Search engine optimization means different things to different people and a quick Google search will produce millions of pages all with different ideas and "tricks" and promises to make you number one on the search engines. 

The question we are most often asked is what can I do to my website to get more traffic?   The answer is pretty simple.  Continually add unique content to your website that will attract the attention of the search engines and increase your page rank. Increasing your page rank is what gets your site on page one of the search results versus page 21.  The higher your page rank the higher your site will appear in the Organic (non paid or sponsored links) search results.

In order to fully maximize your presence on the search engines we recommend a 2 Phase approach to optimizing your site for the search engines.

Phase 1: The basics

Before you submit your site to the search engine there are some basics to cover so that your site is "ready" for its initial indexing.

• Basic page text

The most important thing the search engines look for when indexing your site is the Human Readable text that appears on your site. This can include readable copy such as descriptions, introduction text, bullet point lists, or any other text that you write.  We suggest that all of your key pages such as your homepage and any specialty or product pages include a good description of the services offered.  When constructing the text use the words and phrases that your customers would typically enter into the search engines to find the information they are looking for.  One key tip is to listen to the words and phrases your customers use when they talk and write to you.  If they are asking you questions you can bet that they and others are putting the key words from those phrases into the search engines as well.

• Meta Tags

The Meta Title, Meta Keywords and Meta Descriptions on your homepage and key pages important as well but not as important as the human readable text.  On each key page of your site the Meta Tags should match the human readable text for that page.  In general, there should be no keywords in the meta tags section that does not appear in the human readable part of the page.

Note: Most Experts Agree that the Meta Title Tag (In the Meta Tags button in your Online Agency or Levelfield Page editor) is the single most important HTML Tag in your page.

• Image Alt Tags: In the image tags of your pages there is a field called ALT TAG that allows you to enter a description of the image. Since search engines can not index the content of an image they index the alt tag. This is a great hidden keyword location as it is not normally seen by site visitors.

•   Submitting to the search engines

Once you have completed the basic site steps you are ready to submit your site to the search engines. The following are the basic links you can use for submitting your site:

Goolge: http://www.google.com/addurl/
Yahoo: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
MSN: http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

Of course there are dozens of others that you can also submit to but the three above have 95% of the search engine market.

Phase 2: Improving your Page Ranking

Now that your site is indexed and the pages are getting listed in the search engine you are ready to start working on page rank. But what is this page ranking that you hear spoken of so often?

Definition of Page Ranking:  A Numeric score (1-10 usually) assigned by the search engine based on tightly held algorithms that weigh the relevance and theoretical importance of the web page compared to what people are searching for. The exact formula used varies by search engines and they do not make it public.

How can you improve your page ranking? The following comprise the known elements of the Page Ranking equation.

1. Content: The content on your site is graded in a number of factors

• Is the content relevant to the common search terms that people are entering into the search engines
• Is the content updated on a frequent basis
• Is the content substantively unique and not the same information found on similar websites
• Are you using your Levelfield Blog tools to keep your site fresh?

2.  Meta Tag information

• Do the meta tags represent the content of the webpage?
• Are their enough meta tags or are there too many?  Most experts say the meta tag information should range from 256 to 512 characters.

3. Link Popularity or Inbound Links to your site

• Is your site linked from other websites?
• Do you manage multiple sites and have links to each sister site?
• What is the page rank of sites that have your link on them?

4. Internal linking structure

• Are each of your key pages linked in from your homepage?
• Do you have dead links in your content?
• Are your links grouped or surrounded by text? Newer studies seem to indicate that links in the middle of a paragraph of text get better treatment than a grouping of links at the bottom of the page.

The links Below discuss the specific tools mentioned above to help you optimize your site: