 Preparing Your Website for
the Search Engines
Site Preparation:
Before we even begin to optimize your web pages we need to prepare your Website for the search engines. The
first step is to setup your analytics so we can begin to track where you are currently. This will
also enable us track our progress.
Next we setup Google Webmaster Tools. This lets us submit your sitemaps; track links back to your Website and
find any errors that may exist on your website like pages with the same titles and descriptions or missing
pages.
Next we setup a permanent redirect. Many webmasters are not aware that mysite.com and www.mysite.com are two
different Websites according to the search engines. If we don't redirect one to the other we will end up with a
duplicate content penalty from the search engines.
In my opinion the most important file on your Website is your robots.txt file. This file is the first thing a
search engine spider looks for when it arrives at your site. The robots.txt tells the search engine spider what
to look at, what not to look at and where your sitemap lives. If you don't have a robots.txt file, the search
engine doesn't like you from the get go.
The next most important file on your Website is your sitemap.xml. This file provides clear directions to each
page on your Website. Without this file you're taking a very big risk that your entire site will not be
indexed by the search engines.
Now that you're Website is prepared for the search engines to visit, it's time to make sure your site is
as error free as possible. We now review your web server's error log. If for any reason visitors to your
website are having trouble, it will show up here and most problems are easily corrected once we know they
exist.
Finally your Website is set to welcome the search engines. We now submit your site to the major directories
where it will be found by the search engines and they'll begin visiting the Website on a regular schedule.
On Page SEO:
On Page SEO always begins with choosing the right keyword phrases for each page. It is important to
realize that Websites are not linear. Visitors do not always enter from the home page and follow through the
Website page by page. This becomes very apparent as we review the Analytics pages and focus on the top landing
pages. Each page must have a theme that supports the other pages on the site and that theme will help us to
determine the correct keyword phrase for that page.
The keyword phrase we choose must have sufficient traffic without having a lot of competition. This
is far and away the most important step in On Page SEO and all else follows from here.
Once the keyword phrase is chosen we move on to the Title. When creating a title for the page we
look for something that will attract attention in the search engine results. Which would cause you to click? How to
Make Money or 5 Specific Steps to Earning Your First Million? The title must contain your keyword phrase as close
to the beginning as possible.
Next is the Description. The description also must contain the keyword phrase and again is must be
as close to the beginning as makes sense. What we are effectively doing with the Title and Description is creating
an advertisement that will appear in the search engine results that is enticing to click on.
At the beginning of the body of the page is the Header. Just like a magazine article needs a title,
so does our webpage. Once again the Header needs to contain the keyword phrase and it should be within the first
words of the Header. The Header is often the same as the Title but does not need to be.
Moving on to the body of the page, just as with the Title and Description the keyword phrase needs
to appear in the body text. Once in the first paragraph and again within the final paragraph. This will help to
support the theme of the page and of course help with the page rank in the search engine results.
It is a good idea to break up your body text with images or video. The more attractive your page is
the more traffic and backlinks you'll receive. It is important to take advantage of the alt tags on the images as
well. Describe the image with the alt text using as many keywords as appropriate. Don't just put the keyword phrase
but use it in your description of the image.
Following the above suggestions will go a very long way towards improving your search engine
ranking. If you would like our assistance, The Website Marketing Pro would be delighted to work through each of
these steps with you.
Off Page SEO:
When you hear "Off Page SEO" what it really means is acquiring backlinks to your Website. How many
other Websites are linking back to your Website? What is even a more important question is what text are they using
to link back to you. Here's an example of a backlink: Website Marketing this text links back to my Website to a page about Website
Marketing. When the Search Engine robots are traversing the web and find this page, my Website page receives a
"vote" for the keyword phrase Website Marketing. If there are one thousand links out on the web
all with the same keyword phrase linking back to the same page it becomes very clear that the Internet thinks this
page is a valuable resource for this keyword phrase. The more backlinks a page gets with the same or similar
keyword phrase the more credibility that page earns from the search engines for that keyword phrase and the higher
your page is ranked in the search engine results.
Building quality backlinks takes months if not years. I don't mean to be discouraging but this
is the real meat of SEO. On Page SEO accounts for about 30% of your position in the search engine
results and Off Page SEO accounts for about 70% so it's important to get this done correctly.
There is a lot written about how to acquire backlinks and much of it is just plain junk. I know
that because I've read everything I can find about acquiring backlinks. The higher the page rank of the page
linking back to you the more juice it carries so not only do you need backlinks, you need them from other authority
sites in your niche. Well gosh, how do I get backlinks from other authority sites? You earn them it's that simple.
You become an authority in your niche and others will link to you in droves. Want an example? Take a look at almost
any subject and the first listing in the search engine results will be Wikipedia. Why, because Wikipedia is
considered an authority by the search engines and has thousands of backlinks from thousands of Websites on
thousands of subjects.
While you're waiting for the Internet to find you and realize that you're an expert in your field,
there are several things you can do to begin building links but the easiest and most effective is to hire us to do
your Off Page SEO for you. We've got the experience to get the job done in the most
efficient and effective manner possible.
Ready to Start? CLICK HERE to contact us for your
free consultation.
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