I get this question all the time from clients and people I work with. “Derek, what exactly is SEO, why do I need it and how does it work. More importantly, what specifically do I need to do about SEO?”

Well, let me explain it in very simple and easy to understand language so you can incorporate the right SEO strategy online for your business that will help you authentically build your list and get more clients.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Simply put, SEO is the process of optimizing your website by improving the internal (behind-the-scenes web techy stuff) and the external (web content, pages, images, etc.) setup in order to increase traffic to your site from search engines like Google.

Why does my website need SEO?

The big commercial search engines – Google, Bing, AOL and Yahoo, drive a lot of web traffic. If your site cannot be easily found by search engines or your content cannot be put into their database, you miss out on an incredible opportunity available to websites who appear in the search engine results for the keywords you want to be associated with. As a result, less people who want to have what you have will be visiting your site. Whether your site provides content, services, products, or information, search engines are a primary method of navigation for almost all people online.

How does SEO work?

Search queries, the words that users type into the search box which contain terms and phrases best suited to your site, carry huge value. These “keywords” dictate what sites the search engines deem worthy of appearing in the results. To do that, search engines really have four main functions – crawling, building an index, determining relevancy & rankings and providing results. Crawling and indexing the zillions of documents, pages, files, news, videos and media on the Internet – and – providing answers to user search queries, through lists of relevant sites / pages via search results and rankings.

What do I do about SEO?

It comes down to doing what I call the ABC’s of SEO.

A is for Architecture

The architecture of your site is critical for SEO success. And, I don’t mean having tons of funky widgets and menu options on your site with flashy design or cool features. Your site needs to have the right framework – like a solid design and well-implemented architecture (i.e. like a house) to support the content and links within the site.

Think of the site like a house where the rooms, stairs and other internal parts of the house require a solid foundation – floors, walls, wiring, mechanics, etc. Without a solid internal architecture, the house (i.e. your site) won’t support it. Equally as important is the external architecture of the house to support the roof, siding, doors, windows, etc. The architecture matters on both the inside and outside.

B is for Back links

The more your site and individual pages are referenced by other sites – the more “back links” you have and the more the search engines will favor your site. It’s basically like other sites giving your site the “thumbs up” indicating they recommend or endorse your site.

One of the best ways to get back links is by submitting your articles to article directory sites. As a result, the search engines will “listen” to their recommendations based on the articles submitted on their site and linking back to your site and content. (Tip – always have a call to action at the end of your article to refer people back to your site so they can opt-in to your list!)

C is for Content

Any site won’t really amount for much in terms of SEO unless it provides good content. The content has to be keyword “rich” for the search terms you want to appear for and be extremely relevant and valuable for your visitors. Be sure to include the keyword terms and phrases in your content that would be relevant and valuable for your visitors.

For example, if you portray your site to be all about “skiing” in terms of the URL, site name and page names, etc. and you only talk about “underwater basket weaving” and nothing about skiing, people will click on your site and then click away. This tells the search engines your site is not providing useful content or relevant information for what it portrays to be providing. You have to provide high-content and high-value information using very useful and authentic content.

Follow these ABC’s of SEO and you’ll be on your way to improving the rankings of your site in the search engines and as a result – improving your authentic online marketing to build your list and get more clients!

Until next time… Learn It, Love It, Live It!

Your Assignment:

Follow my model of the ABC’s of SEO to review what’s in place for your site.

[A - Architecture] Do you have a solid architecture in place for your website with the right menu items, images and content? If you’re using a stand-alone website, can you easily change it and update the content with new and fresh information?

[B - Back links] I’m a huge believer in a solid article marketing strategy to ensure your high-quality and high-content articles are being distributed and picked up by high-profile article directories which the search engines love. Follow my recommendations for some of the article marketing sites above and ensure you have a call-to-action in each of your articles.

[C - Content] You’ve got to put out really excellent content – nothing else. Make sure you’re giving as much as possible in the content you’re putting out – don’t hold back or think you’re giving away too much. I’m a firm believer the better the free content you provide, the better potential clients you will receive.

About the Author: Derek Fredrickson, Authentic Internet Marketing Specialist, is founder of the Authentic Internet Marketing System, the proven step-by-step program that shows you exactly how to authentically market your business online, in record time…guaranteed. To get your F.R.E.E. videos and receive his authentic internet marketing articles on attracting more leads and converting more sales online to multiply your current revenues, visit http://www.derekfredrickson.com

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Content is the lifeblood of you Web site. Well-written, original content is essential to the success of your Web site efforts. Web sites with keyword-rich, naturally flowing, original content are judged better than web sites that simply stuff keywords into otherwise poorly written text.

Write for People, not Search Engines

The algorithms of today’s popular search engines are sophisticated enough to determine whether a page is acceptable for human consumption; search engines tend to favor and reward high rankings to Web sites with well-written original content.

Keeping your content flavorful and persuasive is the best way to accomplish superlative rankings and consistent conversions.

Search engines grant high rankings to Web sites deemed most relevant and valuable to the user; therefore, writing for search engines and writing for people are not mutually exclusive concepts.

• Write original, persuasive, and natural content
  if your content is original, persuasive and has a natural tone, search engines tend to recognize it as worthwhile and therefore rank it positively. Packing too many keywords into your content creates an awkward tone and unnatural flow.
• Structure your content with your reader in mind
  it is beneficial to view content as your Web site’s salesperson. Your content must address the gamut of possible questions and concerns your reader may have regarding your product, service or message. Supply genuine, thought-provoking product information rather than hollow, stale slogans.
• Avoid Poor Grammar
  Your Grammar should be of the highest caliber. The key to writing accessible yet impressive content is determining the level at which your target audience reads.
• Write Useful and Informative Content
  it is important that your content be informative, concise, and easy to navigate. Write in a concise manner and use headings, subheadings, bold type and similar formatting that illustrate the information contained in each subsequent section of your page.
• Using Bold-Type Headings
  many inexperienced copywriters make the mistake of writing their material in one large block of content without headings that grab the reader’s attention. Some readers are looking for specific information, and consider the task of reading the giant blocks of content to be too time consuming.
• Using Call-to-Action Statements
  present your readers with readily accessible call-to-action options such as Sign Up Today or Register Here. Make it eye catching, reminding readers that they can take action whenever they feel ready.
• Write Interesting Content in a Friendly Tone
  On of your main goals is to keep readers engaged long enough for them to read all the facts: the best way to accomplish this goal is to entertain while informing. Keep your content interesting and persuasive, and you will be pleased to find that not only people but also search engines will enjoy it.

Avoid Duplicate Content

A trustworthy content writer understands the importance of writing and maintaining original content on a Web site. Search engines award original content and penalize identical content.

Tools exist that allow you to scan the Web for instances of duplicate copy and prevent plagiarism of you work from ever happening.

One of the most commonly used tools is Copyscape.com. It offers a free plagiarism warning banner that you can display on your Web site to deter others from stealing your work.

You can submit reports of spam to Google at: www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html. Or to Yahoo: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/hahoo/search/spam_abuse.html . Microsoft’s webpage: http://feedback.live.com/eform.aspx?productkey=wlaccounts&mkt=en-us.

The most successful way to minimize this common problem is to write unique titles and descriptions for all your products when submitting them to comparison engines and affiliates.

Using Proper Keyword Density

The goal of search-engine optimization is to make sure that your Web site ranks at the top of the search results when high-converting, target keywords related to your product or service are typed into popular search engines as search queries. Using proper keyword density is a process that includes the strategic repetition of select, target keywords and the minimization of nontarget keywords throughout your content.

Keyword density tools like WeBuildPages.com can help you with this process. Once you identify your competitors that rank #1 for the keywords you want to rank for, use the keyword density tool to look for similarities among them that you can use to rank well.

Tip: As a rule of thumb, search algorithms apply more weight to the title of you Web page than the density of the keywords on it. Therefore, your most important target keywords should be contained in your title and should also be dispersed throughout the content of your Web page. Keywords should not be repeated more than four to six times per 350 words of content. It is best to optimize each page of text, including title, for no more than two keywords or phrases.

Using Latent Semantic Content

Search engines use latent semantic indexing to determine a site’s thematic relevance to a particular search query. You can use latent semantic content to create relevancy while maintaining the organic flow of your content.

In the world of organic search, latent semantic content refers to words that are connected thematically to a specific search query.

If you perform a synonym search for ~apple on Google, the result pages then show several terms highlighted in bold type. Quintura.com is also an excellent source for latent semantic keyword research.

Keep Content Current

It is vitally important to you Web site’s success that you update content on a fairly regular basis. Search engines consider fresh content to be of greater value than outdated content. There are many ways to keep content fresh and original. User-generated content from testimonials, forums, and blogs, as well as content through content aggregation networks, are highly recommended methods for supplying your site with fresh, stimulating content.

Another approach to keeping content current is through the use of free content aggregation systems such as Really Simple Syndication, or RSS. RSS technology allows you to subscribe to various content sources, such as relevant news and blog feeds.

Freshcontent.net offers a newsfeed. YellowBrix.com is a leading paid online content aggregator that offers real-time online syndicated content from reliable and respected premium sources and numerous industry-specific trades.

Another approach to keeping content fresh is to launch a company blog.

Optimize Non-HTML Documents

For SEO purposes, you should fill you page primarily with textual content rather than image files. Bottom line: Text lends itself to SEO: images do not.

If you choose to post non-HTML files to your Web site, you can optimize each document to improve the results when search engines index them. Make sure that it contains readable text.

Treat each PDF file lie it is a separate Web page and link to it from your sitemap the same way you would an HTML page. Break your PDF documents into several smaller documents if it is very large or if it contains multiple topics. PDF files should be used sparingly and large PDF files should be minimized.

HTMLDOC 1.8.27 from Easy Software Products located at www.easysw.com/htmldoc is a tool that provides a free 21-day demo.

If you have a very popular PDF file, you may want to consider structuring it as an e-book and charging your visitors to view it. The downside of an e-book is that because you restrict access to it, search engines do not index it and therefore your Website is not ranked based on the content of the book.

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Proper Web site design and structure is an integral part of any search-engine optimization campaign. The search-engine ranking algorithms are constantly evolving. More and more Web site owners are losing their spots in the rankings as their competition becomes more technically competent and adept at the technical side of search-engine optimization.

Create a Robots.txt File

Creating a robots.txt file is a way of speaking directly to the search-engine spiders when they arrive at your site. Perhaps you would rather the spiders not visit certain section of your site. Or maybe you want to instruct them to visit every single page. Other times you may want to control the frequency at which the spiders visit your site.

Also you can create a robots.txt file to prevent search-engine spiders from consuming excessive amounts of bandwidth on your server and also to prevent potential copyright infringements.

The file resides in the root directory of your Web server.

Tip: A robots.txt file can also be used to tell the search-engine spiders where a site map is located with this text: Sitemap: http://www.example.com/yoursitemap.html

You can use the robots.txt generator at: www.mcanerin.com/EN/search-engine/robots-txt.asp to simplify the robots.txt creation task.

Using the Nofollow Attribute

Attaching a nofollow attribute to a link is your way of telling the search-engine spiders that they should not follow that link or view that link as anything of significance when determining ranking.

The nofollow attribute can also be used to link to other Web sites that are not directly related to the content of you own Web site. Google has asked that all paid links be tagged with the nofollow attribute to indicate that the links should not affect ranking influence.

Tip: Essentially, adding the nofollow attribute to a link tells the search engines not to use that link as a positive factor in their ranking algorithm.

Structure URL s Correctly

Both search engines and search-engine users appreciate static-looking, descriptive URL s. The search engines also take into consideration the keywords and phrases contained within your URL s and use these to influence your rankings.

Tip: Structuring your URL s correctly provides you with benefits beyond just improving your search-engine optimization efforts. One such example is a paid search, or pay-per-click, advertising campaign. A properly categorized Web site gives you a head start in developing the keyword lists necessary to properly construct a paid search advertising campaign. You may actually see a price decrease in your paid search efforts as well.

Protect Yourself with an .htaccess File

An .htaccess file is the Apache Web server’s configuration file. It is a straightforward yet powerful text file that can accomplish a wide variety of functions.

Although normally left to expert server administrators, an .htaccess file can help you avoid several potential problems.

Rewriting URL s and redirecting Web traffic enables you to use numerous forms of protection ranging from password protecting directories, banning visitors from certain sources, and preventing bandwidth theft from image linkers.

Rules located in an .htaccess file uploaded to your images directory take precedence over the foot file. Also you may want to stop the malicious use of the Linux Wget command that can retrieve your Web site content.

You can use .htaccess to block direct linking to your images, and instead even send a replacement image.

Tip: An excellent tool located at www.htaccesstools.com allows you to generate a variety of different .htaccess code blocks.

The tool automatically generates .htaccess authentication code along with an encrypted .htpasswd file to password protect directories. This is especially important with the advent of new image search engines like Google Images. The tool also creates .htaccess code to block unwanted bots traffic or traffic from certain IP addresses. You should regularly check for excessive traffic from random bots or excessive visits from any particular IP addresses.

Using Mod_Rewrite to Rewrite URLs

The mod_rewrite module of the Apache Web server gives you the power to rewrite poorly formed URL s on the fly as well as manipulate the appearance or any file name you choose. There are tools available to simplify the complex parts.

Use mod_rewrite to easily and noninvasively restructure the URL to look like www.example.com/pets/dogs/fod.

Activate mod_rewrite by adding the text RewriteEngineOn to your Web root directory’s .htacess file. The mod_rewrite module is not present on all server, so be sure to contact your Web hosting administrator to make sure that it is installed or ask if an alternative solution is available.

Tip: Mod_rewrite can be very complex and difficult to use if you are not a skilled Web programmer. And excellent, free tool can be found at www.mod-rewrite-wizard.com. You also have the option to add any relevant keywords as a prefix or suffix.

Redirect Non-WWW Traffic to WWW

You may be amazed to learn that some search engines see the example.com and www.example.com variations of your domain name as two totally separate Web sites. This is called a www/non-www canonical issue because there is confusion as to which version is standard.

It is important to set up your server to redirect all traffic to one variation to prevent any confusion by the search engines.

Fortunately, you can easily address this problem by adding a small amount of code to your Web root directory’s .htaccess file to set up a 301 redirect from example.com to www.example.com or vice versa. A 301 redirect is also known as a permanent redirect.

301 redirects are the preferred method of redirection because Google attempts to pass all the ranking influences to the new destination.

Tip: You should always set up the 301 redirect discussed in this task, and you may be curious to see if you have a large canonical issue with your www/non-www domain entries.

To check, visit www.google.com and type site:newdomain.com into the search bar. Replace newdomain.com with your domain name.

Also take a note of the total number of pages indexed in the upper-right corner of the search results. Next, type site:www.newdomain.com into the search bar. If the results differ dramatically from the results of the previous query, you probably have a canonical issue.

Redirect with 301 Redirects

301 redirects provide you with the means to tell the search engines that not only have you moved your site, but you want all your rankings to move with it. This is a very important and often overlooked issue.

Unfortunately, search engines are not necessarily friendly when you make Web site changes. You can set up a 301 redirect to accomplish this task, and both search-engine spiders and Web browsers automatically redirect to the new location. For search-engine optimization purposes, this also preserves most if not all of your search-engine ranking factors.

If you want to move your entire Web site from one domain to another, a 301 redirect is your best bet to keep your current search-engine rankings.

Do not be alarmed if your redirect is not reflected immediately. Also, keep in mind that any changes you make to your Web site can negatively or positively influence your search-engine rankings.

Tip: Do not expect the search engines to understand your intentions. When you remove pages that are not longer necessary for your site, consider adding a 301 redirect for those pages back to your site’s home page. Otherwise, if you remove the pages and the search-engine spiders continue to crawl the missing pages, they may penalize your entire site despite the deletions being intentional.

If you own the .com, .net, .org, or other extension of your domain name, you can use 301 redirects to automatically force all .net and .org visitors to redirect to the .com extension or whatever extension you choose.  301 redirects can be used to automatically redirect any misspelled traffic to your actual domain name.

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Find Web hosting

If you are designing a mid-level or large-scale Web site and plan to sell products or services from your Web site, you want to carefully evaluate potential Web hosting companies.

Choose one that is up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 99.9% of the time. I know this sound obvious, but believe me it’s not. How many times have I come across clients that were telling me “I signed up with a hosting company one year ago and they don’t exist anymore, please help me find the right one.”

There are hosting review forums out there, one of them is WebHostingTalk and the other one is FindMyHosting.

Establish a Domain Name

Selecting a domain that relates directly to the theme of your Web site increases the likelihood that search engines such as Google and Yahoo will rank your Web site for related keywords. Choose a domain name that contains the keywords and phrases that your Web site is about, or choose a domain name that is brandable.

When choosing a domain name, try to include, if possible, one or two of the major keywords your Web site is trying to rank for.

Tip: Cybersquatting occurs when someone registers a variation of your current domain name.

At the same time you register your primary domain name you should also register that same domain with common domain and country extensions. At least you should register the .com, .net, and .org extensions, as well as .co.uk and any other country with which you may want to eventually conduct direct business.

Securing a good domain name is not easy. Domaining is a business where domain names are purchased, usually in bulk, and monetized.

You may consider purchasing that domain in the domain secondary market from a Web site such as www.sedo.com, which brokers single domain names for as little a s $10 to as much as $10million.

Optimize for Multiple Browsers

Unfortunately, each individual browser does not read HTML code in the same fashion. It is possible to design a Web site a certain way and view it in Internet Explorer only to find out later that it looks much different in Firefox. A simple way is to download a version of each browser and test your Web site in each.

Also, you want to be sure that your Web site is designed with different screen resolutions in mind. Test your Web site with your computer’s resolution set to 800*600 and 1024*768.

Tip: Anybrowser.com offers a variety of tools that help you make sure your site is compatible with multiple browsers.

Design a Sitemap

Although not strictly necessary, consider naming the sitemap either sitemap.html or sitemap.php. Sometimes no matter how well you design your internal linking structure, your visitors may have a hard time finding exactly what they are looking for.

XML-Sitemaps.com helps automate this process. You can generate sitemaps that can be submitted to search engines.

Create a Company Information Page

A company information page helps build trust with your viewers by providing company biographies, history, and even photos to explain who you are and where you come from.

Place a link for your company information section on the home page of your Web site. Label the link as About Us, Company Information, or something similar so that users can easily find it.

If you are selling a product, your consumers want to know who you are, where you come from, and why they should trust your business.

Also statistics have shown that your Web site’s company information or About Us page is likely to be one of the most clicked pages or your entire site by new visitors.

Including an actual address and phone number can help to provide a sense of confidence in your visitor, which is especially important if you run an e-commerce Web site.

Create a Privacy Policy page

You should create a privacy policy to ensure your users are aware of your information collecting policies. Many in the SEO community theorize that having a privacy policy page can help to show the search-engine algorithms that you are in fact a legitimate business.

The purpose of having a privacy policy is to prove to your visitors that you are committed to protecting the privacy of their personal information. Privacy policies are particularly important if you collect e-mail addresses or any other type of demographic information about your visitors.

Tip: The Direct Marketing Association offers a tool for creating privacy policies that is freely available to all Web site owners.

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Creating search-engine-optimized Web pages is the core effort of a successful Internet marketing campaign. Taking care of technical on-site factors such as file names, title tags, meta description tags, meta keyword tags, and meta robots tags is crucial to making sure the search-engine spiders can determine the relevance of your web site.

Optimization of images is important for those Web browsers that do not support images, and because search-engine spiders cannot read the content of an image, optimizing images presents an extra avenue to squeeze in more content.

Choose File Names

Using file names that are relevant to the content of you Web page is important for numerous reasons. The search-engine spiders see your file names before anything else.

Besides your domain name, the first thing search engines discover when spidering through the pages of your Web ste are your file names. Make sure your file names are relevant! Have a specific topic in mind. A good practice is naming each Web page after the main key phrase that the page is about.

Tip: Search engines specialists have stated that hyphens in URLs and Web page file names are viewed as spaced by the search-engine ranking algorithms. But an overuse of hyphens is considered to be a spamming technique and can result in a penalty. So try to limit hyphen usage to no more than three hyphens per file name. The search engines have begun to treat underscores similarly to hyphens, so limit this one as well. Also keep URL lengths as short as possible. A 30-character URL is far easier to remember than a 300-character URL.

Optimize Title Tags

The first thing a visitor sees when finding your page on the search-engine results is your title tag. Title tags should be descriptive of what your Web page is about and compel potential visitors to visit your site.

Also search engines use the text contained within the title tag as primary factor to determine what the content of a certain Web page is about.

Tip: Limit your title tag to 65 characters or less. Write concise statement summarizing the main point of your content. Be unique with each title tag and include keywords you want to rank for. Another hot tip is that the web page file name should relate very closely to the page title tag.

Optimize Meta Description Tags

Some search engine use the meta description tags in their result pages directly underneath the Web page titles.

Because this information is displayed in the search results you can use it as a method to deliver your marketing message and entice search-engine visitors to click on your listing versus clicking on your competition.

Make sure that all you pages have a unique meta description tag.

Whether Google uses meta description tags in its ranking algorithms is not know. I think you should still take advantage of search-engines spiders that do use the mega description tag in their ranking algorithms.

Tip: Try a free meta tag generator from SEOBook.com at http://tools.seobook.com/meta-medic.

Optimize Meta Keyword Tags

Although many search engines ignore this tag, some likely still use it in their ranking algorithms. For that reason I recommend you implement this tag on all your Web pages.

The mega keyword tag contains a list of keywords or phrases, separated by commas that describe the subject matter of a particular Web page.

For each page generate a short list of no more than ten keywords or phrases and include them in the meta keyword tag. Do not repeat keywords or phrases and be sure that each Web page on your site has a unique meta keyword tag.

Tip: Widexl.com offers an invaluable tool to help analyze meta tags. Keep your title, description, and keywords meta tags within the length requirements. The tool can also be used to analyze your competitors’ meta tags if you are curious to see what they have done differently.

Create a Meta Robots Tag

There are situations where the privacy of a particular Web page or Web site is of utmost concern. This is especially useful if certain sections of your Web site require payment to access. The last think you want is search engines sending visitors directly to those locations.

You can use the meta robots tag to tell a search-engine spider whether or not the Web page it visits should be indexed or if links on that page should be followed. These search-engine “robots” often need to be controlled.

Depending on your web hosting, you may or may not have the ability to create and add a robots.txt file.

Benefit with Header Tags

Emphasize your main topics and ideas. A well structured Web page has a logical hierarchal flow with headings and subheadings fortified with content.

You can use HTML header tags to apply significance to keywords or phrases within a web page. Header tags are arranged in preset levels of importance ranging from <h1>, the most important, to <h6>, the least important.

Header tags can be used anywhere within the <body> tag of an HTML document.

Using Text Modifiers

Emphasize appropriate keywords and phrases within your content. Your Web page content should speak to visitors, emphasizing words and phrases to express urgency or significance. You can emphasize certain blocks by bolding, italicizing, or underlining.

Optimize Images

Spiders still cannot read any images present on your pages. Using ALT Image tags to describe your images gives the search engines a readable text description of those images and also aids in compatibility with non-graphical Web browsers.

Do not repeat the same words over and over again, and never repeat the same Alt Image tag more than once unless the image itself is repeated.

Create Links

The structure of your links tells the search engines what the linked Web page is about. Your internal linking structure is taken into consideration by ranking algorithms that determine where your Web pages rank for target keywords and phrases.

Link creation may be a basic task, but if done correctly, it can be tremendously influential to your overall search-engine rankings.

Generally speaking, the higher a link appears on the page, the more it assists the rankings of the Web page it links to. Also, links embedded within blocks of content hold more value than isolated links. If possible, avoid using images to link to other pages or your Web site.

Validate HTML

Writing valid HTML is just as important as speaking proper English. Search engines read Web sites line by line, and errors in your HTML syntax can trigger a penalty if the invalid code prevents the search-engine spider from reading the content.

Optimize your Web pages by not having excess markup code surrounding your main page content. Although it has not been proven to increase search-engine rankings, writing valid HTML is another weapon in an arsenal of best-practice techniques that are likely to have a cumulative effect on overall search-engine approval.

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When I read an article, a webpage or a blog I interpret as I read through my own experiences and expectations.

Successful writers focus on their audiences, they gather information from several sources; they don’t make assumptions but research, create imaginary scenarios and answer people’s questions.

Gather information about your audiences!

• Think about your mission
• Read emails that come through your Contact Us and other feedback links
• Talk to Marketing
• Talk to Customer Service
• Get people to fill out a short questionnaire
• Watch and listen what people have to say
• Interview people who use your website
• Do usability testing of the current content

Keep in mind your web users when you write, remember how busy they are, they have no time to read, they just want to get the job done, they don’t care how your organization is structured they only want the information, they like to read blogs and news articles but they have to grab their attention right away!

Also consider your website visitors experience and expertise in both subject and matter when going through your content. Web content for people who are angry, frustrated, anxious, or stressed has to be particular clear and simple.

Technology

Another important part is to keep in mind your visitors computer

• Monitor resolution
• What is their connection speed
• Do they have dial-up and pay for every minute
• Are they getting the information on a PDA or on a small screen
• Are older adults visiting your site

Everything on your website should fulfill a scenario

Everything in your content should relate to at least one scenario that real users might have for coming to the web site. If no one needs or wants the information – if there is no plausible scenario for the content – why have in on the web site?

• Focus on what is important to your site visitors
• Write with their words
• Realize how goal-oriented most web users are

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When is the last time you heard someone say “Content is King”?

Well let’s start with a question: “What did you do on the web yesterday? Where you just browsing around without any goal or were you looking for something specific?

When I surf the web I’m looking for:

• answer to questions I have
• answers to completing a task
• answers that are easy to find and to understand
• answers that are accurate, up to date and credible

But, Don’t make me read! If I don’t find it in a few seconds I’m out of there.
I do skim and scan before I read; I only want to read as much as I need to satisfy my goal.
And actually by talking with my friends and co-workers I found out that most uses of the web are for gathering information or doing tasks, not for the pleasure of reading.
If they can’t find what they need quickly enough, they’ll leave the site and go elsewhere. And the bad part about skim and scan is that, once they had a bad experience with a website, they rarely, if ever return back.

Now why is that, why don’t we read more?

• We’re too busy
• We’re not finding relevant answers to what we need
• We’re trying to answer a question
• We’re trying to complete a task

So what makes writing for the web work well?

According to Janice Redish in ”Letting Go of the Words”,

Good web writing:

• Is like a conversation
• Answers people’s questions
• Let’s people grab and go

For many young web users, web sites are replacing phones. The point of web content therefore is for people to get information for themselves from your website rather than calling.

Your website should therefore:

• Provide answers to questions (don’t hide information)
• Help them through the task they came to your website for
• Walk the through the steps to get to the right place

Good web writing lets people “grab and go”!

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Creating well-written, original content is absolutely critical to your long-term search-engine-optimization success. Content is what visitors use to determine value and one of the primary factors that search engines use to rank you Web site. Whether your Web site ends up on the first page or the one-hundredth page of Google largely depends on the quality and relevance of your content.

When you write content, you must avoid duplicate content. Duplicate content occurs when your Web site contains content that already exists on the World Wide Web. If you feel that you do not have time to build large amounts of unique content, you can employ tools on your Web site, such as user reviews, that allow for user-generated content. User-generated content allows your content to remain fresh, which is one of the factors search engines use to rank one Web site over another with similar authority.

Fortunately, tools such as Copyscape are available that help you avoid and prevent duplicate content issues.

You should also use proper keyword density throughout each page of your Web site. First, you want to optimize each page of your Web site for no more than one or two target keywords, while at the same time making sure that you do not inadvertently repeat non-target keywords.

When drafting your content you can use a powerful content-creating principal called latent semantic content, which involves using keywords very similar to your target keywords to enhance the theme and relevance of your page.

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Basic

A well-optimized Web site design and structure helps to improve the overall performance of your Web site, making it easier for users to navigate and for search engines to find and index all of your content.

One way to ensure that search engines find all of your content is by submitting a sitemap. Think of your sitemap as an outline of your entire Web site. As you add new content to your Web site, you should submit your sitemap to the search engines on a regular basis, every 24 hours or so.

In addition to a company information page, your Web site should also contain a page explaining your privacy policy.

Advanced

A robots.txt file allows you to tell the spiders what they may and may not do when they arrive at your domain. Robots.txt files also provide you a means to prevent both potential copyright infringements and search-engine spiders from consuming excessive amounts of bandwidth on your server.

The “nofollow” attribute instructs search-engine spiders that they should not follow a particular link or view that link as anything of significance when determining ranking.

A second advance Web site structural consideration is the way you structure your URLs. Search engines as well as people prefer URLs that are simple and that include the keywords describing the page within the URL string.

A third structural consideration is the use of an .htaccess file. An .htaccess file is the Apache Web server’s configuration file.

Other advanced Web site structural considerations include using “mod_rewrite” to rewrite URLs and using 301 redirects whenever you change or redesign your Web site. Each advanced structuring technique provides you with procedures to ensure that search engines recognize your Web site and that each of your Web pages are correctly indexed.

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For the purposes of search-engine optimization, keep in mind that search engines do not actually rank Web sites; instead, search engines rank individually Web pages. In order to succeed with SEO each and every page of your Web site must be optimized for search-engine purposes. The most important element of each of your Web pages is substantial unique content.

Meta Tags

For example, optimizing technical on-site Web page factors such as adding correct file names, title tags, meta description tags, meta keywords tags, and meta robots tags is crucial to making sure the search-engine spiders can determine the relevance of your Web site. Besides your domain, name the first things search engines discover when spidering through the pages of your Web site are your file names. Every single page of your Web site resides in a different file. By titling your pages with search-engine optimization in mind, you have a powerful opportunity to establish relevance to a certain topic or keyword.

Title Tag

Each page or your web site should contain a unique title tag that includes the target keywords you want to rank for. Search engines place great importance on the text contained within your title tag and use it as a primary indicator of what your Web page is about.

Description and Keywords

Although search engines rarely use description and keyword tags for ranking purposes, each page of your Web site should include unique description and keyword tags. Description tags can be especially important because search engines often use them as the display text shown when a search query triggers your Web page. Your description tag should include a call-to-action marketing message that your listing stands out among other listings and gets clicked.

Header Tags and Modifiers

Optimizing your content with header tags and other text modifiers allows you to stress the main ideas and topics that your content covers. Header tags are HTML tags used to apply significance to keywords or phrases within a Web page. Using text modifiers, you can emphasize certain blocks of text by bolding, italicizing, or underlining.

Images and Links

Taking care to optimize Web page images is important for those Web browsers that do not support images, and because search-engine spiders are unable to accurately read the content of an image, doing so presents an extra opportunity to add keyword-rich content to your page. Links provide the pathways that search-engine spiders need to find your Web pages. Creating Links with search-engine optimization in mind is necessary for optimal results.

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