Small Business Design Resources

Optimizing Your Website Content

Your website might be well implemented, have a nice easy flow, attractive color scheme and easy navigation, and your product might be the best gadget ever invented or the best service in the business. But if people can’t find you, they can’t buy from you. It’s that simple.

Search Engine Optimization refers to creating a site that is keyword rich. Keywords are the words that people type into their favorite search engine to find what they are looking for. For example, if your website sells shoes, you will want keywords such as shoes, pumps, high heels, loafers, patent leather, boots etc. More creative keywords or keyphrases might include descriptive phrases such as blue suede shoes, sexy 4 inch heels, pumps that are to die for, and so on. Most people post articles on their website to increase keyword density.

Search Engine Ranking
Think about how you use the internet search engines. Research data shows that the vast majority of people only click on one of the first three website listings in the search engine results. Your objective is to be one of the top three returns in Google, Yahoo, or the other search engines for your primary products. Why? Because these are customers who are already looking for your product, and pre-disposed towards buying it. Think about that. It’s not like putting your advertisement on a billboard along the highway and hoping the right people will see it. Search Engine Optimization is guaranteed by its very nature to reach your intended customer base through your website.

But how does Google decide which listing to put at the top of the page? Search engines use “spiders” or “bots” (short for robots) to constantly search the internet (referred to as crawling ). The spiders read the content on your website, and even follow links on your site to links on other websites. As they go, they build an indexed database from what they find. For sites that have similar content or similar keywords, the search engines will build a ranking scheme. There is no set formula for understanding this because search engine companies keep their special algorithms secret.

Understanding exactly how spiders work, or exactly how the indexed database is built is complicated, and reaching the top 3 returns in a search engine list is a fine art. But there are some guidelines that can make it easier.

• Make sure each page on your website has a featured keyword or keyphrase

• Use the keyword strategically in every paragraph of your content

• Include links on your website to other sites with similar or related products

• Include links to pages on your own site with similar keywords

• Keep content fresh by posting new material regularly. Stale content loses rank.

If you find SEO too daunting, you can always sponsor a result by paying the search engine company to return a link to your website for specific keywords. Sponsored results are usually listed on the right hand side of a search engine return page.