CEO Corner - Can you just SEO my website? Part 5 (Final)

I know you business owners out there have heard the term SEO and that it stands for Search Engine Optimization.   Do you know what this really entails?  It's not voodoo and it's not some hidden stuff like mystery meat.   It is five components that if properly implemented build a solid foundation and the gives your site and opportunity to get some good search results.  A properly constructed site is an SEO'd site, thus is better and more friendly and this can lead to more revenues.  The fifth component is the actual  coding of your pages. This includes how they appear to the search engines, which includes title and 'meta' tags along with the technology that drives your pages.

First, let's talk tech. There are going to be a number of technologies that could be used to drive your website. If you have a database and content management system you might be using products such as .net, .asp, .cfm, or .jsp. The technology itself does itself affect SEO, but rather the page code developed with the technology that generates SEO'd content is the key.   No technology is better at generating the proper code, it is the hand of the programmer of the code and the tools that have been created to create the pages.  This may be some type of admin panel that lets you input your textual content,  mark up the text to include header or other specialty tags and then render the page.

The output of your web pages themselves are formatted using HTML and CSS.   These could be defined as page layout tools and style sheets.  It is with these specific functions that you perform what could be lightly termed the special sauce; added to your content, this does the final optimization of your web page.  Think of it as mama's special spices for her world class spaghetti.

Without rehashing too much regarding the actual text or content of the page which I discussed in a previous blog article, part 3 of this series, it is the application of html and css tags to that content that delivers that final SEO spice.  This is the use of specific markup tags that create headers,  sub headers, bold text, lists and much more.   All of these let you emphasize specific text such as with the header H1..H5 tags, it also creates logical sections and breaks up the text to make it more readable for your viewers.  So this performs multiple functions and that is SEO for the search engine spiders and SEO for the viewer. If your audience is engaged, reading, then they are more apt to follow your call to action.  Bolding words also lends more emphasis within paragraphs and large quantities of text. And hyperlinks, that are links to other pages within the content  of your site leading the user to more valuable information. Again all of these help SEO for the visitor whether it is a person or search engine spider.

As for CSS or Cascading Style Sheets, they allow you to manipulate components and the presentational characteristics of the html.  This includes the font size, face, weight among some of its variables.   One of the most overlooked features that css allows the developer to order the data in what is termed the final source code of the page.  The most important data of a page should be found near the top of the page just like the most important pages of a website are typically found near to or directly linked from the home page.  CSS allows the programmer to make sure the generated code of the page contains the most important text of the page near to the top of each page.   This is an oft overlooked capability afforded the programmer.

Finally, there are the meta tags. The primary tags are the title, technically not a meta tag, and the page description.  Each page needs a title, this is a keyword rich narrative regarding the content of the page. Very importantly, each page needs a unique title.   Each page should also have a meta page description. This is usually a more robust keyword rich narrative regarding the contents of the page.  Typically, the title and description tags are utilized by the search engines to show narrative in their search results.   So placing your keywords at or near the beginning of each of these tags is optimal.

In concluding this series of blog posts on SEO for the CEO, to truly optimize your website you must consider all five components: design, layout, content, page names and coding.  So to SEO your website, you have to have all of these completed properly.  So is your site truly optimized or is there some work that needs to get done?

CEO Corner - Can you just SEO my website? Part 4

Listen up CEOs and small business owners, you have heard the term, "SEO", you think you know what it is, but here is what it really means.  The SEOing of your website is to make sure it has a complete foundation for success and in my book there are 5 properly executed components to make this happen.   The fourth component is how your pages are named.   I have previously written about keywords and how you need them to determine the content that you write.  Now you know why each page is written to a topic or keyword because you can then name the webpage where this content appears the same as your keyword.

Now as you start looking at your website and see all the names of your pages and you come across your product pages and they all have a similar name such as products.something or other and some numbers and other cryptic characters don't get hostile and climb all over the web designer or person in your employee who is in charge of the site.  The fact is that there are a lot of shopping cart products that store and render your data in this manner but the name products certainly is not very descriptive in regard to the content contained on that specific page.   In years past, search engines did not give these types of pages much juice with respect to search results, but they have made adaptations and I will say with limited success.  Therefore, if you are looking to make true improvements to your website, look for ways in which you can name all your product pages the name of your product.   This is all about making your site the best it can be and giving it the best opportunity to succeed with obtaining quality search results.

A very good example of creating product pages and even category pages using keywords is www.CombatReels.com   This site sells DVD movies of World War II combat.  One category page is www.combatreels.com/101st_Airborne_Division.cfm    the keywords are 101st Airborne Division and World War II.  There are two products the first is on its own page www.combatreels.com/101st_Airborne_Division_Normandy_DVD.cfm  with keywords of '101st Airborne Division, Normandy, World War II'  and the second product www.combatreels.com/101st_Airborne_Division_Europe_DVD.cfm and its keywords '101st Airborne Division, Europe, World War II'.    So you see different levels of linked pages can share some keywords but have some differing words along with all the individual page content.

So how are your web pages named? I know you are checking this right now.

CEO Corner - Can you just SEO my website? Part 3

As a CEO or business owner, you have heard the term, SEO and you have an idea what that means.  But I will wager that my definition is not the same as yours.   My definition of true SEO is to have a website made up of 5 properly planned and designed components.

The third component of SEO is the content of the page; this includes the text and pictures.  As a business owner or CEO of a company have you looked at every page on your website?  I want you to think about the following when you do.  Is each page setup to address a specific topic and does it have a goal or call to action?  A lot of times some calls to action are in the design of the site or in a specific location on every page, but sometimes you need to put them in the content, whether it is text or images.

Before I architect a website or application I perform a few tasks that includes a survey and research. I determine some keywords that may be used for a particular website.  These could be product names, business classifications, industry names, services and much more.  I then research these to see which are the most popular and rank them. I also look for additional keywords that may be derivatives that have not been considered.   Enough text needs to be written on each and every keyword.  Pictures and graphics are very desirable to be obtained for each keyword to give a visual representation of that word or phrase.   You will probably find that you are using key phrases more than individual words, this is because most people search using them.  Your pages will have instances of the root word along with the phrases. 

For example, you might have a website that sells golf clubs.  You could end up with textual content that uses golf as the main keyword, golf clubs would be another and then subsets could include used golf clubs, new golf clubs, used 'manufacturer name' golf clubs and so on.   You can see where you can expand your website from a few pages to many more.  And you can do this fairly easily.  You don't want to put the same content on each page but it has to be devoted to a main keyword or phrase.  Without getting too deep in the weeds, a sub keyword page, i.e. used golf clubs would have a navigation (read part 2) link in the content to the 'golf clubs' page and vice versa.   This provides a lot of natural-like links throughout your whole website.   Have you ever looked a Wikipedia page? There are places for related topics and much more.  There are many ways to get your user to see that there is more content, make it easy for them to know that it is available.  It could also be argued that this method of constructing your text is for the search engines more than the user, but they and the users are your audience.  Do not forsake one for the other.

While the text of your website, its organization, quality and quantity is required to gain search engine traction, pictures add spice to the presentation.  We live in a visual society; users won't read all of your content.  But if you don't have pictures or compelling visuals, you probably won't keep their attention long, make them feel comfortable and thus stimulate them to act on your call to action.

So is your content really optimized?  And what of my other four components of building the optimized foundation for your web site?

CEO Corner - Can you just SEO my website? Part 2

As a CEO or business owner, you have heard the term, SEO and you have your own connotation of the word.   I am sure our definitions are not the same.  My definition of SEO is to have a website made up of 5 properly planned and designed components.

The second component of SEO is the layout of the pages with special attention to the navigation.  Is your site easy to use and navigate? Can somebody find what they want? Do you make them jump through a bunch of hoops to get somewhere?  Let me pose this question.  How long do you stay on a website if you have difficulties navigating around or finding what you want?  Not long I bet.  Your potential customers are probably not spending much time on your site if it falls in this category.

So how does layout become 'optimized' . If a site is difficult for a person to follow with our ability to think, adjust and reason then how do you think a computer program is going to do with that same website?  Oh but a computer can figure everything out you say.  A computer is programmed by a person and it can only think with limitations that the programmer placed in it; it does not have free thought.  Concluding me to say if it is easy for a user to navigate then it will be easy for a search engine spider to traverse and catalog your site.  Layout and ease of navigation do not end there.  You need to make sure your site has textual links that let the spider traverse your site.  In your layout you also want to make sure that if a user enters your site via the home page that they will go through a minimum number of clicks to get to important data.   This means that you want links near the top of your page for places of import.   So navigation is not just a menu listing of links, it is also links within content areas of each page.   Your text links must be descriptive whether they are menu items but also in content.

Let's assume that you may have four levels of pages on your website.   You do not want all of your navigation to go from one to four and back. You need links that will jump levels and move up and down between levels.    The overall design trends have pages with a lot of links at the bottom of pages and this trend may continue for some time; this may allow you to get more links on a part to other areas of your website, however you need to have links toward the top of your page to the most important parts of your site.

Another important area of layout is readability and esthetics.  Are there all colors of text, some that is hard to read, many different sizes and generally unorganized multiple topics that make anything hard to follow?   All of this translates into a potential client leaving your site; and quick.  If you have multiple products and information  you need to break everything up into manageable chunks or pages.  If you offer only one product and it's a impulse buy item you could make a informercial type of site all rolled into one very long web page, but that is the exception rather than the rule.  Most sites have to tell a story, provide information for a multitude of products or services thus they are going to need multiple pages and to those navigation and layout are part of the SEO process.

So is your site easy to navigate and readable? Who says so? Is it members of your staff, customers or have you gone out and had independent people evaluate  it?

CEO Corner - Can you just SEO my website? Part 1

I get this a lot from CEO's and business owners.  They know what the term "SEO" is; they know they want to optimize their site for the search engines, hence Search Engine Optimization.  But they think it is just some secret sauce and everything is just fine with their site. I hear, 'can't you just optimize what I have, do something like those meta things?'.  I have news for them , they are usually wrong about what SEO is really all about.

To get any traction in organic search results you must build the proper foundation; while this in itself does not guarantee top rankings, to do this with shortcuts or gimmicks will only impact your bottom line, negatively. Think wasting money for starters.   So while decisions have been made looking short term and within budget guidelines; you have hampered your ability to succeed and have lost time in the process.

The website is going to be your calling card online so why have you not given it a proper effort?

I know you rushed to get it out there, it was done by one of your buddies' friend of a friend, you got a 'great deal' and you planned on getting back to it for more later, but you have had other pressing items on your agenda and it has languished for months, years. And now you want to have it optimized.  But what does that really mean?
First,  I'll explain my definition of SEO as a website made up of 5 properly planned and designed components. These are not in any specific order of consideration or importance.  
1. physical design  or graphics of the site.

2. the layout of the pages with special attention to the navigation.
3. the content of the page; this includes the text and pictures.
4. how your pages are named.
5. the coding of the page; this includes how the page appears to the search engines, various 'meta' tags and the technology that drives your pages.

I will repeat this only once; if you don't do all 5 items then your site has not been properly optimized. Period.    
As with many other aspects of your business you plan, you budget and then you begin.  It should not be any different with your website.  So consider all the components and begin accordingly.

So how do I make sure I 'optimize' all of these five components?  Read on ...

Web Graphics and Design

There are a number of graphic file types used on web sites and they include .gif, .jpg, .avi, .png and many more.  We live in a visual world, so the design made up of the shapes and colors will capture the mind, impress the viewer and can even spur them to action.   The fast pace of business and society does not lend itself to reading, but the text that goes on the website is more crucial to getting search results than the graphical design of the site.  Think about it this way; text may get them there but it is the pictures and presentation that gets them to do something you want whether it is buy a product or call you, whatever your call to action may be.  More on text in another writing in this series.   But graphics themselves must be optimized and I mean that in a couple manners.  A page that is 100% graphical will create a large file size and render to the user's browser slowly creating a barrier to acceptance by this person.  A slow loading site also does not place you in good regard with the technology of the search engines.

A balance must be struck between a completely visual graphically website and just old text.  So the graphical design of your site must multi-task.  When the images are created they can individually be optimized to make them the smallest size in bytes and this will help them load faster.  A lot of smaller byte sized image will load faster than fewer but larger byte files.  Make sure your design and the graphics that make up your design are optimized.

Do you know how to determine that your graphics and design portion of your site has been optimized?