you can submit it to them for inclusion.

Dave Carlson owns Green Chair Marketing Group, an Internet marketing firm in Denver, Colo., specializing in driving visitors to web sites by Denver search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, and web site design/redesign. Call 720-922-3124 or visit his web site at http://www.GreenChair.net.