Is your website worthless?
Ok, so you do know that a site without optimization is worthless! Do you? Just like a beautiful garden that no one sees: a site without proper setup for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will not be found by the Search Engines – PERIOD. Thus, it is useless.
Visitors find your site mainly by searching. This search takes place on the major Search Engine Sites such as Google (about 75% of all searches), Bing or Yahoo.
Remember though: All Social Media Platforms are also Search Engines! Deep down you know it but you most probably have never thought about it. Think about the #hashtag on Twitter or the Facebook Search that is located prominently on top of their site – smack in the middle. Or what about Youtube …. only search RIGHT!
How to check your website?
- Title
The TITLE is one of your most important features to show the Search Engines what your site is all about. You can see it on top of your browser.
TIP: If you see something like this: Home – “your website name” (see image #1 below) or Welcome – “your website name” chances are nothing has been done.
How NOT to do it!
See the examples below how it should look. Your keywords should be listed here.
- Description
Right click on your website and then click on “Show Source” (works for Safari, Chrome and Firefox). You will see a lot of code. Search for: meta name=”description”. The description should hold your keywords (preferably those that are in the title) and has to be written in full “flowing” sentences. - Different Titles/Descriptions for individual pages
Check all your pages, they should have different titles and descriptions adjusted to the individual pages’ content. Some programers just get lazy and add the same keywords for all pages. - Links
Your website should have multiple “internal” links, meaning links to other pages on your site (i.e. on homepage: “be sure to visit our tinting services page”). If you can, use your keywords and link only those (like in the example above).
“External” or “Backlinks/Crosslinks” links are also (still) important. The search engines see links form other sites to your site as positive and relevant, but …. use the same method as above (only link the keywords and avoid to link Click Here (i.e. For the best New York Real Estate please click here ). By the way the bigger the website you link form the more relevance your backlink will have. So if you can get a link from target.com’s homepage, you will have a very high quality backlink.
TIP: use this tools to check links from other sites to yours: http://moz.com/researchtools/ose - Analytics
Your site should have some kind of analytics program installed. One of the most common and free tools is Google Analytics. This way you can check 24/7 what is happening on your site: Who visits it, how long, which pages and …. you guessed it: Which keywords have been used to search your site. Check those keywords and see if they correspond with the ones you selected. If not it is time to rethink and vice versa: found keywords that you have not thought of? Cool use those instead. - Social Media / Blogging
Last but definitely not least! Google is moving towards “Content & Context” searches. This means: the more you post and the more your clients/customers/viewers/readers/fans interact with your brand/organization the more credit your searches will get. This means:
– use your keywords, also on the social media
– link to your web presences (mix it up) wherever you can (remember backlinks ↑)
– add content to the web whenever you can
These tips should give you some firepower with your webmaster. Ask them these questions to probe their knowledge and involvement. Have em change/add the above tips, if necessary or “STAY UNNOTICED”.
“This is all to much for me – please help me now!”: Search Engine Optimization Help –>
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