Optimize My Website - How to Optimize

How to Optimize my WebSite

Self Optimization Training It is presumed that whoever is performing the optimization of the website is:

Familiar with the type of programming involved with the site.
They have the required tools and know-how necessary to tweak the coding.
They have access to the original site files to work with.
Authorization to upload these files to their web server.

That said, let us continue.

There are multiple steps to Optimize your WebSite which include:

Easy enough, right? So here we go...

Optimize Your WebSite with Good Phrases

Everything within optimization balances on the fact you are working with good phrases. You need keywords that accurately describe your site and the pages within.

Finding phrases

After you have a sizable list you now need to whittle away at them until you are left with marketable keywords. Here you need to keep two things in mind:

Do people search for these phrases?
And what kind of competition are you up against?

If you can only acquire position 380 for a phrase then no one is going to find your site. If you work with a phrase that is not as often searched for but gets you on the top 3 pages of a search engine, then you will get results for your work, albeit maybe not what you are hoping for. This will improve as your website gains in its ranking.

There used to be several free online tools for researching and brainstorming good keywords, but sadly this has changed. Overture used to provide a free tool titled "Search Term Suggestion Tool" for finding out how many people searched for a particular phrase in the last 30 days. These were searches that Overture manages so the number will only represent a portion of the searches made, but this gave you a good bases to start with. Unfortunately this tool is no longer available. Wordtracker and Keyworddiscovery are two of the current more popular services, but these come at a price. Note that their base of data is limited, so their results are also limited. But, until the search engines start sharing this data services like these are what is available.

Filtering Your Phrase List

Search Frequency is impossible to get good data for at this time. The above mentioned tools and even Alexa can help here. Knowing the popularity of a keyword phrase is helpful, but not the most important aspect... especially when first optimizing for a website.

Now go to your favorite search engines and type in your phrase. How many positions are returned. This also is not a perfect test since not all of the pages here showing results have been optimized. Some engines allow you to filter out pages that do not have the phrase in the Title, description meta tag or linking text. By putting quotes around the phrase you can narrow down the pages where the words are not inline with each other. Tricks like this give you a better idea of what kind of competition you are up against.

Remember, the more competition you have the fewer phrases your site will be able to support. But again, as your site gains in ranking it will support more phrases.

Minimize the Code to Text Ratio

If your site pages were built with a program such as a word processor or a user friendly web page tool then you may have a lot of redundant and unneeded markup code. Become familiar with style sheets as these can cut your document size in half or more.

If your pages are heavy with javascript, place the code into a separate file and reduce this bulk to a one line callout. This can be extremely helpful if the same code is used on multiple pages.

Can you format the page a little differently so that the precious text is closer to the top?

Reduce the useless bulk of indents. You can save a good 10% or more in your file size here.

Make it easy for the search engines to find your precious content. It should also be noted that a page with coding errors within it may stop the search engine from seeing the content below the error. Validate your work.

Write Good Copy

Do not overuse a phrase. You keywords should be near the top of a page, in the body and in the conclusion. If you can use similar words, or different forms of a word then do. It is a common misconception that you should market plural and singular forms of a phrase or misspellings. The search engines are now filtering this out and even recommending the right spelling to the user.

Use a good amount of words. This is tough to balance since a potential client is not going to want to read through a thousand words of text to find what they are after. But the search engines like to see text and lots of it. Place the main points of a topic near the top of a page and use anchor text and links to help the visitor to find the wanted information. I used an example of this at the top of this page.

Tweaking the Content

This is where you can get yourself into trouble. If you over-optimize the website then you will be committing a form of spam. But some tweaking is not only accepted, it is expected and beneficial. Just do not over-do it and never use every possible option. DO NOT OVER OPTIMIZE.

Here are some of the more commonly used search engine friendly tricks:

Page Title: A well written page will cover one subject, use it in the head/title to describe the page.
Page Description: Some of the search engines look at the head/meta-description for a quick summery of the page and then use it or part of it on their result pages. Because this is an abused tactic the engines are relying on their own tools to come up with their own description line, but it is still worth using this tag.
Bold, Capitalization & Headings: Use the H3 and H4 tags to start a section or page. Also use the BOLD tag, but very sparingly. Capitalization can also help in areas, but do NOT over-use it. NOTE that H1 are losing their power. Substitute with H2 and lower.
Alt Tags: I have only found these to be useful when within a picture link. Place your phrase in these, but again, use with care.
File Names: This is also a good place to use your phrases. As always, a page file name should correspond with the subject of that page. File names are also important to reflect the contents of a graphic since search engines can not actually see a picture.
Directory Names: Along with file names you can organize you pages within well described folders or directories such as before and afters, testimonials, articles or what ever applies to your site. NOTE that you do not want to over word these directories or use directories with directories.

Optimize your website pages to properly reflect what your site is about. Do not over-do it. The search engines look for proper emphasis within the code when ranking a site. But if the engines think you are trying to trick them you will only hurt yourself and the ranking value of your site.

Written by Administrator
Tuesday, 24 July 2007
How to Optimize my WebSite It is presumed that whoever is performing the optimization of the website is: Familiar with the type of programming involved with the site. They have the required tools and know-how necessary to tweak the coding. They have access to the original site files to work with. Authorization to upload these files to their web server. That said, let us continue. There are multiple steps to Optimize your WebSite which include: Finding good phrases. Minimize the code to text ratio. Write good copy. Tweaking the code. Easy enough, right? So here we go... Optimize Your WebSite with Good Phrases Everything within optimization balances on the fact you are working with good phrases. You need keywords that accurately describe your site and the pages within. Finding phrases After you have a sizable list you now need to whittle away at them until you are left with marketable keywords. Here you need to keep two things in mind: Do people search for these phrases? And what kind of competition are you up against? If you can only acquire position 380 for a phrase then no one is going to find your site. If you work with a phrase that is not as often searched for but gets you on the top 3 pages of a search engine, then you will get results for your work, albeit maybe not what you are hoping for. This will improve as your website gains in its ranking. There used to be several free online tools for researching and brainstorming good keywords, but sadly this has changed. Overture used to provide a free tool titled "Search Term Suggestion Tool" for finding out how many people searched for a particular phrase in the last 30 days. These were searches that Overture manages so the number will only represent a portion of the searches made, but this gave you a good bases to start with. Unfortunately this tool is no longer available. Wordtracker and Keyworddiscovery are two of the current more popular services, but these come at a price. Note that their base of data is limited, so their results are also limited. But, until the search engines start sharing this data services like these are what is available. Filtering Your Phrase List Search Frequency is impossible to get good data for at this time. The above mentioned tools and even Alexa can help here. Knowing the popularity of a keyword phrase is helpful, but not the most important aspect... especially when first optimizing for a website. Now go to your favorite search engines and type in your phrase. How many positions are returned. This also is not a perfect test since not all of the pages here showing results have been optimized. Some engines allow you to filter out pages that do not have the phrase in the Title, description meta tag or linking text. By putting quotes around the phrase you can narrow down the pages where the words are not inline with each other. Tricks like this give you a better idea of what kind of competition you are up against. Remember, the more competition you have the fewer phrases your site will be able to support. But again, as your site gains in ranking it will support more phrases. Minimize the Code to Text Ratio If your site pages were built with a program such as a word processor or a user friendly web page tool then you may have a lot of redundant and unneeded markup code. Become familiar with style sheets as these can cut your document size in half or more. If your pages are heavy with javascript, place the code into a separate file and reduce this bulk to a one line callout. This can be extremely helpful if the same code is used on multiple pages. Can you format the page a little differently so that the precious text is closer to the top? Reduce the useless bulk of indents. You can save a good 10% or more in your file size here. Make it easy for the search engines to find your precious content. It should also be noted that a page with coding errors within it may stop the search engine from seeing the content below the error. Validate your work. Write Good Copy Do not overuse a phrase. You keywords should be near the top of a page, in the body and in the conclusion. If you can use similar words, or different forms of a word then do. It is a common misconception that you should market plural and singular forms of a phrase or misspellings. The search engines are now filtering this out and even recommending the right spelling to the user. Use a good amount of words. This is tough to balance since a potential client is not going to want to read through a thousand words of text to find what they are after. But the search engines like to see text and lots of it. Place the main points of a topic near the top of a page and use anchor text and links to help the visitor to find the wanted information. I used an example of this at the top of this page. Tweaking the Content This is where you can get yourself into trouble. If you over-optimize the website then you will be committing a form of spam. But some tweaking is not only accepted, it is expected and beneficial. Just do not over-do it and never use every possible option. DO NOT OVER OPTIMIZE. Here are some of the more commonly used search engine friendly tricks: Page Title: A well written page will cover one subject, use it in the head/title to describe the page. Page Description: Some of the search engines look at the head/meta-description for a quick summery of the page and then use it or part of it on their result pages. Because this is an abused tactic the engines are relying on their own tools to come up with their own description line, but it is still worth using this tag. Bold, Capitalization & Headings: Use the H3 and H4 tags to start a section or page. Also use the BOLD tag, but very sparingly. Capitalization can also help in areas, but do NOT over-use it. NOTE that H1 are losing their power. Substitute with H2 and lower. Alt Tags: I have only found these to be useful when within a picture link. Place your phrase in these, but again, use with care. File Names: This is also a good place to use your phrases. As always, a page file name should correspond with the subject of that page. File names are also important to reflect the contents of a graphic since search engines can not actually see a picture. Directory Names: Along with file names you can organize you pages within well described folders or directories such as before and afters, testimonials, articles or what ever applies to your site. NOTE that you do not want to over word these directories or use directories with directories. Optimize your website pages to properly reflect what your site is about. Do not over-do it. The search engines look for proper emphasis within the code when ranking a site. But if the engines think you are trying to trick them you will only hurt yourself and the ranking value of your site.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 September 2008 )