The Ultimate SEO Checklist

Avoiding Being Banned by Search Engines

Search engines will ban web sites that try to improve their rankings artificially, so it's important not to do anything accidentally that even hints at trying to fool them. Use the checklist below to help you avoid any misunderstandings between your web site and the search engines.

Use genuine SEO methods.

Don't even think about trying to play tricks on the search engines to improve your rankings! You run a good chance of having your web sites banned from their search results.

Avoid cloaking.

Cloaking is an artificial technique that malicious users employ to deliver to search engines content that's not delivered to web site visitors. ("What is cloaking?" in Google Information for Webmasters, Google.com (no date).) Some web sites try to trick search engines by delivering specific content that only the search engines will see. There are many debates around the Web about what the term "cloaking" does or doesn't cover; for instance, some question whether or not using CSS to hide content from web site visitors, or using JavaScript sniffing to serve different content to specific search engines than is served to web site visitors, is cloaking.

Avoid using doorway pages or domain names used for doorways.

Doorway pages, or domain names used for doorways, are web pages or domain names that are stuffed with keyphrases and submitted to search engines.

Avoid stuffing keywords into comment tags or <img> element <alt> attributes.

Content in comment tags offers no benefit at all, and the image <alt> attribute should only be used as a text alternative for an image.

Avoid using JavaScript or <meta-refresh> redirects to try to trick search engines.

Often, search engines won't index pages that use JavaScript or <meta-refresh> redirects because, historically, so many web sites used them to trick search engines. So even if you want to use these techniques without trickery in mind, avoid doing so! Otherwise, your web site may be banned from search engines by mistake. Some argue that these techniques fall under the definition of cloaking, but regardless of whether or not you agree with that opinion, it's better to avoid using JavaScript or <meta-refresh> redirects.

Getting Listed

Getting your web site listed on search engines, other web sites, and directories is an important goal, but even more important is identifying the right time to do so, to which engines you should submit your site, and which pages you should submit. Doing some careful research and preparation will help make the submission process smoother and more efficient, and will help you achieve better results in the long run. Use this checklist as your guide.

Submit your web site to search directories only after initial SEO is complete and content has been finalized.

Submit your web site to search directories only after your web site is live and has been tested for broken links.

Research each directory or search engine and its categories individually, read each directory or engine's FAQ, and follow instructions precisely before submitting your web site.

The mistakes that are all too easily made during the submission process are very difficult to change later, and can potentially cost you dearly. These errors can greatly affect the likelihood that search engine crawlers will find your site.

Research the best description to use for each search directory before you submit.

Search each directory for your most important keywords. Study the categories of results, and descriptions, and base the style of your description on those of web sites that have already been accepted in that particular directory. In addition, if a directory doesn't have a category for your business type, consider suggesting a category that's similar to those already in the directory.

Ensure your unique selling description is also included in your directory description.

Even though your description should resemble the description style of other web sites that have been accepted by that particular directory, make sure your description is unique. For example, include specific services or products that you offer, and mention your target audience.

Write several descriptions of varying lengths to copy/paste into submission forms.

Each directory has different requirements in the number of words allowed in a web site description. Write several descriptions within a plain text file that you can copy/paste into the submission forms as appropriate. Include descriptions with seven, ten, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 50 words.

Ensure your most important keywords are in every description, but avoid keyword stuffing.

Make sure your web site's most important keywords are in every description, but don't stuff too many keywords into it! Directory editors don't like descriptions that basically read like a list of keywords.

Consider paid or expedited submissions as a way to have your web site listed more quickly.

The sooner you can have your web site listed in search directories, the sooner your web site can receive referrals from those search engines. Using paid or expedited submissions is one way to help speed up the process of having your web site listed, and can sometimes make the wait as short as a day or two. It's important to note that paid inclusion doesn't typically guarantee high placement. Be sure to do your homework, and be sure to read quality SEO/SEM web sites and helpful books, such as Dan Thies's The Search Engine Marketing Kit, cited earlier. (See also Danny Sullivan, Buying Your Way In: Search Engine Advertising Chart, Search Engine Watch (November 22, 2004).)

Submit your homepage to search directories before submitting other web pages.

Submit other pages, particularly those on specialized topics, once your homepage is listed.

You'll have a better chance of having your other web pages, particularly those on specialized topics, accepted for different categories once your web site's homepage is listed at that directory.

Submit your web site manually to search directories, rather than using automated submission software.

Search engine crawlers, including Google, advise against using automated submission software. (Google Information for Webmasters Google (2005).)

Automated Software Violates some Terms of Service
Note that some automated software violates the terms of service of many search engines and directories, so before you consider using any automated software for your search submissions, to check link popularity, or to check rankings, read the terms of service for each search engine and directory to ensure that you don't violate the rules.

Submit your web site to search directories such as Yahoo!, DMOZ, JoeAnt, and Gimpsy.

Listings with major directories are critically important to the success of crawlers from search engines such as Google finding your web site.

Avoid over-submitting.

Check to see if your web site is already listed on the search engine, and don't submit it again if it is listed. It's important to follow up and keep good records of your submissions, acceptance, listings, and rankings.

Use a robots.txt file and the <meta> element <robots> attribute to denote content that you don't want indexed.

You might have web pages, images, sound files, or other content that you don't want to have indexed. If so, you can specify that those files should be ignored in a robots.txt file that is saved to your server's root directory. Here's an example of a robots.txt file that instructs Google not to index images, and tells all search crawlers not to index the procedures directory, on the MyByz.com web site:

# robots.txt for http://mybyz.com/  
# exclude images from Google  
# see http://www.google.com/remove.html#images  
User-agent: Googlebot-Image  
Disallow: /images  
# exclude specific areas from all search engine crawlers  
# (in this case, a directory containing procedural files  
User-agent: *  
Disallow: /procedures

You can also include the <meta> element <robots> attribute on specific pages. For example, if you had a page that you didn't want to have indexed, but you did want the spider to follow the links on that page to other pages, you'd add the following instruction to your page's markup:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow" />

Ignoring the <robots> Attribute and robots.txt Files
Note that not all search crawlers will honor <meta> element <robots> attributes or robots.txt files, but many will (including the most-used engine of all, Google), so these techniques are definitely worth using, if needed.

Creating an Ongoing Links Campaign

All major search engines place a lot of importance on a web site's overall link popularity. Highly-ranked web sites that link to yours can help boost your own site's ranking. Use the checklist below to help you plan and manage your web site's incoming and outgoing links.

Provide ongoing, link-worthy content.

If you provide quality content at your web site, other web sites will link to it, often without you even asking.

Provide plenty of outbound links to web sites that you recommend.

Ask other web site owners to consider linking to your web site or exchanging links.

Don't Abuse Forums
Avoid posting on forums solely to create links to your web site. The forum owners will see right through your tactics, and you'll likely lose all credibility. Such tactics would probably also cause other site owners to avoid linking to your web site legitimately. If you're serious about building links to your web site, create great content that others will want to link to, and don't hesitate to email other web site owners to ask if they'd be willing to link to your site.

If any URLs change at your web site, be sure to inform those who link to it.

Keeping these other sites and site owners informed will help them, as well as your web site, to find and link to your current, live web pages, rather than maintaining old, dead links. Remember that it's important to use server-side redirects to the new URLs, as noted above.

SEO Takes Work
When it comes to optimizing your web site for search engines, there is no one single, magic solution. It takes time and patience to achieve high rankings, but you can work to boost your search engine rankings by following tips from SEO industry experts, using the checklists above, and remaining diligent about optimizing and promoting your web site. Don't use artificial techniques.

Planning for Ongoing Maintenance

Follow up every four to five weeks with search engines and directories to ensure that your web site is listed.

If you don't find your web site listed at a particular directory within four to five weeks, go ahead and resubmit.

Track your Submissions
It's critically important to keep track of the dates of your submissions to each directory, along with the details of the categories to which you've submitted, and the descriptions and title content you used.

Contact a directory representative if you don't find your web site listed at a directory after three submissions.

Check your server logs regularly to see how visitors find your web site and adjust your web site accordingly.

You might need to do some tweaking to improve your rankings. You might also write new content with new keywords and keyphrases to support, or shift, your search rankings.

Add announcements about, and links to, new content from your homepage, to help web site visitors and search crawlers find it.

Add new keywords and keyphrases to your SEO strategies when you add new content or make other changes to your site.

If you've already optimized your web site, search crawlers will find your new content, especially if you link to that content from your homepage, as noted above.

Consider using analytics software to review keyphrases, search engine rankings, and listings status.

Web analytics software, such as Web Position Gold, can help track top entry pages, top referring sites, top referring URLs, top search engines, top search keywords and keyphrases. You don't necessarily have to pay for expensive statistics software, though: free services, such as Extreme Stats, provide much of this information, although in using many of these services you are obliged to display on your site a graphical links to the stats, which makes them available to all your site visitors.

Use the results of keyphrase analysis to add to your web site content that visitors seek.

Avoid making changes to your site's SEO tactics for at least three months after you optimize the site and submit it to search directories.

It takes time for your web site submissions to begin to appear at search engines and directories—it can often take two to three months or more, especially if you have a new site. (Jill Whalen, Robots Meta Tag – Changing Domain Names, High Rankings Advisor Issue 137 (April 20, 2005).) Try to be patient! Consistently high rankings take time.

Avoid constantly tweaking your web site in an attempt to improve your search engine rankings.

As I mentioned above, it takes time for your tweaked pages to show up at the search engines, so you'll need to wait to see how your pages are doing. After you've given your rankings plenty of time to filter through, if you decide you need to tweak any pages, wait to see what impact those tweaks have before making more changes. Time and patience are an important part of SEO success.

Check your link popularity at search engines regularly.

Many web sites will link to yours without letting you know, and in addition to checking your referral logs, using search engines to find web sites that link to yours can be an easy way to find such sites. This information can help you ascertain and follow the efficacy of your reciprocal links campaign.

Checking Incoming Links
You can enter special queries at each search engine to check for web sites that link to yours. For example, at Google's search box, type:

Keep in mind that only those web sites listed at a particular search engine will appear in that search engine's query results.

Depending on the industry, consider creating a calendar of keywords and keyphrases for future reference.

In some industries, the popularity of given keywords can fluctuate throughout the year. Site owners operating in such industries might find it worthwhile to keep a calendar that lists which keywords and keyphrases are popular at different times of year.

Summary

This chapter covered the steps involved in optimizing your web site for search engines. The basic principles of successful search engine optimization (SEO) were explained in a nutshell, and were followed by checklists that showed how to research, prepare, and use keywords and keyphrases within your content and markup.

We also discussed checklists that showed how to create crawler-friendly markup, and how to avoid tricking crawlers. We highlighted in general terms the techniques that could see your web site banned from search engines and directories.

Finally, we stepped through checklists that addressed the important questions of creating and managing an ongoing links campaign, and maintaining your web site's SEO over time.

You can download this chapter of Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists, along with all the SEO checklists in .pdf format, ready for use with your next project. To find out more about the book, check out the Table of Contents.