Tips for Building SEO in Social Media

• Twitter
  • Post every day. You can comment on industry news, link to your blog, high-five someone else's comment, retweet someone's blog post, ask for help with something, provide help to someone else....the list goes on.
  • Engage in conversation with customers and anyone else who mentions your company or your product. Thank people, ask questions, solicit feedback, etc.
  • Search Twitter for mentions of your competitors and their competing products, to learn which words people are using. Now you start using these words, too. It will help you when people search for what you're offering.
  • For bonus points, you can use the hash tag - # - in front of an important keyword. This is how many people mark out and search topics in Twitter. For example, you might tweet "Read how @StephanieH improved her time with #WideRunningShoes on our blog" and include a link.
  • Use a URL shortener such as bit.ly for links to save characters...140 isn't as much as you think.
  • If you see someone who could use what you sell complaining about a competitor, offer to help them somehow - but don't disparage your competitor, or his product.
  • Find the people who are influential in your target market, and follow them.
  • Thank people individually for following you. Do NOT use an autoresponder. It's a pity for someone's first interaction with you to feel canned - and believe me, experienced Twitter users can smell an autoresponse a mile away.

• Facebook
  • Post every day. You can post the same things on Facebook that you do on Twitter, with the added benefit of being able to include a photo and a much longer comment.
  • Invite engagement by asking people what they think about something you've posted. Comments are noticed by search engines. In fact, Ian Lurie of Portent Interactive found a correlation between comments on a company's Facebook page and high rankings in search engine results.
  • Search Facebook for mentions of your competitors and their competing products. That will tell you which words people use when they're looking for what you sell. Now you start using these words, too, so you'll pop up in product searches.
  • If you see someone complaining about a competitor, you can send an offer of practical help - or even a coupon! - to that person. Don't disparage your competitor or their product...that's not good etiquette.
  • Give people a reason to "like" your Facebook page. You might want to offer access to special deals or coupons, or to some other benefit, such as a "fans only" video page.

• LinkedIn
  • Join groups specific to your industry and to your target customers.
  • Post interesting articles and news to these groups. Be careful not to promote your product or company too hard. Some groups will kick you out for being overly self-promotional. Make sure you read the terms for each group.
  • Answer questions people post in your groups.
  • Write recommendations for people you've done business with.
  • Ask your good customers to write recommendations for you.

• Your blog
  • Post about industry trends and issues.
  • Post about business issues that aren't specific to your industry, but interesting to other business people who may be reading your blog.
  • Post about your own company's news and developments. Your blog can be the modern-day press room - just make sure you tag news announcements appropriately, so company news can be found.
  • Offer insights and advice based on things you learn in the course of business, even if you aren't talking directly about your own product.
  • If you have something thoughtful to say about someone else's blog that is too long for a comment, write a post on your blog, linking to the post you are commenting on. You'll be noticed by the blogger, and he or she may choose to link to your blog, too.

• Other people's blogs
  • Comment on people's posts, but avoid generic comments like "great post." Try to add something unique and interesting to the discussion. See the section above for when you have a lot to say about someone's post.
  • Ask if you may guest post if you think you have something to contribute. Many bloggers are happy to have guest authors post, if they're adding value.

• News sites
  • Comment on news stories that are relevant to your industry and your business. Don't be snarky - be thoughtful. You can also share these news stories in your social accounts by linking to them. If people read the comments, they'll probably notice yours.

Things You should Know Before Optimizing a Web Site

In order to make your SEO efforts successful, you should get the answers to the following questions in advance:

1) What is the overall motivation for optimizing this site? What do I/they hope to achieve? e.g. more sales, more subscribers, more traffíc, more publicity etc.

2) What is the time-frame for this project?

3) What is the budget for this project?

4) Who will be responsible for this project? Will it be a joint or solo effort? Will it be run entirely in-house or outsourced?

Answering these questíons will help you to build a framework for your SEO project and establish limitations for the size and scope of the campaign.

To determine your project requirements, you need to have the following questíons answered:

1) What technology was used to build the site? (i.e. Flash, PHP, frames, Cold Fusion, JavaScrípt, Flat HTML etc)
2) What are the file extensions of the pages? (i.e. .htm, .php, .cfm etc)
3) Does the site contain database driven content? If so, will the URLs contain query strings? e.g.
www.site.com/longpagename?source=123444fgge3212, (containing "?" symbols), or does the site use parameter workarounds to remove the query strings? (the latter is more search engine friendly).
4) Are there at least 250 words of text on the home page and other pages to be optimized?
5) How does the navigation work? Does it use text links or graphical links or JavaScrípt drop-down menus?
6) Approximately how many pages does the site contain? How many of these will be optimized?
7) Does the site have a site map or will it require one? Does the site have an XML sitemap submitted to Google Sitemaps ?
8) What is the current link popularity of the site?
9) What is the approximate Google PageRank of the site? Would it benefit from link building?
10) Do I have the ability to edit the source code directly? Or will I need to hand-over the optimized code to programmers for integration?
11) Do I have permission to alter the visible content of the site?
12) What are the products/services that the site promotes? (e.g. widgets, mobile phones, hire cars etc.)
13) What are the site's geographical target markets? Are they global? Country specific? State specific? Town specific?
14) What are the site's demographic target markets? (e.g. young urban females, working mothers, single parents etc.)
15) What are 20 search keywords or phrases that I think my/my client's target markets will use to find the site in the search engines?
16) Who are my/my client's major competitors online? What are their URLs? What keywords are they targeting?
17) Who are the stake-holders of this site? How will I report to them?
18) Do I have access to site traffíc logs or statistics to enable me to track visitor activity during the campaign? Specifically, what visitor activity will I be tracking?
19) How do I plan on tracking my or my client's conversion trends and increased rankings in the search engines?
20) What are my/my client's expectations for the optimization project? Are they realistic?

SEO Friendly Web Design

Good web-content

Content is the key to web site optimization. Your content should fulfill a need for the visitor; whether this need is for information, merchandise or a service, and it should communicate it clearly.

A good rule of thumb to follow when determining how much content to include is to insert between 200-250 words of keyword rich search engine friendly content on each of your site pages. More words are fine but make sure that users typically don’t appreciate having to scroll down or read all the way across the screen. So break your content up in into columns, bulleted items, headlines, etc.

Make the text readable. Avoid using silly fonts & busy backgrounds. Make your text scannable i.e. use bullets, headlines, and bold text so users can scan your content quickly.

CSS Style sheet: It is good to use CSS style sheet to format your web design because it can standardize the appearance of your website.

Add thematic content with keywords and keep the targeted keyword density between 3% – 5%.

Use header tags (H1, H2 & H3) with targeted primary & secondary keywords.

Avoid using duplicate content to grow & rank your site in all search engines

Go for static html design and keep the size of your site pages under 48K. You must optimize the file size of your images (12 kb or smaller).

Add Alt-tag for images (only 1-2 images per page). Use thematic text for the alt-tags.

Navigation

Design your web page as simple as possible, it will help visitors' to navigate and view the site properly.

Avoid use of frame and re-direct techniques

If you are using JavaScript, e.g. drop-down menus, put it at the end of HTML Body or place into a separate file, e.g. menu.js.

Keep your basic pages like index (home page), about us, contact us, sitemap etc at root level and product category specific pages in folder with category specific name. Create folders up to
maximum three levels from the root.

Your folders and product category pages must be keyword specific. For example if “Collaboration Solution” is one of your services, select your folder name as “collaboration-solution” and its pages collaboraton-solution.htm, collaboration-suite.htm etc.

Website navigation is important for users as well as for web crawlers. Place links of main pages on every page of your website and also give link to home page from every page of your website. You can follow similar technique for level two and level three pages also.

Design keyword content rich sitemap page that has links to the all pages of your website. Don’t make this page as links only page. Insert contextual content to it.

Make sure there shouldn’t be any broken link.

Browser Compatibility

Test what your site looks like in a multitude of different browsers. Try Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Avant, etc.

Proofread for errors

A simple spelling error can drive away users. Proofread your site and fix any mistakes.

Logos or Brand Names

If your site has a logo or brand name, be sure to include this on every page so the user knows exactly where they are at all times.

Pop-ups

Pop-ups are annoying at best. Avoid using them for any reason.

Onpage Optimization - Tips

In order to make your web site easier for search engines to follow and index, Onpage optimization efforts are deemed necessary.

Onpage optimization is not difficult. It does however take time to make sure all the pieces are in place. This kind of optimization should occur not only on the main web page of a web site, but on every single content page within that site.

Check your web-design

In your web site, there can be potential design issues you should address in order to improve your web site's ranking in search engines.
* Pages that use Frames, Flash, JavaScript, URL Redirects, Image Maps, or Dynamic URLs might not be recognized by the search engine.
* It doesn't matter for which purposes you use JavaScript, e.g. drop-down menus, put it at the end of HTML Body or place into a separate file, e.g. menu.js. This will move the important content closer to the beginning of this page and improve its keyword prominence. I
* Make site with clear hierarchy and text links. Check for broken links.

Keyword Selection

Choosing the right keywords is essential to get a high ranking in search engines and directories. Before beginning, determine the keyword phrases you will use according to your business and industry and begin adding them to your page.

Points to consider when choosing keywords:
* When choosing your keywords, try to think like your target audience. What would THEY search for, when looking for the page online?
* Make a list of two or three keywords for each page on your Web site.
* Try using phrases (two or more words) that you think people might enter into a search engine when looking for your site.

For example, Instead of "painting," add the more descriptive phrase "professional interior home painter."

* Investigate your competition. Conduct sample searches using keywords that you would prefer to use, and then identify which phrases other companies are using.

Hint: To see which keywords a competitor has used for a particular Web page, follow these steps to view the HTML source code for the page:
* Open the page in Microsoft Internet Explorer.
* On the View menu, click Source or Page Source.
* Find and view the keywords within the < META > tag sections of code.

Create a descriptive Title tag

The title tag should be the first meta tag directly after the Head tag.
Points to consider when creating your title tag:
* Make sure that your title tag is 60-75 characters long, including spaces.
* Include 1-2 of your most important keyword phrases in the title tag.
* Don't just list keywords in your title tag; by doing so, you risk being viewed as spamming the engines and directories.
* Each page on your Web site should have its own title tag.

To edit your title tag:
* Open the HTML source code for your page in a text editor or Web authoring program.
* Make sure your title tag is placed correctly. It should appear between two HEAD tags within the HTML that makes up your page.

Create effective Meta tags

Meta tags are the words written in the HEAD section of the HTML code for your web page. Search engines and directories use them to flag your site, so well-selected meta tags can help improve your site listings.

Points to consider when creating description & keyword tag:
* This is how you will enter a description meta tag into your HTML code. This meta tag should not exceed 150 characters, including spaces:
* Include meta description tag, directly after the TITLE tag
* The keywords meta tag should include 3-4 of your most important keyword phrases and should not exceed 280 characters, including spaces. Here's how you create one:
* Think of common misspellings. For example, the same travel site might include "Caribean", the common misspelling for "Caribbean”.
* If your site has content of interest to a specific geographic location, be sure to include this information (city, state, country, and so on) in your keyword meta tag.
* Be careful not to repeat the same word more than five times.
* Avoid using stop words. Some common stop words are a", "of", "the", "I", "it", "you", and "and.

Optimize your web page copy

The actual text on your web site, your page copy, is very important. Search engines use the text on your page to optimize search engine results, just as they do with your title tag. Points to consider when writing your page copy:
* Make sure that each page of text you submit contains at least 300 words. Search engines like text!
* Include your most important keyword phrases within the text, but make sure that your copy remains logical and easy to read. Put your keyword where it is most appropriate so that it appears 3-5 times on this page.
* The keyword phrases should be present at the beginning of the page i.e. the first 25 words of the visible text of the page.
* It would be helpful if some keyword phrases in the page copy are bold and underlined.
* Your page will be more relevant if your keyword appears at the end of the visible text. Try to put it in the last paragraph of your copy.
* Do not use font size one (1) text as the default text size. Many search engines consider Tiny text to be spam. It's OK to use some font size one text.
* Add additional copy-filled pages to your site (for example, add how-to articles, tips, or tutorials).

Use "alt" attribute for images

The "alt" attribute allows you to add a keyword phrase that relates to an image. Search engines look at these too when trying to find a matching page. Here is an example of how to use the "alt" image attribute:
* To add the "alt" attribute to any image, make the following change to your image tag HTML code:
* Write a brief sentence or two to describe each image.
* Incorporate the keywords phrase used in your page copy, title tag, and your meta description.
* Avoid adding more than 2-3 keywords to your alt description.

Optimize text hyperlinks

Some search engines seek keywords in hyperlinks and any text that immediately surrounds the hyperlinks. If possible, include your most important keyword phrases in hyperlinks and the surrounding text.

Points to remember when optimizing text hyperlinks:
* Include your most important keyword phrases within the hyperlink.
* Include your most important keyword phrases in the text that immediately precedes or follows the hyperlink.
* After adding phrases, make sure that your links and surrounding text are still clear and concise.

Optimize the heading tags

The important HTML heading tags are h1, h2, h3, and h4.

* Reformat your page to create more headings. Break copy into separate sections. Add a heading to each section.
* Include your most important keyword phrases in heading tags

Robots File

Several search engine spiders rely on the existence of a file in the root folder in order to continue with the crawling and indexing process for a website.
* Create a robots.txt file in the root folder
* robots.txt file will contain –
User-agent: *
Disallow

Naming Rule

It is critical to name the filenames appropriately, since these will be indexed by spiders. If a domain-name, directory, file & image are named using an important keyword, it will add more keyword weight when linked from the one page to another.
* Use keywords to name Directories
* Use keywords for Filenames and Images when possible
* Use keywords for Anchors
* Use keywords for images
* Use keywords for Link text
* Use hyphen ( -) or underscore ( _ ) as a separator while naming directories and files.

Domain Registration

Register a domain name with the exact keyword phrase you wish to target, using hyphens to separate the keywords. For example, if the keyword phrase is "search engine rankings," then register: search-engine-rankings.com
If the domain you want is unavailable, either try a different extension, such as .NET, .INFO, or .US, or add a keyword to the end (preferential) or beginning of the domain

Pages & Directory Levels

Keep your pages as close to the root domain as possible. Do not set up more than 3 directory levels. For example:
* www.yoursite.com/index.html (1st level - excellent)
* www.yoursite.com/html/index.html (2nd level - Good)
* www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/index.html (3rd level - OK)
* www.yoursite.com/html/marketing/search/index.html (Too many levels down - search engines will find it difficult to find and index pages this far down)

Site Map

Include a site map with links to all your pages. This will help search engines find and index all your pages.
* Limit the number of links on a web page to 50.
* If you have more than 50 links, limit your links to your most important pages.
* Include text on the page as some search engines, such as AltaVista, have been known to kick out links only pages

Avoid spamming

To prevent search engines from identifying your site as one that's capable of "spamming," adhere to the following tips:
* List keywords only in your meta tag. Avoid long lists of keywords in your text.
* Make sure there is no 'hidden text' (text that is the same color as the background) on your page.
* Use only one title tag.
* Submit each page only once within 24 hours.
* Use keywords in your keywords meta tag that directly relate to the content of your page.