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About the Author
Shirley Kaiser
Shirley Kaiser owns SKDesigns, a company focused on creating visually appealing web sites that are based on web standards and universal accessibility, and are optimized for speed and search engines. Aside from her web work, Shirley is a professional musician with Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Master of Arts (M.A.) degrees in Piano Performance.
The Ultimate SEO Checklist
Optimizing your web site for search engines should be an integral part of your web site project, from the very beginning to the very end. Search engine optimization (SEO) should be considered, and if possible, implemented, throughout the planning, design, development, and maintenance stages of your web site.
The checklists in this chapter of Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists can be used as a guide to optimize your web site for search engines. You can download this checklist, along with others that cover content management and site testing, for use in your own projects. However, it will definitely pay you to subscribe to some helpful SEO newsletters, visit web sites that cover the latest on SEO, and consider purchasing books by highly regarded SEO/SEM experts, such as The Search Engine Marketing Kit, by Dan Thies (Melbourne: SitePoint Pty. Ltd., 2005).
You will see the results of your work first-hand if you consider SEO right from the start. For example, at the time of this book's publication, my own site is the number one listing on Google for its keywords, and has consistently remained within the top three (unsponsored) listings on the first page of Google and other search engines for several years. Yes, SEO is important, but more than that, it's rewarding! Let's get started.
Successful SEO in a Nutshell
Plan your web site's SEO before you create the site.
It's important to create your web site with SEO in mind. Changing a web site, or potentially even redesigning your web site, to optimize it for search engines can end up being an expensive proposition. Plan to create a search engine-friendly web site from the start.
Ensure that every page includes text, links and popularity components that will help boost your search engine rankings. (Shari Thurow, "Before You Build" in Search Engine Visibility (Indianapolis: New Riders Publishing, 2002), 20.)
Employ other means to market your web site.
In addition to SEO, consider paid submission programs, PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, reciprocal links campaigns, and advertising your site on others. Depending on your budget, you might consider advertising through traditional media, such as newspapers, magazines, radio, and television.
Working with Keywords and Keyphrases
Research keywords and keyphrases (multi-word phrases) before you create your web site.
It's important to create your web site with keywords and keyphrases in mind and to put them in place as you develop the pages and content.
Target keyphrases rather than single keywords.
Single keywords are much more commonly entered by web users, which makes them more difficult to target effectively than multi-word keyphrases. Unless the single keywords are highly unique, your best results will be achieved using keyphrases.
Use longer words and plurals.
If you target plural versions of your keywords or phrases, you'll get hits from people searching for the singular and plural versions of those words.
Use that Thesaurus!
As part of your brainstorming for appropriate keywords and keyphrases, try using a thesaurus to find similar words. There are helpful thesauri online (you might start at Thesaurus.com), but see also the Search Term Suggestion Tool, and Wordtracker.
Focus on a few specific keyphrases for each web page.
Pages that rank well in search engines tend to focus on specific keyphrases that usually appear in the HTML <title> element, <heading> elements, breadcrumb navigation links, product names and descriptions, and cross-links. (Shari Thurow, Top Five SEO Design Mistakes, ClickZ (September 27, 2004).)
Create keyphrase-rich text content, especially for your homepage.
Identify the top two or three keyword phrases that potential visitors would use to find your web site, then write 200–250 words of homepage text that utilizes those keyword phrases—not the other way around. Follow this approach as you create content for other web pages, too. As noted above, keep in mind that titles and headings are considered more important than other content by some search engines, so consider this as you optimize your content. We'll discuss the topic of optimizing your markup for search engines in just a moment.
Include keyword and keyphrase research in your ongoing web site SEO maintenance plan.
Using Keywords and Keyphrases in your Markup
Search engines use a page's structural markup as a guide to rank the relative importance of its content. It's important to include keywords and keyphrases within your web pages—especially your homepage—and to place them within certain markup elements. Providing content that is relevant to your target audience will, naturally, help your search engine rankings, especially if you intentionally make strategic use of appropriate keywords and keyphrases. Use the checklist below to help.
Include keywords and keyphrases in your site's information architecture.
Keyword and keyphrase research results can play an important role in the words and phrases you use within your web site's information architecture. For instance, you might use keywords and keyphrases in your global and local navigation, your category labels, page <title> element text, <heading> element text, and internal links.
Using these terms in conjunction with the checklists from Chapter 5, Web Site Usability: Focusing on the User and Chapter 7, Information Architecture not only helps your web site visitors find information more readily-it helps your site achieve good search engine ranking, too!
Use focused keyphrases within each web page's <title> element.
Currently, creating keyphrase-rich text for your web page <title> element is critically important, because nearly all search engines give the <title> element's text a lot of weight. Create each page's <title> element text to reflect the specific content of that page, using keyphrases that people might type into search engines to find your web site.
Use your keyphrases within each web page's <meta description> element.
Note that many search engines, including Google, Yahoo!, Inktomi, and others, index and use the text within the <meta description> element; for instance, some use it as description text for display in search results. However, they don't use the text for search engine rankings at this point. Also, they largely ignore other <meta> elements, including the <meta keyword> element. While there's no guarantee that it will help improve your rankings, it's still worthwhile to include the <meta description> element in your web pages as shown below. (Jill Whalen, The Meta Description Tag, High Rankings (updated October, 2004).)
<head>
<meta name="Description" content="Add your descriptive sentence or two here." />
</head>
Use your focused keyphrases within the page's <heading> elements, beginning with the <h1> element.
Keep <h1> Close to <body>
The closer that you can locate your keyphrase-loaded <h1> element content to the opening <body> element tag, the better. Some search engines will give a close proximity between the two a higher rating—it appears to the search bot that the content is important enough to earn itself a high-level heading, and that content appears early in the document. In addition, content that's placed closer to the top of the page is also considered more important by many search engines, so make sure your top 200–250 words are packed with keyphrase-rich content.
Use your focused keyphrases within link URLs and corresponding title attributes.
Here's an example:
<a href="/design/checklists/" title="Essential web site
Checklists: Best Practices Made Easy">Essential web site
Checklists</a>
Keywords and Domain Names
Although some Search Engine Marketers believe that placing keywords in domain names can provide a significant boost to sites, others feel it doesn't really do much. According to SEO expert Jill Whalen, keywords in domain names might be afforded a small amount of weight by the search engines, but only when other site owners link to the web site using its domain name, rather than the web site title. The result is similar to having keyword- or keyphrase-rich links, which is indeed helpful. Another SEO expert, Shari Thurow, also feels that other factors have much more impact than the inclusion of keywords in a domain name, such as keyphrase-rich content, links, and the site's popularity. (Jill Whalen, Search Engine Marketing Q&A, High Rankings Advisor, Issue 091 (March 24, 2004); Shari Thurow, Search Engine Visibility (Indianapolis: New Riders Publishers, 2002), 20.)
Use relevant keyphrases within your img element alt attributes.
Here's an example:
<img src="/images/checklists.jpg" alt="Essential web site
Checklists: Best Practices Made Easy, my kit with essential,
helpful checklists for web site designers and web site
owners" />