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Simplified SEO For Small
Business - TEXT!
Small business webmasters often believe search engine
optimization is a complex and mysterious art that they must
struggle to understand and master. It couldn't be further from
the truth. SEO is basic and simple - TEXT.
As a search engine optimizer, I'm faced daily with the errors of
well-meaning webmasters who have unknowingly done their best to
hide their site and its topic from the search engines. They do
this by naming image files with numbers or word fragments
unrelated to the image. They have splash page with an image
named "product.gif" containing no "Alt" tags, no text and a link
to their inside page named "intro.html" which is full of images!
Even if you use the most basic of web authoring soft- ware, SEO
can be built in to your site simply by naming your HTML files
with important keyword phrases, naming the image directory with
more important keyword phrases dropping those same keyword
phrases into headlines and body text. Oh, and let's do have body
text of at least 500 words. Many site owners seem to believe
that a few product photos and a nice looking logo will suffice.
Wrong. You must have text using keyword phrases within your site
or the search engines have no way of knowing what those products
or services *are* that you sell.
Text is all that the search engines have to determine what your
site is about. Text in your metatags, text in your headline,
text in your body copy, text in image filenames and text in your
domain name and directory names. SEO is all about words on the
page NOT images of words in gorgeous graphics created by your
designer and displayed in IMAGES of words in fancy fonts. This
includes those menu links from image maps and buttons.
I have a new client whose resort has been positively written up
in dozens of national magazines. I was glad to see links to
those articles within their site until I clicked on one and got
an IMAGE of the magazine page instead of text from the
magazines. Many magazines do not allow reproducing their content
without licensing, but all allow a limited quote with
attribution along with links from the quote to the article on
their site.
Those quotes would serve as dramatic testimonials for the client
and there are dozens of important keyword phrases in those rave
reviews that would be good stuff for both the search engines and
the site visitors. Even if there were only one paragraph from
each of the dozen great reviews on a single page, that TEXT
would be just what the search engine doctor ordered. This will
be our first move in working with this new client.
I've got another client that sends out press releases on a
regular basis discussing their latest partnership or new
product. These press releases are chock full of keyword phrases
and important industry lingo and buzz- words. The catch? They
distribute these press releases as PDF files and serve them to
visitors via FTP, which essentially hides them from the search
engines! Their partners then distribute them via FTP as well
because that is how they received it. This strategy cheats my
client out of links from their partners because those press
releases are NOT posted as HTML pages anywhere!
The thing that I always emphasize to new clients is that search
engines read text that appears on their web page only. Search
engines don't *read* images or pretty graphics, they can only
make assumptions based on those image *names* and the image
"alt" tags. Try doing an image search at Google for "logo" and
see what you get! Now try an image search for common words to
compare the filenames used to describe those images. Search for
any number combination and you'll see how common numbers are as
image filenames.
Try another *image* search for keyword phrases that are
important to your industry and I'll wager that is your
competition. If you take an extra step and review the filenames
in the URL that appear directly below those results describing
where that keyword named image turns up. I'll bet the
competitors who are tops in non image searches for similar
important keyword phrases use those phrases in image filenames,
directory names and domain names. I've had clients that get
their site redesigned soon *after* I've done site optimization
who come back to me asking why their search engine rankings
dropped. Inevitably their site designer has not only used word
fragments or numbers as image and page filenames, but removed
hyperlinks from important keyword phrases in body text, text
that was maintained at our instruction. Text hyperlinks are
another important ingredient to SEO that designers dislike
because it changes text colors in order to help visitors know
it's hyperlinked phrase.
Although designers and search engine optimizers rarely work
together, they should be required to. Even though the SEO's job
would simply be to type keyword phrases in the "save as" box
because designers won't do it on their own. If a copywriter is
hired, they should work with the SEO as well, although the SEO's
job would be only to convince the copywriter that it's OK,
indeed is necessary, to use keyword phrases more than a single
time. Copywriters don't like repeating themselves and often
pride themselves on saying the same thing in various creative
ways. Search engines don't yet fully support using a thesaurus
to determine page content.
WordTracker: Keyword Analysis Tool - FREE Trial
We cannot stress enough how powerful a tool and how helpful
WordTracker has been in assisting us and our clients in
achieving top search engine rankings and finding the niches to
generate the targeted traffic necessary to compete successfully
in very competitive markets.
You can try WordTracker for FREE
at:
http://inf-inet.com/wordtracker
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