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How we Optimize Your Website
Top Search Engines Google 65.0% Yahoo 19.6% MSN/Bing 8.4% Ask.com 3.9% AOL 3.1%	How we Optimize Your Website Every website is different and certain things we do to some are not done to others. Steps 6-8 are only done at the request of the customer, although we will recommend them to you as we see fit. Below is an outline of our process that we use to get your website ranked as high as possible in the search engines. More information is available in your client center. Feel free to click on the gold links below to find out more information about the given topic. Step 1 - Keyword Research The first step in search engine optimization is researching the terms that your visitors are searching for. This is called "keyword research". There are many tools that SEOs use to determine which keywords they should optimize your website for. Each company has it's own system of doing this. At Altherr Web Design, we Brainstorm with the customer We start by making a list of terms that we think customers are searching for. This is done by asking customers and working with you to come up with the most accurate terms. Use keyword research tools These tools provide great lists of relevant keyphrases and estimates on how many people are searching each phrase. Analyzing competition and deciding which terms to use Once we have a good list of keyphrases, we perform searches on the major search engines to see how much competition is out there for each of these keyphrases. There's an algorithm applied, by us, to the results of our test that give us a number, called the "KEI". The KEI is based on the number of searches, competition, length of keyphrase, etc. This basically tells us the difficulty of optimizing that term. Step 2 - Website Accessibility There are many things that we do when we start working on the actual code of your website. We will give you a short list of examples of some of the things that we look for and correct to make sure your site is the best it can be for when the search spiders are ready to crawl your website. We view your domain registration length and age of your domain We check to see if your site has been banned previously We take a look at your hosting company to check its reliability We make sure your code is valid and can be properly displayed across all web browsers. We use the website validator at w3.org We canonicalize your url with the use of .htaccess redirects and absolute linking within your pages We make sure your site doesn't have any broken links We check filenames to make sure they're optimized as much as possible. For example, by using keywords and hyphens We check your navigation menus to make sure they're not done with Flash, Javascript or other scripting languages that aren't indexed by the search engines We use CSS to keep the existing style of your website, while making it more search engine friendly with the use of basic html tags Step 3 - On-Page Optimization After figuring out what keyphrases that we will be optimizing your website for, we need to add the keyphrases to your website. There are many places that we can add these tags, but we don't ever want to over-optimize and be seen as spammy to the search engines. Usually, the rule is, if it doesn't read correctly to a human then it's not going to look right in the eyes of the search engines. Here is a list of examples that we may add keyphrases to your page Title Tags Meta Description Tag Meta Keywords Tag Heading Tags (h1,h2,etc.) Image Alt Tags Link Title Tags Internal Link Anchor Text Website Content Bolded and Italicized Text Step 4 - Using Free Services Offered by the Search Engines There are many free tools that webmasters can use to help the search engines and gain more control over what, and how, we want the search engines to view and index our website. Here is a list of some of the things that we do for all of our SEO clients to make sure that they are taking advantage of all of the tools and information that are out there. We create XML sitemaps for all of our websites and submit these to Google Webmaster Central, Yahoo! Site Explorer and Bing Webmaster Center We use a robots.txt file on your website to control where the search engines can crawl and what they can index and include in their search results. We use meta tags to be sure that the search engines use the descriptions that we want them to use in the search results We use Local listings that sometimes appear above the organic search results in Google, Yahoo! and Bing. We also optimize your local listings and verify them by having the search engines either call you or send you a postcard in the mail We feed products of our e-commerce websites, that have products available to purchase online, to the search engines monthly using XML files. Like the local listings, these results sometimes appear within the organic search results We submit your website for inclusion in Google, Yahoo! and Bing Step 5 - Link Building We submit your website to online directories for one-way links We encourage you to create linkbait (top 10 lists, free tools, etc.) to get bloggers and other websites linking to your website We offer affiliate programs to our e-commerce websites to get other partner websites linking to you We analyze your competitors and request links from websites that are linking to them We request reciprocal links from websites that can offer content or services to both parties involved We submit press releases to websites that allow backlinks to be included We submit original articles to article directories that allow backlinks to be included We use "social bookmarking" sites, such as Digg, Del.icio.us and Technorati We "blog and ping" on websites that have blogs such as Wordpress installed on them Step 6 - Pay-Per-Click Advertising For an additional fee, we help your company take advantage of pay-per-click advertising on the top search engines and also area yellow page websites. These pay-per-click ads are easy to create and manage and we can control where and how often they are placed in the search engine result pages. The good thing about pay-per-click advertising is that you only pay for people clicking on the ads and coming to your website. The worst thing abou the pay-per-click advertisements are the high cost, since the price is driven by your compeititors in a "highest bid" format. Step 7 - Using Other Websites to Drive Traffic Although this isn't exactly under the search engine optimization category, it is a very useful method of internet marketing. We use other popular, established websites to list your products and services. Here's a small list of some examples of websites that it may make sense for your website to be listed at. Angie's List - Used to find reliable contractors based on your customers ratings and feedback Wikipedia - Contribute to the open source community using content from your website Craigslist - list free ads for products or services Ebay & Amazon - Sell products online and build a reputation Step 8 - Advanced Marketing Techniques Social Web Marketing The biggest thing on the internet at the moment are "socail" websites. Your business can take advantage of social websites, create a following, offer discounts and keep your subscribers informed about what's new with your company. Below are links to two of the most popular social websites on the internet. Facebook - build a community of fans of your company Twitter - build a list of followers that want to stay informed with your company Email Marketing A great way to reach your existing customer base is with emails. We use Constant Contact for our email marketing campaigns. With the ease of the built in opt-in and opt-out system and creation of emails, we can teach our clients how to use this simple, yet powerful, email marketing program. There's no better audience to promote a new product to than customers who have already purchased products on your website before or those who offer their email address to you when they come to your website. Community Involvement The more you get your name out there, the more you appear to others to be the expert in your field. When a potential customer sees your name all over the internet, they build up a trust and will look to you for advice and opinions. Below is a list of examples that we can do on your behalf to make you seem like the authority when it comes to your products, services or industry. Comment on Industry Blogs Comment on Industry Forums & Message Boards Provide help on Q&A Sites, such as Yahoo! Answers Start blogging Step 9 - Tracking Results Google Analytics accounts are set up on all websites that we optimize. We look at the information in these reports to make sure that we are optimizing for the best keyphrases. Sometimes our keywords aren't bringing in the highest possible conversion rates, so we look at our reports and decide if there are addtional keyphrase that we need to be targeting. Using this approach, we are able to figure out what works and what doesn't. Some of the things we track are Number of visitors Number of pageviews The source of the traffic The conversion rate of visitors taking actions on your website (filling out forms, purchasing products, etc.) Step 10 - Reporting We use the client center, on the backend of this website, to communicate with our customers. We show you what we've done to your website and keep you updated on your rankings, traffic reports, directory submissions, etc. If you have any other questions or are having a hard time finding the information that you're looking for, feel free to contact us.
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