The Truth About Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

(SEO Continued)

Following is a list of things you can do for your site, in order of importance, that most search engines look for in a website:

Size Matters

The larger the site, the better the chance a search engine will list it well. This is not often an option for the small business owner. However, if you have several services, say, household moving, packing, crating, etc., instead of listing all your services on one page, create a page for each specific service. This will increase the size of your site and help with Key Words discussed later.

Update Frequency

The more frequently a site is updated the better it will list. This is due to the fact that search bots look for fresh content. If a search bot visits your site and sees new information, it will re-index your site. If it sees that nothing has changed, there is no reason to re-index the site. The longer the length of time between updates, the lower in the search engine index your site will be listed.

Inbound Links

The more links inbound to your site from external sites, such as industry organizations and chambers of commerce, the better. Especially if those sites are large and already list well in generic search phrases associated with your industry. Think about clients, vendors, and suppliers that also have sites and may be willing to link to your site from theirs.

Key Words and Meta Tags

This one item is the most overstated and underutilized item in this list. An SEO will tell you that you MUST have meta tags and key word text on a page for it to list well. This is NOT true. Here it is in Google's own words:

"Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in our web search ranking. Google Search disregards keyword metatags completely. They simply don't have any effect in our search ranking at present."

Matt Cutts, Google Search Quality Team

Don't take our word for it. View the video by Matt.

Case in point is that in our previous example of Beverly Hills, at the time of this publication, their site had NO meta tags and was not optimized with key words in their body text, however, the site DID list on the first page of a Google search.

A site should have at least the following META TAGS:

• Title

• Description

• Key Words

• Key Phrases

These meta tags should NOT be exactly the same on each page. They should be tailored for the content of the page in which they are imbedded. Then, throughout the page where the tags are placed, the Key Words and Key Phrases should appear in the text of the page at least once.

Site Map

Search engines need to know all of the pages of your site. While they can follow the links found in you website's menu, it is very helpful if you provide them a single page with links to all the pages in your site. Most search engines look for a single special page called SITEMAP.XML. This is a specially designed page written in Extensible Markup Language that makes it easier for a search bot to find all of the pages in your site.

Other things you can do:

Search Engine Submission

Most search engines provide a way for you to let them know you have a website by registering it. You can do this manually one at a time, but since there are literally thousands of search engines on the internet, we recommend you have this service performed by a company that can automate this task for you. You may also want to have this service performed on a regular basis just to ensure your site is visited by search bots.

Vision Quest can provide this service and submit your site to the major search engines.

Website Statistics

A website statistic report provides information regarding the performance and traffic of your website. This information may include page views, unique visitors, pages requested, campaign tracking, hits on pages, and literally hundreds of other data items. The key items to look for in web statistics is total visiting users and the top pages requested.

Total visiting users tells you how many actual visitors have come to your site. This should not be confused with 'hits' which is a grossly overstated number with very little meaning. The number of total visiting users should be tracked on a regularly basis, say monthly, and trended over time to see if traffic is increasing, decreasing, or stable.

To help trend your total visiting users in a positive direction, look at the top pages requested. If you find the top pages visited on your site to be your home page and your contact page, this could be an indication that the content of your site is not catching the attention of the visitor. You may want to add industry related content are a specials page to attract attention.

The statistics can also tell you how long, on average, someone viewed a page. Again, an indication of interest on the part of the visitor. If you have a page with a lot of text but the average visit is only 10 seconds, you may want to revise that page.

Vision Quest can provide detailed statistics for your site and help you analyze your sites content.

Thank you for taking the time to visit our website and learn about the exciting products and services offered by Vision Quest. If there is anything we can do for you; whether you found it here on our website, or you need a custom solution, please contact a Vision Quest representative, toll-free, at  (877) 493-2477.