Site optimization

Newbie, need help

[pharkas2002]

Hi everybody,

My first visit, great site, great info, great contributors.

Is there guidelines on what is required (title, keyword, meta...) on a page for great ranking ? I know that there are page review softwares out there... Are these worth my time and money ? If so, anything to recommend ?

Are there guidelines to follow (page needs a, b, c then submit to x, y, z ?

Thanks again and keep up the good work.

[agerhart]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Pharkas2002.

Your questions are pretty wide spread....I would read through some of the threads in the forums here. There is alot of great information here to be learned.

Are there guidelines to follow (page needs a, b, c then submit to x, y, z ?

You can effectively rank well in all SEs by targeting Google. There are lots of things that are going to effect your ranking within the SEs.

Meta tags have little to no use, Title tags are very important, Keyword density is important, File size, Keyword selection, keyword rich text, link pop, and a whole lot more, all combine to affect your ranking.

Read up!

[Marcia]

pharkas, first you build the framework, and the first two steps are to get the keyword selection and site navigation planned out. Then fill in the blanks with optimized content and follow up with pursuing relevant, high quality reciprocal links. A few references to get you going:

This article is a great place to start:
[searchengineworld.com...]

Genesis to Revelation of Web Site Development and Optimization:
[webmasterworld.com...]

Touching on a few bare basics here:
[webmasterworld.com...]

Links to some good threads here:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[brotherhood of LAN]

Interesting to see Marcia's view on doing it, provide an optimized page and build content around it

another good way is to build content, the stuff you know best, and pick subject keywords and optimize them

[Marcia]

brotherhood, in most cases the subject matter will already be in mind when the idea for a site begins. When I get an email inquiring about doing a site, they tell what it is it'll be about, so the first thing done is to take a preliminary glance at the possible keyword selections. It's an ingrained and automatic process - start with the optimization, since the topic is a given. If I do the site, the construction will be based on the keywords, and whatever content they provide will get edited accordingly. It's done automatically, while the text is being put into the HTML. That's when doing it from scratch, and generally they start small. If it comes to adding content and/or products, the recommendations I'll make will be based on what I see in the logs.

There's a different process with an existing site, but the procedures are the same. One lady contacted me this recenly who's got loads of fabulous content on a pretty large site, more inbound links than you can shake a stick at and a PR 6 - with no rankings for the keywords she needs. Her whole site navigation and structure would have to be changed based on the right keyword phrases and the content rearranged or added to, to fit the keywords the site needs.

So subject matter will always come first, but the keyword selection is tbe first step to constructing or reconstructing. What's a different case is doing up something like affiliate sites, where selecting the "subject matter" would initially depend on which keywords could be ranked well for. Then, the interest level would determine final selection.

>build content, the stuff you know best, and pick subject keywords and optimize them

In that case, keywords are probably built into the content to begin with. But if it turns out that slightly different combinations of keyword phrases would work better, that's when a little editing comes into play without changing the context.

The lady I mentioned is #3 for a phrase that's got 2,300 searches showing with over a million and a half pages returned at Google. A few minor changes to the index page would give her an additional or replacement listing for a very similar phrase that includes the main keyword that shows 22,000 searches with under 800,000 pages returned at Google - she's at #50 for that now. For another completely related phrase with 14,770 searches showing I've got a #1 out of under 100,000 pages returned at Google with a little 4 page site that's barely PR5 with a small fraction of the links. That's what keyword selection and site structuring will do with basically low to moderately competitive sites.

I don't know that the same approach works for very competitive, but it does at a certain level.

[brotherhood of LAN]

The way I see it, theres a perception about my site that starts from the home page.

From this home page (the more pages I add) the more diverse the content becomes, each covering keywords relating to the "hub" keywords existing as my subject and keywords on the home page

in my instance this is biology, where sub pages will be "biology dictionary","biology tutorials" etc with the next level down being even more keyword specific, like "Absolute Refractor Period" or "exobiology" or whatever

that way from the start youve got your major keywords in place, and your covering the less prominent keywords the more intrinsic you go on your subject.

Google will obviously love content that is relevant to a specific category or subject, so i guess comprehensiveness in that area is a good thing

i must point out my site is heavily based on content and not commercial, so this approach works for me. I understand that the SEO bit comes in i.e. Marcia, you say tweaking the phrases in your example.....

.....Im depending on link pop to these pages will promote the keywords I use myself, though I suppose putting together the correct phrases for your keyword match is an SEO art

Either way, I wish Google could keep up with my content quicker, and make it more relevant than ever!

Richard