Does SEO Really Matter in Website Design?

Yes, yes it does.  My project plan doesn’t allow for website design to begin until we’ve gone through keyword discovery, created a keyword rich sitemap, and defined our call to actions.  Only after we know the full scope of the project does the graphic artist and coders begin work.  It is that patience and due diligence that makes the project a success.

The below graph shows a large increase in website traffic two months after go live.  The website went live September 30th and by the end of November the website traffic had increased 353%.  That’s a pretty big shift in traffic in just sixty days.

The below graph separates out the traffic increase into traffic that is solely based on keywords (or organic search traffic).  In this example, it is showing just Google search traffic.  This illustrates that huge traffic gains can be obtained by good old fashion content creation and focused web design and blogging.

What Else Was Included in the Project?

My client is someone who originally approached me a year before we actually started the web design project.  He had known of my work through his competitors and others within his industry.  At our first conversation, he told me I was too expensive.  I’m okay when people tell me this and it does happen a lot.  I know I am more expensive then many other web designers – especially WordPress designers.  This is because my team makes sure we design and build websites with personas, organic SEO, and conversions in mind.  We don’t just customize an existing WordPress template, we create one from scratch and we make sure it is 100% designed to the client’s needs.  We also make sure the entire project is based on search engine optimization, a competitive analysis, and hours of keyword discovery.

A year after turning down my pricing this client resurfaced.  I believe he had tried some lower cost SEO options and some website tweaks that didn’t quite work.  His traffic was still low and his visitors were not converting.  This time around he was willing to invest both time and money into the project.  This time around he obtained results that included a 350% increase in traffic.

Our website design project included:

• New logo
• Complete keyword discovery
• Website pages were created based on keywords
• New custom design for the website and blog
• Design built out in WordPress via the Genesis framework from StudioPress
• Each website page and post were given optimized meta titles and descriptions
• Performed an inbound linking campaign
• Integrated social media to help build branding and inbound links
• Professionally designed newsletter

And the Winner Is?

Both the client and I are winners in my mind.  The client may have paid more than he originally anticipated, but the initial outcome if most likely better than he expected as well.  I win because I was able to stay true to my methodology and keep SEO closely tied into the web design process.

If you’d like to learn more about how Web Savvy Marketing can help with your website, visit our website design or WordPress portfolio pages for more information.

Your new website just went live so you’re now enjoying the fruits of your labor and admiring the exceptional job you and your team did on design and development. The project is finally over and it is time to settle back and wait for your website traffic to climb to new heights.

Reality check! I repeat – it is time for a reality check. You’re about half done with your quest for internet dominance. The research, website design, build out, and on-page SEO are all only part of your ongoing battle for visitors and conversions. Link building is not only necessary – it’s critical! It is the only way to maximize your website traffic and get the most ROI out of your web design project.

Why Do We Need to Worry About Link Building?

Consider the internet like the homecoming queen contest. To win the crown (or page one ranking), you need to be pretty, have some depth, and have a lot of votes by your peers. A website is no different. It needs to be functional, have unique content, and it needs to have links pointing to it from other websites so Google and Bing know it is of value. The links represent votes and these votes help provide a method by which the search engines and their algorithms can score authority. Without incoming links, it will be impossible to win over the search engines. We SEOs call this off-page SEO.

Why Do We Wait for Link Building Until After Go-Live?

In an early blog post, titled Ten Steps to Quality Link Building and Strong Organic SEO, I discuss the need for a structured link building plan and map of your keyword to page strategy. This is critical because you need to build links into your home page, but also pages and posts. If you’ve followed my website design plan (my previous blog posts), each page of your website will have a specific keyword focus. You’ll need this list and the final page URLs before you can start link building and this list isn’t finalized until after go-live.

How on Earth Can We Find Linking Building Opportunities?

There are a lot of ways, although not all links are as beneficial as others. We SEOs talk a lot about “do follow” links and page authority and PR rank. Most regular people don’t get our SEO babble and they don’t need to get it. What they need is basic link building and a decent list of link building opportunities.

Link building opportunities include, but are not limited to the following:

You’re probably feeling a little overwhelmed right now, but you don’t need to be. Link building is not so much difficult, as it is time consuming. When I first started link building, I spent hours every Friday working on this task. It was painful. Back then there were not a ton of helpful bloggers or SEO consultants giving out free advice. I had to research opportunities and find potential links by turning myself into Nancy Drew. Nancy Drew surfed the internet for websites related to our keywords, watched our competition, and did a whole lot of random queries.

These days link building is much easier. There are lots and lots of sources of information and lists of link building opportunities for generic and/or industry specific links. Liking you as much as I do, I’m going to give you a jump-start and provide a slew of websites to get you started.

Link Building 101

Don’t forget about the anchor text when link building.  Anchor text is the text used to identify the link.  You don’t want to use “click here” because it isn’t descriptive for the user or the search engines.  Use words that relate to the destination page and make sure you have a good mix of phrases or terms.

Did I miss any great link building opportunities?  Okay I’m sure I did, because this list can really be endless.  If you have a great link I missed, please leave a comment and tell us about it.

My girlfriend is not alone.  I receive dozens of emails each week from people wanting blogs and websites created for their “idea” and I can tell at least 75% have no clue what to do or where to start.  The classic signs of this state of confusion are the words “thinking” and “maybe” and “possibly” and of course the phrase “not sure”.  Let’s be realistic here and understand that thinking and maybe and possibly are all wishy washy and they do not equal a plan.  To make money on the internet you need a plan. Without it, you’re blog will struggle and you’ll lose interest and you will inevitably waste money.   I want to give you a blogging plan.

A quick check of Google search volumes shows that over 14,800 searches are done for “how to blog” each month.  That is a lot of people looking for a blogging plan of attack. That also means you have over 14,000 people thinking about or potentially starting a blog each month.  Lots and lots of competition.

My initial thought was to send her a quick how-to guide for blogging.  Then I realized that this should be a teaching lesson for more than one future blogger.   So I’m whipping my how-to guide into a blog post for the masses.

Let’s Walk Through the Process for Getting Started With Blogging

Pick a Topic – You’re blog needs to have focus and it needs to be focused on something you know and love.  If you’re going to right about something a lot, you need to love it with all your heart.  I love internet marketing, but I’m a geek.  My girlfriend is a better example of a real life, nongeek blogger.  Mary is going to have a travel focused blog which is perfect because Mary loves to travel.

Check Keyword Search Volumes – Before you finalize your blog’s focus, you need to make sure people will actually search on the topic.  You may love to talk about your bottle cap collection, but it won’t generate any revenue if no one actually searches for terms related to your bottle cap collection.  A quick visit to Google’s Adword Keyword Tool will provide an excellent source for keyword research and finding keywords and phrases people actually search for on the internet.

Register a Domain Name – You need to have a URL (www.something.com) so people can find your blog.  There are lot of extensions available, but I tend to stick with the .com group.  Few .com URLs are available because so many people are holding them hostage.  Be creative, be unique, and if needed use dashes.  I register my domains at GoDaddy.  Search the internet for GoDaddy deals and coupon codes, but remember not to host at GoDaddy.  They’re good for domain registration, but not so great at actual hosting.

Pick a Blogging Platform – If you’ve ever been to my website before, you already know I’m a WordPress girl through and through.  There are other blogging platforms available, but WordPress is by far the best.  You can go 100% free via WordPress.com, but you will be limited on your capabilities.  You can go down the path of WordPress.org and have a world of opportunities available to you.  You will have to self host your blog, but this is easy once you realize there are great hosting companies that do everything for you.

Pick a Hosting Company – Like my allegiance to WordPress.org, I am also a firm advocate of Blue Host.  They offer one click WordPress installs, have great performance, and their technical support team is top notch.  I have literally had to stop the technical team and explain I don’t need education on WordPress, because I’m a website designer.  But the gesture is appreciated and their response time and performance applauded.

Pick a Blog Theme – As with everything else in my life, I am very opinionated here too.  Do not be fooled into thinking free WordPress themes are all you need.  Not only are they generic, they can come with hidden code that links to nasty websites.  Invest in yourself and your blog by picking a solid WordPress theme.  These would be called premium themes.  My favorite (I stress favorite) premium theme provider is StudioPress.  Their Genesis framework is functionally robust and has great performance.  It is all we use at my firm when we create custom themes for websites and blogs.  Should you not find what you want at StudioPress, you can visit ThemeForest.net to find hundreds of WordPress themes from a slew of theme developers.  Be careful though, because not all ThemeForest designers will live up to the technical support provided by the StudioPress team.  Some are very good and others not so much.  Expect to pay at least $30 for a premium theme that is off the shelf and about $1,500 to $5,000 for a custom theme.

Remember Images Matter – A blog needs some eye candy and images are that eye candy.  Images help break up the text and they add depth to the posts.  I like to use BigStockPhoto.com and iStockPhoto.com.

Pick the Right WordPress Plugins – WordPress is awesome, but WordPress plugins extend this awesomeness exponentially.  Not all plugins are good and some are just stinky.  Once I find a good plugin, I tend to use it over and over again for client websites.  My favorite ones include:

• Akismet – The rock star of spam fighters.
• All in One SEO – Easy to use tool for search engine optimization.
• Contextual Related Posts – Provides a list of related blog posts based on content.
• Digg Digg – Easy to use share buttons for content distribution.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Produces a list of content for the search engines and updates them when new content is published.
• Gravity Forms – A premium plugin that makes form create simple.
• NextGEN Gallery – Easy to use image grouping and display.  Don’t forget to add a lightbox.
• Robot.txt – Protects your WordPress core files from search engine indexing.
• Subscribe to Comments – Great for user engagement.
• Taxonomy List Shortcode – Good plugin for creating a A-Z index of your blog topics.  You can see an example of this by clicking on the link in my sidebar.
• WP-DBManager – Back up and database optimization all in one.  Yes you do need to optimize your database.  It’s kind of like brushing your teeth WordPress style.
• SEO Smart Links – Creates automatic hyperlinks to your pages, posts, categories, and tags.
• Outbound Link Manager – Easy way to manage outbound (aka affiliate marketing) links in one page.

Connect With the Search Engines – Submit your XML sitemap (see plugin above) to Google and Bing.  They both have some version of Webmaster Tools available for this process.  Take the time to establish an account and then check back for errors or messages.  Google and Bing have lots of information available, so explore and return often.

Find a Revenue Stream – Your blog should make money.  If you’re good at blogging, you can make lots of money.  You need to sell a product, service, or have ads.  With the help of Google and the affiliate marketing network, getting advertisers is easier than you think.  You can use the Google Adsense program to have their network of advertisers matched up to your content or you can go the affiliate marketing route.  Affiliate marketing refers to placing ads on your blog and you are paid for each impression, click, or action resulting from your ad.  Google has an affiliate network and other popular ones are ClickBank and Share a Sale.  Pick one or more, but have a plan to generate revenue.

Use Email Communication – Stay in touch with your readers and give them a reason to come back to your blog by emailing them regularly.  You can use a free service like Google’s FeedBurner to automatically update subscribers when you publish a new blog post or you could create custom newsletters with email campaign software from Constant Contact or Bronto or Mail Chimp.

Become a Social Media Goddess – Social media does work and it is more than a buzzword.  These days everyone thinks they are great at social media although in all fairness, few really are.  Just remember the goal is to connect with people and engage them.  To succeed you just need to be honest, be open, and be present.  Use YouTube, Facebook Pages, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.  Every time you publish a new blog post, it should be shared via the social media websites.  Just don’t forget to read through some social media best practices and blunders before you start posting.

Analyze Your Traffic – Huh?  This simply means pay attention to how many people come to your blog and watch what they do once they get there.  Google Analytics is a free tool that has a ton of functionality, data points, and graphs.  It will show you how many people visit your blog, where they come from, what keywords they search one, how long they stay, and even what pages or posts make them leave.  Learn from the data and improve your blogging to improve your traffic and activity.

Give Yourself a Break – Blogging success does not happen overnight.  You need to find your blogging mojo, get yourself in a rhythm, and learn what works and what doesn’t work.  Don’t expect to see 1,000 hits a day in the first month.  Be patient and be thorough and you will succeed.

Will Mary Succeed at Blogging?

I’m about 99% confident my friend will do just fine.  Mary is smart, has an MBA, and is quick witted.  She is also determined.  I’ve known her for well over ten years and I know this – if Mary sets her mind to something she will succeed.  And darn it she better.  Mary has a living girlfriend’s guide to blogging in me and I won’t let her fail.

This year’s WordCamp was hosted at the Detroit RenCen building.  Yes from the image below, you can see the building(s) are as cool as the name.  Not only was the RenCen luxurious, the staff was superb.

Jen and I arrived to WordCamp Friday night.  We come from the burbs where husbands and children are plentiful, so sneaking down to Detroit (aka the D) Friday night was an opportunity neither of us wanted to pass up.  While WordCamp’s awesome organizers were setting up the conference, Jen and I had a wonderful dinner at Joe Muer Seafood in the RenCen. Why is this tidbit relevant? Because it shows you we viewed this weekend as a treat and not work.  Being able to hang out with fellow WordPress lovers is something we look forward to and value.  We decided to start it out right with a great dinner.  And it was fabulous.  The restaurant had only opened a month or so ago, but it was true to Muer traditions and the friendly people of Detroit.

The conference started Saturday morning.  Name tags and WordPress “stuff” were everywhere.

The organizers started the event by thanking the sponsors.  You’ll see a familiar red logo, since Web Savvy Marketing was a business sponsor.  Actually the first sponsor to sign up if I recall correctly.  I was eager to become a sponsor and I truly believe my money was well spent.  StudioPress and TechSmith are two of my favorite companies and I was thrilled to see them both involved by offering prizes and free licenses to participants.  Without question, I will sponsor next year’s conference.  It is about giving back to the WordPress community that has given so much to me.

After thanking the sponsors, Anthony kicked off the conference in true geek style.  Some 80s music and smoke filled the room to wake us all up and get us all excited.  It worked.

Once started, the conference was filled with speakers and interactive opportunities.  The WordCamp team did an excllent job getting us engaged and keeping the conference light and rewarding.  I thoroughly enjoyed talking with others about WordPress.

The four women in the front row are me and my girls.

WordCamp attendance was up significantly from last year and you can see we had a pretty full house.  I hope to see the conference expand even further next year as the business community continues to adopt WordPress as the premier platform for websites and blogs.

Day two of the conference wrapped up with a great presentation on custom posts.  To me, this was worth my attendance and my sponsorship.  While I have helped tackle everything from custom themes to BuddyPress to Facebook integration, custom posts are an area I had not yet taken on.  I’m happy to say it is on my agenda this week.

WordCamp Detroit reminded my that I am thankful for both WordPress the software and the community behind it.  Seeing Deb tweet her heart out, watching TJ’s cheerleading efforts, or giggling as Anthony struggles to be Alex Trebek, I know aligning myself with WordPress and this community was the right decision.  I’m not exactly sure how I fell into WordPress, but I’m always very happy I did.

Many thanks to the WordCamp organizers and the sponsors.  Can’t wait to see you all again next year!

We All Make Mistakes

Very few clients have Scott’s thirst for knowledge.  They don’t understand it, or care, or have the time to listen to me ramble about SEO and website design.  Their confident my team will manage go-live and do so properly.  And we do, because we have a project plan that we walk through and I check off as the project progesses.  But not every web design firm or SEO consultant uses a checklist or project plan.  They miss things and these “things” become opportunities for their client’s competition because it is the little things that win in SEO and website design.

Three weeks ago I was researching competitors of a prospect and I discovered one of their local competitors had every page on their website blocked to search engines.  Only the home page was in Google’s index and the company was paying heavily for pay per click campaigns.  The company didn’t know their web designer or in-house webmaster left the noindex tag on all their pages.  It was everything I could do to stop myself from calling the firm to let them know.

The point I am trying to make here is that many consultants and marketing firms miss things.  We’re human and we make mistakes.  Not like a doctor leaving a medical device in a patient type of mistake, but pretty big mistakes nonetheless.  If you’re the client or the DIY web designer, you need to protect yourself.  You need to have some education and you should do a quick run through of your website before and after go-live.  And of course, well before you pay that final invoice.

Go-Live Checklist for Web Design Projects

1. Test Your Website Against All Browsers – Just when you think everything is perfect, in walks someone using IE (Internet Explorer).  Older versions of IE have produced many of grey hairs for me over the last few years.  Things tend to break in IE, so double checking the new website in it right before go-live is critical.  While not as buggy as IE, other browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and Safari should also be reviewed.  They are more robust, but older versions can also be problematic. My beloved iPhone and iPad are newer arrivals and they too should be checked.
2. Add a Favicon – A favicon is about branding.  It adds a little image to the tab or window of the user’s browser and it is saved with the bookmark in a favorites list. While this isn’t a critical element, it does provide a nice polished look to your website and I have many clients who get big smiles when they see their logo pop up as a favicon.
3. Create an HTML Sitemap for Visitors – Much to my disappointment; sitemaps are ignored by many developers.  I still create one and while I don’t put it proudly in the main navigation, I do try to make it available in the footer.  Most people don’t use sitemaps, but for those of us who are impatient (that would be me) they’re important.
4. Create an XML Sitemap for Search Engines – A sitemap.xml file should be created and placed in your root directory.  This simple little file allows major search engines to easily index your website.  In WordPress, generating this sitemap is as easy as adding a plugin and clicking the generate button.  WordPress will automatically update this file with every new page or post addition or content change.  It is a simple way of reaching out to search engines and letting them know you have fresh content available for their review.  While this is simple, it is many times forgotten.
5. Prepare a Redirect File – The redirect file is the bane of my existence.  It simply tells search engines and users that an old page or post is no longer available and it redirects them to the current page or post.  It is important for usability and SEO.  So why do I hate it so much?  It is time consuming and it is one of the last things we do before go-live.  Not only do we create the redirect file for the client, we generally have to audit their existing pages and provide a cross reference between old and new.  My clients don’t know what pages they have, so I end up becoming an internet detective in my efforts to locate a complete list.  Once you have the list of old and new matched up, you simply add the directory to the .htaccess file.  Or in my case, you use a WordPress plugin like Redirection.  I love the Redirection plugin because I can upload all the links right from a CSV file.
6. Create and Review a Robot.txt File – The robot.txt file blocks spiders or instructs the search engines to ignore certain file folders on your server.  For most clients this generally means keeping spiders out of the WordPress core and theme files.  For others it may identify a protected directory of white papers or files that are restricted.  Simple, yet important for protecting your website and your high value web assets.
7. Double Check Your Submission Forms Are Working – The simple checking of submission forms may seem like a no brainer, but you’d be surprised at the amount of problems that can result from a simple contact form.  Email and forms can work differently from server to server, so you absolutely need to recheck forms after a website is moved from a development server to a live server.  One woman told me her company had broken forms for an entire year after they launched their website because no one remembered to check them.  When inquiry forms are your lead source, this is disastrous.
8. Double Check Your Meta Titles and Descriptions – Yes I know I just blogged about this in my last post (Web Design Ain’t Over Until the SEO Sings) and we’ve really already done this twice, but it I still double-check high value pages after go-live.  I use the toolbar from SEOmoz to view the meta title and description outside of WordPress just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.  And sometimes, the meta title or description that sounded great a week ago sounds incredibly stupid at launch.  So I go back and edit it just to make sure my pages are well represented in the SERPs.  This is where my OCD personality is highly visible and beneficial.
9. Double Check Your Index Settings – Didn’t I do that with my Robot.txt file above?  Well yes and no.  The robot.txt file looks at folders and is server based.  CMS packages like WordPress allow you to block search engines at a site or page and post level.  While we are in development, we have a site wide block of search engines so our clients do not run into issues with duplicate content.  Our go-live plan includes removing this setting.  That being said, not everyone has such as policy and I’ve noticed new websites blocking search engines more times than I have time to discuss in a blog post.
10. Check Your RSS Feed and Sign Up for FeedBurner – An RSS feed is a techie term for a page that lists your most recent blog posts.  You can use this feed to automatically populate other websites or profiles on the internet.  It is a must have for link building efforts.  Feedburner is a service that allows visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed via email.  It is offered by Google, it is 100% free, and it makes a great tool for building engagement.  Some people even show off the number of RSS subscribers they have as if it is a badge of honor.
11. Add Google Analytics – I virtually force Google Analytics on every client.  I set it up even if they don’t care, because I think some day they will care and I want them to have data available.  Google Analytics is a free application that tracks visits to your website and the corresponding activity.  It can tell you where people came from, what keyword they used, how long they stay, and when they left.  Good website design and SEO requires analytics.  Since GA is free and powerful, it makes a great tool.
12. Submit Your New Sitemap.xml File to Google, Yahoo, and Bing – Use Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Yahoo Site Explorer.  Doing so will not only allow for very rapid indexing of the new website, it will provide very valuable tools down the road.  I use Google Webmaster Tools every week and find it a critical tool for evaluating website and SEO success.
13. Review Speed and Performance – After your website is live on your server, you need to review performance.  You’ll be able to verify speed immediately from viewing the website live on the internet and you’ll receive performance reports from Google via Webmaster Tools.  Remember that speed alters search results and conversion rates, so make sure your website performance is up to par.  If you’re live and you’re living with poor performance, don’t be fooled into thinking it is temporary.  Some hosting companies are just horrible, so get out as quick as you can.

DIY Designers Take Note

Winning (not the Charlie Sheen kind) isn’t easy.   Most people are not like my pal Scott and their minds do just magically sponge up SEO knowledge.

Each week I receive calls from a lot of DIY website owners.  Virtually every time my heart goes out to them, because they’re really trying.  But trying and succeeding are two different things.  Website design and SEO is hard work.  Competing on the internet is difficult and there are reasons why most websites get virtually no traffic.

If you are considered the average Joe and you’ve undertaken at DIY website project, take a moment and reread the above list.  If you’ve reviewed my thirteen items and you only “get” about five of them, you’re setting yourself up for failure.  Take the time to research them further and postpone your website launch until you’ve made sure you’ve thoroughly covered your to do list.  If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the list, then seek out a professional.  The few hundred dollars you spend for the last minute help will be well worth it in the end.

Whether you’re the DIY website designer, a marketing manager, or a small business owner – double check your website and efforts at go-live and make sure you and/or your website design firm have everything in working order.

At Web Savvy Marketing we work on a good mix of web design projects and straight SEO consulting.  Our website design clients typically select us because our process is integrated with full search engine optimization.  The funny part is that they’re always surprised when we don’t launch the new website the minute they email their last bit of content.  We don’t launch immediately because there is still a lot of SEO work to perform.   And while we start the web design project with SEO, much of it cannot be performed until the last minute.

Why Does Website Launch Wait for SEO?

When we kick off the project and I, the resident SEO geek, perform my research and competitive analysis, I have a plan in mind for SEO.  I know what keywords I want to target and what pages I want us to write.  Then development really starts and you, the naive and unprepared client, realizes writing strong web content isn’t as easy as you think.  It’s painful plain and simple. We, the team, end up making compromises on keywords and content and we shift focus and modify our sitemap.  It happens every time.  As your SEO consultant, I stretch you as far as I can take you and attempt to reach as many keywords as possible.  You, the client, put me back in my box and reset my expectations with what your team can support.

You may think I should scale back, but I’ll disagree.  My job is to stretch your imagination and reach you beyond what you think is possible.  When you fight and cannot support it, then we’ll adjust.  I won’t accept limitations until they are true limitations.  And I’d rather stretch and reach more than what was expected then not reach at all.

Once we modify the sitemap, pages, and keywords, my SEO strategy needs to be adjusted.  I’m used to this and have no problem with it at all.  I’ve learned this is the natural progression because I’m firm on pushing you to your limits.  I just need to wait until this occurs before I put a large block of my time or my staff’s time into your on-page SEO.

When the Design Dust Settles, SEO Cleans Up

Once the last website content is loaded and we know our final page count and site structure, me and my team move in to pretty everything up.  When I say “pretty”, I mean we fancy up your content and make it page one worthy.

1.  Optimize Page Text and Headers for Keywords and Phrases

This really starts at the launch of the project, but as I stated above, these keyword focus can change some over the course of development.  Taking a step back and revisiting your targeted keywords at launch makes sure you have pages to support your keywords and more importantly, your copy supports the keyword.

I go through page by page and make sure your content uses the keyword or phrase we selected and that it is used in a natural way that is easy to read.  I also go through and double-check headers (H1 tags) and subheaders (H2, H3, H4 tags) to make sure they support the keyword and phrase for SEO and readability.

Subheaders are very important because they help break up content for the readers and for the search engines.  They provide natural breaks within the page and help point out areas of interest for those of us that scan web pages and blog posts.  I am one of those scanners, so I make sure every client website has a good mix of subheaders.

2.  Review and Update Alt Tags Images, Anchor Text for Links and Files, and Bold Text References

Alt tag refers to an alternative tag for an image. Search engines, and users with some disabilities, cannot read text in images.  The alt tag is simply used to describe the image in the event it cannot be read.  You want the alt tag to be relevant to the image and include keywords if applicable.  But you must do so only if the keyword is relevant to the image itself.

Anchor text is the clickable text that users will see as a result of a link. Good on-page SEO includes the use of keyword rich hyperlinks, however, this should only be used if it represents value to the reader.

On-page SEO best practices also includes formatting file names.  Using short and descriptive filenames with matching alt text is preferred.  These should not be full, keyword stuffed sentences.  They are best when they’re short, but descriptive.

Bold or strong text is also believed to influence search engines.  I will use this if it can both support the focusing of readers on important points and is keyword rich.  Due to usability concerns, I will not bold words just for the sake of on-page SEO.

3.  Create Page Specific Meta Titles and Descriptions

When you’re launching a new website or relaunching an existing website, it is critical that every page has a unique and hand crafted meta title and description.  Your meta title should be less than sixty characters and your description less than 160 characters.  Both should include the page’s keyword and both should provide text that sells.  The search engines will use your description (if they like it) for the search engine results page.  It is the first thing your future visitor sees about your website, so you need to make it good.  It needs to closely relate to the page and it needs to be worthy of someone clicking through to the website.

I typically create our meta titles and descriptions in Excel and do so for the entire sitemap.  Once this process is done I have my assistant, Jen, input them into WordPress.  We use two people, because Jen will always find mistakes.  When you sit and write 200 meta titles and 200 meta descriptions, you will make mistakes.  The second set of eyes helps greatly in making sure your meta is correct and without spelling or grammatical errors.

4.  Optimize Blog Entries

Blog entry optimization is important and yet it is the one item I many times almost forget.  Clients throw blog posts at me right before go-live and due to this, I frequently catch myself backtracking to make sure these are optimized.

Optimizing a blog post works the same as with the other pages, however you need to remember the value of the internal link.  Blog posts typically support the cornerstone content pages and their keywords.  What the heck is a cornerstone content page?  It is a page that is used to target higher volume and more competitive keywords.  The blog posts then support these pages by providing keyword rich inbound links.

Meta descriptions and post excerpts should be reviewed as well.  Many times these are displayed when the post is shared on social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn.  You want to make sure the intro text is descriptive and entices someone to click through to the actual post.

5.  Create Deep Links

Deep links.  For me this is where I call uncle and grab my assistant Jen.  I’ve worked on the web design and SEO of the website for weeks and I’m usually starting to get fatigued.  Jen, being the perky and WordPress savvy person that she is, takes a fresh look at the content and goes page by page to input hyperlinks to other pages.  This process helps both the user and the search engines understand what pages are most important.

It’s a Wrap

Well kind of.  You’re done with on-page SEO for now, but we’ve not yet discussed the really geeky side of SEO.  This comes in another blog post and another day.  We’ll end this post with the reminder that you’re website and content is optimized for on-page SEO, which is the land of search engine optimization, is a huge part of the battle.

The DIY Website Designer

Lately I’ve received a lot of emails and calls from people who ventured down the DIY website path only to find themselves going astray.  They realized – once in the midst of the project – that the whole web design process is a bit more challenging than they originally realized.  Many people believe a website is simply comprised of a logo, basic color scheme, and text.  Heck that’s easy.  So easy anyone can do it.  Well, not so much.  When website design is done correctly – I stress correctly – it involves a whole lot more than just text, colors, and a logo.

Our website development process includes a 90+ point project plan that is broken out into project kick-off, collection of client deliverables, research and planning, custom theme design, website build, and final optimization for search.  This project plan is tracked electronically in a project management software package that manages tasks, owners, and due dates.  I use software for this because it is a process.  When done properly, the process takes a 6-8 weeks to complete all the tasks and make sure they are all performed properly.  Yes folks, that means building a good website requires a lot more than whipping up your logo, throwing in some text, and picking some colors.

I’m not implying the non-web designers can’t create their own website.  I’m stating the average DIY website creator has a full-time job other than website design and they do not have the time nor stamina to execute it properly.

But What About DIY Services Like Website Tonight?

How can that be?  Companies like Intuit or GoDaddy offer packages like Website Tonight and promise to have your website up and running within minutes.   Intuit’s landing page for this shows a case study for a website receiving a whopping 20 visitors a day.  Yes I said 20 visitors.  Isn’t that just fabulous?

So what’s the problem?  Well first of all, real websites typically have more than five pages.  And they don’t all look alike and they typically receive more than 20 visitors today.  Everyone I’ve ever known who has used one of these services has a website that no one visits.  Worse yet, if someone does manage to find it, the visitor bounces (quickly leaves) and the website generates zero leads, sales, or revenue.  Why is this the case?  Because these sites are built by people whose expertise is outside that of website design and because they DIY website builder does not know what SEO (search engine optimization) is or how to utilize it properly.  The other reasons is people who go this route are in a hurry and they whip up the fastest website they can only to regret it months or years later.

The funniest part of the whole Website Tonight process is that GoDaddy has tried to sell me this service on multiple occasions.  I’ve had to call the company before and virtually every time someone tries to pitch me this service.  I have to cut them off in midsentence to explain I do this for a living, I’m a web designer by profession, and I don’t need a cookie cutter website that no one visits.  Okay I don’t say the end part, but I think it in my head.  It isn’t the customer service rep’s fault that they have to pitch this service to everyone they talk to, so I try to be polite.

Why Hire a Professional Web Designer?

There are plenty of reasons.  A professional website designer will guide you through the process.  He will explain why dancing gifs are inappropriate, why thunder sounds on the home page distract from the visitor experience, why Google can’t digest a flash website, and why SEO is critical to driving traffic.  The professional web designer will teach you about design best practices and make sure these elements are used within the project.

And if your design firm is good, at some point within the project you’ll hate them because they will tell you your blog post is too “salesy”, your content doesn’t make sense to the average visitor, or that your images are not high resolution enough to use.  And then at the end of the project you’ll love them, because you will have a website that is unique, easy to use, and easy to find.

But Isn’t WordPress for DIY Websites?

WordPress is hugely popular and it is a great CMS tool.   I love it, because it can create beautiful websites that are loved by Google and Bing.  What I hate about WordPress is it gives people a false sense of security.  It makes you think you don’t need a professional.  And in some cases you don’t.  Some people just naturally think marketing, design, and psychology.  Some people can actually create a great website all on their own.  The problem is that these people are rare.  They are few and far between.

What WordPress is exceptional at is empowering companies to maintain their own website.  My suggestion to businesses who want to use WordPress is to hire a professional design firm to create a custom theme and help you get the website up and running.  Then maintain it yourself in WordPress.  Update your own content, add your own blog posts, and moderate your own comments.  Just leave the plugins and design changes to the professional, because you’ll end up breaking the theme.

There are many design firms that only give clients limited access to WordPress. They do this to prevent clients from breaking their websites and themes and to limit support calls.  I do not do this, but part of me wishes I did because people make changes and break stuff and never see the problems.  They don’t notice that content boxes no longer align or links are broken because they are not professionals.

DIY Websites the Right Way

I applaud people who want to create their own websites.  Heck I did it myself over a decade ago and it is how I got started in internet marketing.  The problem is my website looked like I created it myself and it took years for me to “get it”.  Most people and/or businesses don’t have years to wait for success.  They need help and traffic and leads or sales now.

My suggestion to those who want to create a DIY website is to hire a professional to get your started with the design, SEO, and build out.  Once you have a solid foundation and a strong website architecture in place, manage it yourself and be autonomous.

Let a professional designer give you the wings, then you can teach yourself to soar.

WordCamp Detroit is coming!

Why Should You Attend a WordCamp?

If you love WordPress or want to get involved with WordPress, it’s a great opportunity to learn more about WordPress and interact with the local WordPress community. Many of us don’t leave of our monitors much, so it forces us to get up and explore the world around us and the people that make that world cool. Plus you get to listen to very small WordPress people talk about how they use WordPress to make money, run a business, or create really neat things.

WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. WordCamps are open to WordPress.com and WordPress.org users alike.

WordCamp is about communicating and engaging with likeminded people who love website design, SEO, and internet marketing.

Why Would Anyone Sponsor a WordCamp?

Because we love WordPress and everything it represents. I built a business around it and I see it liberate my clients by freeing them from me or any other web developer. It has endless possibilities and it’s the fastest growing web software around. It’s also in downtown Detroit and helps support our local economy. And honestly, I don’t think I can preach the power of WordPress if I’m not willing to personally help support the community.

Are You One of the Cool Kids?

You’ll be one of the cool kids if you attend the conference. You’ll get to hang out with people like me – your fellow internet marketing geek – and talk about well, WordPress web design. I know you’re excited.

Registration is open: http://2011.detroit.wordcamp.org/register/

Since I run into this often, I’m sure the average website owner does too.  If you’re trying to decide between updating your existing website or moving towards a full website design, I’d encourage you to ask yourself five quick questions.

1. Do You Have a CMS Package?

If you’re wondering what the heck a CMS package is, it means content management system. Which really refers to a user friendly way to update your website. And when I say user friendly, I mean easy enough that the average person could update page text, write a blog post, and modify an image.

Popular flavors of CMS consist of open source WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. I am a WordPress girl and have dedicated by firm to creating WordPress websites and supporting WordPress users. That being said, Joomla and Drupal are also good packages and both have their place in the market. Each CMS package have different niches they fill and each can be an excellent solution for creating a new website.

Do people really use CMS for website design? Yep and way more than you think. WordPress powers 14.7% of the top million websites in the world. And 22 out of every 100 new active domains in the US are running WordPress.

I digressed a bit. The point I wanted to make is that CMS packages give you control over your website and your online marketing. If you’re stuck living with an HTML website that is impossible to update, then you have a problem.

2. Is Your Website SEO Friendly?

This is a huge factor if you rely on your website to generate traffic through organic search. One of the core reasons I love WordPress is because it is very user friendly. If configured properly, it will create search engine friendly URLs, alt tags, unique page descriptions and titles, XML sitemaps, and the beloved H1 tags and bolded text. All are needed for courting Google and Bing properly.  WordPress makes it very easy to stay compliant with search engine rules and helps guide you along the way.

If you can’t answer that question yourself, go to WebsiteGrader.com and see how they grade your website. My website is a 99/100. Most I query are a 50/100. If you’re less than 90, you have problems.

3. Is Your Website Functionally Robust?

Complete a list of functional desires and compare it to what you currently have in place. Can your website manage your wish list without consuming your entire marketing budget in code changes? Can you add to this functionality or do you have to turn to a high priced coder each week?

Now take your requirements list and compare that list to WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. One of these CMS solutions will meet your needs and all are excellent choices. Especially if you’re currently stuck with an HTML website.

Remember the usage numbers I provided for WordPress? You’re probably wondering why it’s so popular? There are over 15,000 plugins available for WordPress and that means 15,000 opportunities to add to the core functionality WordPress offers. Many of these are free and they usually have an easy one click install right from the admin panel. Good stuff for me and the million other WordPress users.

4. Are You in Charge of Changes?

Do you control your website? That may seem like a silly question, but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t know exactly who created their original website, where they are, or how to reach them. Another frequent compliant I hear is the developer has a 30 day backlog and a simple text changes cannot be made for 45 days.

That, my friends, is a major problem. Internet marketing is fast paced. Last year Google made 500 changes to their algorithm, which means we webmasters needed to also adjust. If you can’t get a hold of your webmaster or if you have no access to the website, you’ll fall behind on search engine compliance and you’ll also be a lager to your competition.  The goal of CMS based websites is to keep you in control.

5. Is it Easy to Use?

Assuming you are in control of your pages and you can access the backend to make modifications, is it easy to do? Can you figure out how to update text, add a page, or create a blog post? Can you add images, products, or change your navigation structure? You should be able to if your website is built within a CMS solution.

But I caution you on picking your developer and making sure they fully understand the CMS package. Back in December I wrote a blog post about my sister’s experience with selecting a WordPress designer. The post Fifteen Questions to Ask Your Future Website Designer goes into how she had a pretty blog that didn’t quite the level she was expecting. Needless to say, my development team rebuilt the entire thing for her this month because the original designer did not code to WordPress best practices. He hardcoded a ton of functionality that should have used WordPress’ user-friendly menus and widgets. It’s been eight months since she received the original design and after months and months of frustration, she is just now capable to making changes.

My sister’s project was a worst-case scenario and this is typically not the case. Generally when you hire a reputable designer for WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal – you actually receive a very user-friendly website.

Conclusion

If you answered no to any of the above questions, consider moving to a CMS.  And don’t forget to locate a reputable website designer. Review WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal to see which CMS package you like best. Ask around and review some website portfolios. You’ll find someone you like and the money will be well spent. You’ll end up with a SEO friendly website, that looks modern, and that you can actually update yourself.  All very good things.

What Lies Beneath is Always So Scary

At the end of our discussion I promised to review his website and dig further into his online presence. I’m not going to offer to help or even send a proposal, unless I know what help is needed. So I dug further and I did a fairly deep review of his website and his online activity. What I found did not make me happy.

As I reviewed his website, I realized his osCommerce site had some significant problems with core functionality. He didn’t have basic SEO features like an XML sitemap, H1 tags, SEO friendly URLs, canonical links, etc. What was worse, I realized his website only had products and all the product descriptions were duplicates of other websites’ content. So to sum it up, he had a website full of duplicate content that was also missing some fundamental SEO components. Oh what lie beneath is always so scary.

Pulling Off the Band-Aid

Sure I can help with social media, but in some cases I won’t. What? Really? You turn away business and future clients? Ah yes, yes I do. In some cases social media is only going to partially help and in most cases, the prospective client isn’t looking for partially as an outcome. He wants a game changer. He wants real results that provides real ROI. This gentleman wanted an immediate increase in traffic that would occur right before his peak season happened in October and November.

My proposal included setting up a blog, setting up social media accounts, and fixing his SEO. I quoted working with his existing webmaster to fix the website and I quoted rewriting his product descriptions so he had unique content. After reading through the proposal the prospect requested a call to discuss. Great I thought. I didn’t offend him with calling his baby (aka SEO) ugly.

Sins of the Past Always Cause a Stalemate

The discussion went okay. The prospect said the proposal was right on and the costing was completely in line with what I was proposing. Great. Yes I do think “great” a lot during the whole prospecting phase. He said he agreed that he did need everything that I proposed. But – oh why is there always a but in these calls?

A year ago this gentleman worked with another SEO consulting firm. I told him I could see that some SEO work had been done on his website. After all, all the products had unique meta titles and descriptions that used keywords and they were within character limits. The problem was he said he couldn’t tell what the SEO consultant did and that the ROI wasn’t there. He was still relying on his pay per click campaigns and they were expensive. He didn’t get ROI with the last SEO consultant, so he was hesitant to move forward with me. Snap! Not great and in fact a total bummer. Foiled by an SEO consultant I’ve never met and never will meet.

I am now at a stalemate due to sins of the past from another SEO consultant. I am saddened to say this happens a lot. This happens a lot more than any of us good SEO consultants would like. There are a lot of SEO consultants out there that stink. They have good intentions, but just don’t know what they’re doing and the clients don’t get the results they need. It is very difficult to convince someone to trust you when another, less educated you, already burned them. And I can’t blame this gentleman for being cautious. I would be too. Thus we are at an impasse, a stalemate, and what feels like a dead end.

Time for a Hard Decision

In our follow up call he asked that I review the proposal and that we take baby steps towards the end goal. What are some small things we could do to help drive traffic and could prove me as knowledgeable to him. I told him I would review the proposal and follow up. And I did. I’m sitting in New York at a conference and still thinking about this prospect.

Unfortunately there isn’t one set of tasks or changes that are going to drive the result he wants. He needs his website fixed for the missing SEO elements so Google will embrace it. Google won’t embrace it unless he has unique content that continues to grow. And he needs inbound links, which will come from blogging and social media activity. In my heart I don’t believe any of these things, set apart by themselves, will produce results. It just won’t work.

The mom in me wants to take care of his SEO and fix him. I want to heal him from head to toe. But I can’t. Social media or any small part of his proposal is a band-aid and it isn’t healing him. It is temporary and it would leave him without results.

He isn’t ready to take the leap of faith with me because his last leap ended up with him falling without a net. I get that, but it doesn’t change my view of his current situation, my desire to help, and the experienced internet marketer in me saying doing a tenth of what was proposed will not help.

It is time for me to walk away. Oh I hate when this moment occurs and I realize it is the best course of action. A business associate always says he “hates to lose” and me walking away would kill him. But winning a client and not achieving the results he wants is not winning. Well maybe in Charlie Sheen land is, but not in Rebecca land.

I am now off to write the goodbye email. The “I wish you luck” email. The “come back to me if you change your mind” email. Some may take this gesture negatively, while others may take it positively. I don’t know and I can’t control his reaction. I can only stay true to my beliefs and the business ethics by which I live.

In some cases, the social media band-aid does nothing more than cover the scary stuff underneath that will continue to sit there and fester and grow more and more ugly. While some may choose to apply this band-aid, I will not. I want to heal.

Holistic Internet Marketing is Essential

I believe in holistic internet marketing. I don’t believe there is one magic bullet that will be the saving grace for a company. I think success is based on a lot of things that come together. I’ve experienced this with my own company and with my clients. It isn’t a fabulous website that sells the masses, or an SEO wizard that finds the best keywords, or even a social media guru who brings mentions, clicks, and likes. It’s all of it, working together in harmony.

You can create the best website, but without real traffic, a pretty website provides no value. You can have an excellent SEO campaign that drives thousands of visitors a day, but with a horrible website, they won’t convert. You can make friends with millions via social media, but you have to have something tangible for them to see to make them stick. It isn’t one tactic that drives success, but a cohesive internet marketing plan that is well designed and well executed.

The Two-Headed Monster Have Arrived in New York

This morning I sat in a session at Affiliate Summit East listening to my friend Rachel speak. She was coaching new affiliates on creating a plan and getting started. I’ve always have a hard time explaining to people what Rachel does, because it isn’t something tangible like the websites I build or the Facebook pages I set up. But Rachel’s gift is to be able to take an idea and form it into a complete plan that is executable and fairly guaranteed to be a success.

I think this is one reason Rachel and I get along so well professionally. We’ve been referred to as a “two headed monster” of internet marketing and that “it’s hard to know where one stops and the other starts”. I’ll take that as a compliment, because Rachel practices the cohesive marketing that I believe in. She may not know as much as I do about SEO, but I don’t know as much as she does about affiliate marketing and startups. But together, we’re a pretty powerful force because we have a consistent view of internet marketing and the need for cohesiveness with online promotion.

You may not believe what the two-headed monster preaches, but we do and we do because both heads of the monster have the Google Analytics data, clients, and revenues to prove cohesiveness works.

Rachel has been in affiliate marketing for over a decade and I’ve been doing SEO and website design for almost as long. From our own collective years of experience, we have both learned there is no easy fix or massive rewards without a solid plan and a lot of hard work.

On Saturday morning I was drinking my coffee, surfing the web, and reading blog posts. Yes I am an SEO (aka nerd) and this is what we do on a Saturday morning. As I explored the web I happen to run across a blog post on Bing’s Webmaster Center blog. I’ll be honest, I don’t even know how I got there but I did and I was happy I did. I started reading a blog post from Duane Forrester. Then I found another and another and I was impressed. I was impressed with Duane and with Bing. It was good content, transparent, and written in a way the average person could digest. All things I love and appreciate.

I’ve been blogging for a very long time. I like blogs and I recognize good blogs when I see them. Google’s blog posts are one of the reasons why I’ve been such a Google fan. I like to know the rules and what is expected of me as an SEO consultant.

Duane’s posts are good and while they are not currently receiving the retweets and likes they should, if he keeps blogging at Webmaster Center, they will in due time.

Recent Bing Webmaster Center blog posts I found of interest were:

• You love links. We love links. Build for the right reasons.
• How To Build Quality Content
• Keyword research: a wise investment of time
• The Power of Local – why small, local businesses matter so much
• Social and Search: A Small Business Primer

All four are things I blog about and care about. I try to get others to read and care about them too. They are elements of good white hat SEO and the big part of what makes the internet awesome.

But why have the SEOs and internet marketers not been tweeting, liking, and sharing this content? I think they are like me and we’ve kind of gotten lazy. We’re getting much to reliant on Google, Danny Sullivan, and Matt McGee. All sources I love, but we need to broaden our horizons a little more and our horizons need to include a little more Bing.

While I am publically apologizing to Bing, I do think Bing still has a huge uphill battle. Bing is still recovering from the MSN flop and still trying to position itself as a true competitor to Google. But it can and I think it will. Competition is good and I welcome it.

Now I just need to get my fellow SEO consultants to pay a little more attention to the underdog.  Goliath (I mean Google), as much as I love it, needs the competition.  In the end, that competition will be good for SEOs, search quality, and the ultimate users.

Yes I realize that sounds like fluff, but in my geeky WordPress world all that makes me happy. It means I get to focus on clients, strategy, SEO, and I get to create wireframes. Website wireframes are like pieces of a really cool puzzle that come together to make a really great website.

What the Heck is a Wireframe?

Basically it’s a sketch of what you want a web page to look like. We start with the home page and I typically create a wireframe to give to my graphic artists when I request a new web design. Sometimes I don’t because I want her to be free and unrestricted. In other cases, when I know the client needs specific content or “stuff” on the home page, I create a wireframe. If we are dealing with any type of website personas, I always create a wireframe. It helps give the designer an idea of what we need to accomplish with the home page and what is important for the overall web project.

At this point you’re probably thinking I have this really expensive software for wireframe creation. Not at all. I simply use a SaaS product called iPLOTZ that is available via the internet. You can try and create real wireframes for free. I’ve upgraded and I pay for the service so I can have multiple wireframes at one time, but the free version is perfectly acceptable for the average person to use and create really cool concepts.

The Before and After Using Wireframes

Again, I have a good graphic artist and coding team. But even if you don’t, creating a wireframe will allow you to figure out what you’d like your home page (or other pages) to look like well before you head into actual web design.

So if you’re a novice in WordPress or a business owner who is considering a new website, consider using a wireframe to get your creative juices flowing. It might just bring out the inner geek you didn’t know you had.

That’s a lot, but there is a reason for it. I’m methodical in nature and my web design process is too. There are a lot of dots to connect and things to worry about when you launch a new website.  That doesn’t mean it has to be scary, it means it just needs to be right.

What We’ve Learned Thus Far

So far on our journey of web development, I’ve taught you to:

• Define Marketing Goals -> Successful Internet Marketing Begin With Goals
• Identify Your Target Audience -> A Box for Every Website Visitor
• Review Your Existing Website -> SEO Can’t Help a Website That Sucks
• Perform a Competitor Analysis -> Internet Marketing is a Battlefield
• Perform Keyword Research -> Keyword Research for the Average Joe

Now it’s time for us to prepare our sitemap and requirements list for the new website. I know you’re excited. This is the one step in my process that takes the most thought. But don’t be scared. I’m going to take you through it step by step.

In my last blog post we walked through performing keyword research, so you should have a great list of keywords in hand. That means it is time to create a rock solid sitemap that can support your targeted keywords and convert your traffic into revenue.

Eleven Steps for Creating a Great Sitemap and Connecting All Those Website Dots

1. Perform a Gap Analysis of Your Existing Website – Really, this simply means asking yourself what is missing. We won’t go into specifics here, but when you look at your existing website, what jumps out at you right away. Or more important, what doesn’t jump out at you, but should jump out and grab your attention?
2. List Goals and Objectives for the Website – What does the new website need to accomplish? Capture emails for a newsletter, obtain new leads, sell a product, etc.
3. Outline Potential Call to Actions and Desired Outcomes of Website Traffic – If you know what you want your website to do, then you should know what you want your visitors to do. Should they sign up for a newsletter, attend a webinar, register for a white paper, request a quote, purchase your product?
4. Identify the Path You Would Like Each Persona to Take Once Arriving at the Home Page – An earlier blog post discussed website personas and you can read the post mentioned above to catch up if needed. Since you’ve already documented your personas, consider what information you need to present to get the visitor to perform the desired action you just documented above.
5. Develop a List of Functional Requirements – You’ve defined your actions or “what” you want people to do, so you now need to consider the “how” they are going to do it. Do you need a protected directory to house high quality documents, do you need an integrated contact form to register leads, do you need an e-commerce store to sell products?
6. Develop List of Visual Requirements – Remember to consider personas here, because different genders, education levels, and personality types respond to images and visual stimulus differently. Do you need custom charts, photos, or buttons? What about a fancy web form?
7. Take Inventory – This is the really fun part, because you are probably going through content that is three years old and now that you look back, you realize it isn’t pretty. Go through your existing website and list out all content pages, files, images, and forms that you want migrated to a new website. Don’t forget your web pages should match up to your keyword list.
8. Match Content to Personas – Consider your visitor types, the products or services you offer, and what stage in the buying cycle they may be at when visiting. Now consider the inventory you just went through and match up that inventory (pages, files, images) to your personas. Don’t worry; you’re going to have gaps and holes that you need to fill. Just remember to keep looking at your keyword list and keep this in mind as you go through everything.
9. Consider New Content Requirements – You just identified new gaps in content you didn’t know you had, so now it’s time to document those gaps so you can address them one by one.
10. Develop a Website Outline – We are now creating the sitemap. You were really creating it as you walked through these last few steps, but it is now starting to come together so you can see how the pages and actions fit together to make a cohesive website. Remember, you need to have one page per competitive keyword and those pages need to align with your visitor personas. The pages also need to represent the information visitors need to see and the actions you want these visitors to take upon visiting your website.
11. Validate Your Call to Actions – You’ve already done this right? Well maybe. But I want you to go back and make sure. Think about what words you can use that are compelling enough to make someone do that action you desire. Have you given website visitors enough “meat” to make them want to do something? Internet marketing is about give and take. You need to give before you take. So before you ask for that email address, make sure you’ve given your website visitors enough reason to want to give you something in return. If you haven’t, revisit your sitemap and make sure you do.

Note of Caution: Make sure your sitemap has a hierarchy that makes sense to you, visitors, and the search engines. Do not bury content so deep that a visitor needs to click three times to reach it. Keep as much towards the top as possible, while still having a logical flow.

Connection Complete

Are you exhausted? You might be, but don’t have despair. Your new sitemap is significantly better than anything you’ve had in the past because you created it with a methodical approach geared towards SEO and converting visitors. This is excellent!

Next we’ll create a wireframe of your home page, but this is another post and another day.

But keyword research doesn’t have to be some big crazy formula.  I read a lot of SEO articles and blog posts and the internet is full of great content and advice for performing elaborate keyword research.  While this works, the activity of keyword research doesn’t have to be so convoluted that the average person can’t do it. It just needs to be a methodical.

I’ve worked with or developed both large and small websites.  Some have 20 keywords and some have 2,000 keywords.  Regardless of the volume of keywords or web pages, my process remains the same because it is scalable.  More importantly, it is a process that the average person can perform.

Fifteen Steps to Developing a Targeted List of Keywords

1. Write down keywords and/or phrases you would use to search the internet for your products or services.
2. Now go to Google and input those terms into the search box.  Look at the bottom of the page of search results and review what Google is suggesting as “related” search terms.  Write down those words too.  You can also look to your left on the page to see if Google is suggesting “something different”.
3. Your next step should be a visit to Google’s Insights for Search, which shows related terms and trends for a given search term or word.  Input your top keywords and document anything of interest.
4. Now consider your existing website.  Go to your Google Analytics account (if you have it) and review your keyword traffic for the last year.  Don’t just look at high volume traffic, but also consider the lower volume traffic that you’re not doing very well on from a search standpoint.  Document any keywords that you would like to score well on in search.
5. Next you should head over to Google Webmaster Tools and look at your Search Queries.  Similar to that of the Analytics data, don’t just look at keywords your performing well on.  Look at everything and document any words or phrases that you should score on.
6. Now visit your competitors’ websites and write down any keywords and/or phrases your competitors are targeting.  If you’re not sure what these are, look at their page titles, sitemap, and actual page URLs.  Note this will only work if your competitors have a good SEO strategy.
7. By now you have a fairly long list of keywords.  We need to see how these fit into the real world of search.  If I’ve learned anything over the last nine years of SEO work, it’s that I don’t know what people search on.  I can only make assumptions and then validate my thoughts against actual search volumes.  I validate my suspected keyword list in Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool.  To do this, all you have to do is input your list of potential keywords into the box and let it rip.  You can either go broad with results or narrow it down to exact.  Just make sure you stay consistent.
8. As I pull my keyword volumes, I put them into an Excel spreadsheet and I create one very large list.  I don’t pay much attention to volume at this point, because I don’t want to get distracted.  I just keep loading up the list with keywords, volumes, and competitiveness.
9. Now that I have my list of potential keywords and volumes, I set is aside.  I walk away and move onto something else, because at this point I’m fairly burned out on keyword research.  When my mind has cleared, I return to revisit my list.  If the list is really long, I remove any keywords on the list that are below a certain level of volume.  If I have thousands of keywords, my pain threshold may by 500 searches per month.  If it is a small list, this may be reduced to 50.  It is very relative and based on the industry and target market.
10. The next step is to score each word for relevance.  You need to look at each work and think about it’s relevance to your actual products or services.  You can give this a high, medium, and low or you can use a number scale.  Whatever works is fine, just make sure it clearly shows which words are important and which words are irrelevant or less important.
11. Once I’ve scored my list of relevance, I create a weighted score for each keyword.  I typically take the relevance score and multiply this by the actual volume.  You don’t have to get overly fancy; you just need to be able to see a combination of relevance and traffic volumes.
12. Now I start ditching keywords.  I’d like to say I don’t, but I do.  I’ve been going this for so many years, I can just “see” issues or anomalies.  I see trends and I can see if something is just not right.  Maybe the keyword has other unrelated meanings (you can check this my Googling it) and the traffic volumes are distorted.  In other cases, it could be it is so broad it just doesn’t work.  This is where I start overriding my client’s wishes and I do so because my instincts tell me to do it and they’ve hired me because of my experience.  So far no one has fired me for this practice.
13. Now I take a step back and I look at the list.  What keywords have strong volumes, are closely matched to the client’s offering, and are not polluted with excessive targeting by competitors.  I view this as “picking your battles”, which is similar to what I do with my kids.  You can only win in so many places, so you have to target what is important.  This comes back to my gut.
14. Now I pick three really competitive words with good volumes that I believe we can win on with effort.  Long-term effort and not overnight effort.  These are our big boys and the words we will hammer until we win. Note that the number of three could be 100 if your website is much larger.  Again, this process is varied based on industry, geography, and target market.
15. Next I pick about seventeen secondary keywords.  These are long tail or less competitive words that are still good, but not necessarily the biggies.  These phrases we’ll be able to win on quicker, but they won’t have as high of volumes as the three we just picked.  Just as I mentioned above, this number varies.  It may be seventeen or it may be 2,000.
16. Finally I go through the list to see what is left.  I try and assign these to blog posts, tags, or categories.  Wherever possible, I provide clients with suggestions on possible titles for blog posts so we are capturing the keywords.

Okay I had 16 steps.  I tried really hard to stay at fifteen, but it didn’t quite work.

Now What?

So you have your list of keywords.  Now what?  Now you have to take a step back and look at that list and decide if you can create web pages to support the keywords.  If you compete in any level of ca ompetitive environment, you’ll need to have only one or two keywords focused per page.  In other words, for every keyword you need a page of content.  And not only do you need web content, you need to be able to weave those pages (aka keywords) into a sitemap that makes logical sense.

If this is your first go around at this process, you probably don’t have a list that can easily be whipped into a logical sitemap.  That is okay.  Just revisit the last three steps and adjust.

This is Your Plan of Attack

You have a list, which means you have the start of a plan.  This list and your future sitemap should be the basis for all internet marketing activity.  From your company or personal profiles on social networks to your inbound links on press releases, you need to consult this list.

And remember, you need to revisit your list and this process, because people change and search traffic trends shift.  Remember Web 2.0?  Well no one talks about it anymore and it has morphed into social media.  If you browse my website you’ll see references to Web 2.0 have gone away and social media is all over my website.

The important point is that you have a list of keywords and the start of a real plan. Congratulations!  You’re off to a great start.