What is SEO and how can it help you and your business?

Search engine optimization has long been something of a “black art”. Business owners would pay thousands of dollars per month for mysterious activities that would result in fleeting results at best. Often these were attempts to exploit holes in Google’s algorithms that were quickly closed by Google. Business owners were left with big bills and poor rankings.

At Website Design & SEO, we think search engine optimization services can be explained in great detail and purchased with confidence. We believe in sharing exactly what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and being held accountable for the results.

The search engine optimization process can be broken into three steps:

1. Picking the right keywords/phrases to optimize for
2. Performing “on page” changes to help search engines navigate and rank the site
3. Performing link building activities to generate one way backlinks using the keywords/phrases as the anchor text

Picking keywords and phrases

The most important decision for the search engine optimization process is the selection of the “right” keywords and phrases to optimize for.

There is a cost associated with each target, so you want to pick the ones that will give you the best return on that investment. Things to consider include the overall search volume for that term (it does no good to rank for something that no one searches for), the level of competition for that term (obviously, the less competing pages there are…the easier it is to get higher rankings. In addition, some sites are better optimized than others and are harder to compete with), and the level of “consumer intent” from the typical searcher who uses this term (it also does no good to rank for a term that doesn’t result in sales).

If we were the ones that created your site we would have already done this for you for free.

There are a number of different data sources to pull from that can help narrow the field down.

• Pay per click results – This data can be very meaningful. It can quickly provide you with search volumes, level of competition, and (if conversion tracking is done properly) the “money makers” that show which keywords and phrases are actually generating sales.
• Log/statistics analysis – This data shows how current customers are finding your site. It’s useful in finding good candidates for keyword targets. However, other sources need to be used to analyze search volume, competition, and consumer intent.
• Competitor research – Analyzing your competitors’ sites can generate many potential keyword targets. If you find which terms your competitors have invested their SEO efforts in, it’s logical to assume that these may have great search volume and commercial intent. As with log data, other tools must be used to analyze each target’s potential.

On page optimization

The actual site contents don’t count nearly as much any longer for search engine rankings, but is done wrong it can hurt you. There are a few things to be concerned about and they are quickly identified and corrected (if needed).

Some of the on page factor that we look at:

• URL
• Title Tag
• Meta Description
• Headings (<H1>, <H2>, etc. tags)
• Anchor Text
• Keyword density
• And more…

Link building (Off Page SEO)

The single largest impact you can have on search engine rankings is through one way backlinks with the appropriate anchor text. After choosing the keyword targets, our process focuses on massive link building campaigns from many different sources.

We focus each campaign on 3 keywords (1 high level of competition, and 2 lower levels). Multiple campaigns can be run in parallel. Each campaign results in approximately 250-500 links per month, sometimes quite a bit more. These links are developed from the following sources:

• Article Marketing – 4 articles written and submitted every month builds thousands of links with optimized “anchor text” . In addition, our service is unique in that every copy of the article is “unique content” in the eyes of Google. The majority of services out there post the same copy of the article everywhere. Google automatically ignores most of these with their “duplicate content penalty” Monthly Goal: 300 – 600 links

• Forum postings done by hand – Forum posts are made by humans on related web forums where links can be placed in the body of the message or the signature. Monthly goal: 10 links
• Blog comments done by hand – Blog comments posted on other people’s blogs where links can be placed in the comments directly, or the signature. Monthly goal: 10 links

• Directory submissions done by hand – I have my own select list of directories that are free to post to, and have resulted in influencing search engine rankings. Monthly goal: 10 links
• Social Bookmarking – Social bookmarking using sites like Stumble and Delicious. I get other people to bookmark your site resulting in links. Monthly Goal: 15 links

• High PR link – Direct text link from a page that is page rank 4 or higher. Monthly Goal – 1 Link

• And much, much more!!!

In addition, we perform a detailed analysis of the top 10 competitors for each keyword target. This results in other link targets that are pursued one by one. For example, we may discover that 6 of the top 10 sites are members of the Yahoo Directory (which is often the case), so we will pursue a directory listing (this is a paid directory and that fee is not included in our service). We may also uncover a niche site (real estate agents directory for a real estate company for example) that seems to have links in common with many of the top 10 sites. We will put a plan together to obtain those kinds of links as well.