What is it?

In a nutshell local search involves the use of specialized search engines specifically created to focus on a selected geographic region to find local businesses and websites focused on your area.

Local search is commonly utilized as a directory, where users select their location, and narrow their search by categories till they find the listing they want. In many cases local search engines also guess at the users’ location by using their IP, so when you visit the site and search, for example, “Chinese restaurants” you automatically see results specific to your location.

Google has been doing this for a while to one degree or another. When you perform a search in Google using a geographic modifier the map comes up with results specific to that location. You can also take it one step further and search Google Local specifically.

But Google isn’t the only engine out there focused on local search. There are several of these directories ranging from the better known Best of the Web, right down to small town specific websites offering local search options. You even may find a web directory or guide specifically created for your city, and chances are, it will be a great place for you to submit your site.

Many local directories are free for basic listings along with paid advanced listing options.

Who needs it?

Local search is ideal for anyone serving a specific region, especially those with brick and mortar stores. While you do not necessarily need a physical location, some local search directories, including Google Local, require that you do.

Only recently have small local businesses realized the need to be found in the major search engines. I know that if I am personally looking for a bike tune-up, the first place I turn to is online, to find the various bike shops in my area, if at very least, I search online to find their contact info. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a phone book. As the internet grows in popularity, there are more and more people like me who use it exclusively to find what they want, local or otherwise. For businesses not found within the various local search sites, they are missing out on a growing piece of their market.

Considering the limited expense in getting listed in local search directories, traditional brick and mortar business can’t afford to not be listed, it’s quickly becoming a necessity.

Why bother?

With more people using these directories, and the incredibly low cost of “free” involved in being listed in many of them, it only makes sense to get listed. These directories, even the lower traffic ones, are a great free source of relevant traffic and the few minutes required to submit to them (usually around 10 minutes or so) only needs to result in a very small handful of site visitors to make it worthwhile.

Where to get listed?

When it comes to local search there are a few places you don’t want to miss such as Google Local. Many local search directories are country specific, so try your searching by using your country name; such as, “Canadian business directory”.

Try to focus your efforts on finding local directories that not only focus on your geographic region, but also offer you something in return.

How to decide if a directory is worthwhile

There are 5 main factors you need to consider when choosing to submit to a local search directory.

1. Location
   What geographic regions does the directory serve? Do they serve your location?
2. Relevance
   Does a relevant category exist? When you navigate to your appropriate category, are the other business listings relevant to your business? Some local directories may focus only on one industry, such as hotels. If the theme of the directory will not cater to your industry, you certainly don’t need to be listed there.
3. Price
   How much does the directory charge? If it is free, it’s most likely worthwhile. If there is a cost associated with the listing, you need to know more to find out if it’s money well spent (which is where the next two points come in).
4. Traffic
   Does this directory have much traffic? The quickest way to get a rough idea on this is to check their Alexa rating. Alexa is a rough indicator of how busy a site is, the busier the site, the closer their ranking will be to 1. If the site looks like it has very limited traffic, then you need to find out if the listing will have any SEO benefits if you are to spend any money here. (A low traffic free directory is likely still worthwhile however.)
5. SEO
   Will your listing help you with your organic rankings? This is relatively simple to find out. You want to first check the Google Page Rank for their home page. If it is low (less than 5) then this is not one of the major directories. If it is between 5 and 10, then they likely have some authority. Next check the page your listing will actually reside on. Is this page indexed by Google, and does it have any Page Rank? If so, is the link back to your site search engine friendly?
   

Many local search directories may link to your site using the rel=nofollow tag, or by redirecting through a variety of tracking methods, which can cause your link to have no value in terms of SEO. However, some of them will give you a straight link fully readable by Google, so you will also get the added benefit of increased link density from many of these links. Some directories will also create a brand new page just for you. In that case, your page will not be indexed by Google and will have no Page Rank, but in time, it will. If this is the case, check a few of the listings to see if their pages are indexed.

If Google can not see this link, it has no SEO value. If the directory has no SEO value, and no traffic, it is not worthwhile to pay for this submission. (That said, if it’s a free listing, you may as well list your site there.)

How can I get listed?

Unlike organic SEO, getting listed in a local directory is often as simple as finding the local directories that are relevant and submit your site. Once you have decided that a directory is worthwhile, filling in a few online forms and submitting payment where applicable is all it takes. Most paid local directories will have your listing posted within a few days, if not immediately. Free directories can take anywhere form a couple of days to several weeks, depending on their policies, etc.

Template Design

The
first configuration you need to do is work on customizing the design
template to match your existing site. I suggest finding a template that
matches as closely as possible to the look you are going for then work
on tweaking its graphics, colors, and other particulars till you
achieve the desired appearance.

Most of your changes will occur
in the header.php, footer.php, index.php, and page.php files in the
theme editor, however, the theme you install will dictate which files
actually need to be updated. You will also need to make some
adjustments to your CSS file. These changes all involve working with
code and graphics, and are most likely left to a professional.

Once
you have your design set up, the rest of the customization is
considerably less technical. The following are suggestions that most
people can do themselves and you probably will not need an expert to
help you here.

Settings

Permalinks
The
next thing you need to do is customize your URL’s. You do not want the
default post URLs (“pageid=#”) as they are simply not search friendly
and you want your default names to have some meaning to them. While you
can customize your URL’s with various plug-ins, you may not always
think to do this, so be sure to have a default you can live with.

Under
the settings tab in your dashboard, click on permalinks. Here I suggest
choosing one of the settings that includes the post name. Including the
month and year is totally optional as it will have little to no impact
on your search rankings, but you definitely do want to include the post
name.

WWW or no WWW
With
WordPress, there is no need to worry about the www vs no www redirects.
It is handled for you, but you do need to select which variation you
want, and it’s very simple to do. Under “General Settings” you will see
two fields; one for “WordPress address” and the other, “Blog address”.
Ensure that both these fields include the “www” (or not), whichever you
prefer, and that’s it. (I always recommend using the “www” version of
your URL as most people linking into your site will use it, and this
will help keep a consistency among your site.


Required Plug-ins
There
is an almost endless supply of free plug-ins out there that you can add
to your site ranging from photo galleries and spam protection, to
social media integrators for Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and others. While
many of these others will benefit your blog and search rankings, the
XML Sitemap, and SEO plug-ins are truly essential.

SEO Plug-in
When
setting up your new installation, the first plug-in you need to install
is one that will allow for totally customized title, meta description
tags, and page URL’s. There are a number of tools that do this ranging
from the widely popular “All in One SEO Pack” to a relative newcomer “HeadSpace2″.

While I personally have yet to try HeadSpace2,
it is high on my list, as it has been recommended by many industry
professionals as the best WordPress SEO plug-in. For any new blog
installation I highly recommend this plug-in be installed right away.

XML Sitemap Plug-in
To the best of my knowledge, HeadSpace2 does not have an XML sitemap option, and as such I highly recommend “Google XML Sitemaps“.
This plug-in will automatically generate XML sitemaps for you on the
fly and submit it to Google every time you add, remove, or update a
page or post. This helps ensure that Google has the latest information
at all times. It’s a very simple plug-in to install and configure and
once setup, you can forget about it and it will do the job for you.


A
well optimized site loaded with relevant content can do very well in
Google if setup correctly. The power of WordPress can make this process
incredibly easy so all you have to worry about is writing those great
articles and selling your customers. The plug-ins and functionality of
WordPress are endless and when installed correctly can make the
optimization of your blog considerably easier, increasing your chances
for top rankings.

It doesn’t matter what industry you are involved in, or what techniques you follow, in all cases you will be a prisoner of time. In the vast majority of cases search engine rankings don’t come over night.

Regardless of the scope of the SEO campaign you are undertaking, you will have to wait for results. It doesn’t matter if you are undertaking a massive link building &

social media campaign combined with extreme content development – you will still have to wait for those results. Just how long you need to wait however, will depend on a large number of factors.

In this article I will discuss some of these factors and give a few scenarios to help you gauge how long you may need to wait to start seeing results.

Factors to Consider

How long it will take for rankings starts with a few key factors:

How optimized is your site before SEO?

If your established site has no optimization in place at all, and has navigation that is blocking search engine spiders, sometimes opening the site up can result in a rather quick turn-around for results.

How many inbound links does your site have?

If you have an old site with no links this will add to the time you need to wait. If you have a number of links already, Google will probably be in to check out things within a week or so of updating.

How new is your website?

A brand new site with no links has to wait. Google may find you, but probably not. If you do nothing, your site may never be indexed – you must get a few links, and an XML sitemap if you want to stand a chance with a new site.

How flexible is your site?

If your site utilizes a content management system, how flexible is this system for customization? If your current back end will not allow for SEO based changes, this will drastically slow down your ranking progress.

How competitive is your target phrase?

This is huge. The more competitive a target phrase is, the longer you will likely have to wait, and the more links, pages, and fresh content you will probably need. Picking a target phrase that has searches, but modest competition is your best bet to get started. As long as your ”dream phrase” is relevant, you can go after the bigger fish once your site has some links, content, and has started to find its place on the map.

Is your site positioned to be able to compete?

Take a look at the top 10 sites for your target phrase. If on average the ranking sites have 10,000 inbound links and 1000 plus pages, and your site has 7 links and 12 pages, you’re likely doomed. You don’t need to match the numbers of the top 10, but you do need to be in the ball park. If the top 10 is littered with all the big guys like Amazon, eBay, and the dreaded Wikipedia, you might just want to consider reevaluating your goals. If your site is not in a comparable position with the rest of the top 10 then you need to either step up your efforts in order to compete, or plan on waiting a very long time.

Get Google to Visit Your Site

How long it takes to start seeing results starts with Google. Once Google spiders your site you will still have to wait for the updated cache to appear in Google’s index, and in most cases, you will have to wait  longer still to see any impact in the search rankings.

In most cases getting Google to your site is relatively easy, but it can sometimes take a month or longer. Even a site with some inbound links and an XML sitemap, may have to wait a while.

Typically an established active website will seldom have to wait more than a month to get Google’s eyes; however if your site has been sitting stagnant for several years, it may take longer.

How Long Will it Take For Rankings?

You now know some of the determining factors, but how long will it take for your site to see an improvement in its organic rankings? I really wish there was a solid answer to this question, but with such a vast array of variables there is no way to know for sure. I can say however, that from experience, the timelines below are fairly accurate.

Niche Industry

A niche industry is represented by phrases that are relatively specific, such as “widgets Bellingham”. While they don’t require a geographic modifier, phrases focused on a very specific area often are considered niche. Phrases used for a niche site will also often return less than 100,000 results in a Google search. The top 10 ranking sites will also often have less than 100 inbound links each.

Timeline:

- Brand New Site: Possibly as little as a few months

- Established Site: Potentially it could literally be over night, but most likely around 6 weeks.

Medium Industry

Medium Industry terms are slightly more general, but still include some kind of modifier, such as a state or color; “Washington Widgets” or “Blue

Widgets”. These phrases often represent no more than a few million results in a typical Google search with the top 10 ranking sites having between 100-1000 inbound links.

Timeline:

- Brand New Site: 6 months to a year

- Established Site: 2-4 months

Highly Competitive Industry

These pages are those with phrases that are rather broad and seldom have any modifiers, such as simply “widgets”. You will often find tens or even hundreds of millions of competing pages in Google for your target phrase. Often the links required for the top 10 will be in the thousands, or tens or thousands (sometimes even in the millions).

Timeline:

- Brand New Site: Anywhere from 1 to 5 years

- Established Site: Could be as long as a year or more

For a brand new site, starting with nothing, in most cases you will be looking at around a year before you start to see significant ranking changes. You may get the odd ranking here and there, and start to see some traffic, but for any phrases that are remotely competitive, it can take quite a while. Unless you have a very tight niche, expect to wait at least 6 months before you see any movement at all. This is not to say that you can’t get quick results, but in the majority of cases it is quite rare.

For more established sites, rankings tend to come much more quickly. One significant factor in determining time is links. If your established site has lots, but the site itself is simply lacking fundamental SEO or proper navigation, then you can sometimes see results rather quickly. If you have no links and need to build them, it significantly increases the wait time. Even for an established site, achieving links in a competitive industry can still take some time.

Rankings Are Taking Forever

There are a number of reasons why your site may never achieve results. If you find that your campaign has been going on for a long time and you have seen no movement what-so-ever, it is possible that one of the following is hindering your efforts.

Spamming & Penalties

In some cases your site may take forever to achieve rankings, or the rankings may never come at all. If your site has been previously penalized for spamming, you absolutely must clean up all traces of the past dirtiness.

Once the site is entirely cleaned up, then you can apply for re-inclusion. This is certainly no guarantee that Google will ever pay your site any attention again, but it’s the first step to the land of maybe.

Duplicate Content

If your site has utilized mass amounts of duplicate content, chances are you will not ever see rankings until you replace it all with something original and meaningful. There is no “duplicate content” penalty per-se, but you are essentially penalizing yourself if you copy content. Google tends to look at the first instance it finds online for a piece of content as the official source (not always the case).

If you copy content that is already out there and indexed by Google, they will discount your content as it is already indexed somewhere else, and your site or page will simply not get any rankings for it – and rightfully so.

Links (or lack thereof)

If your site has no links, you probably will not get any rankings, even after you are fully indexed. This is not always the case, I have seen sites rank well for various phrases with zero inbound links – but it is rare, and should not be relied on. Build up your links – period.

On the flip side of this, let’s say your site has thousands of links, but they are from free for all sites, link farms, or “bad neighborhoods”, and so on – they won’t help you. These links won’t necessarily hurt you, but will be essentially ignored. You need quality, relevant links.

Competition

You just may be out of your league. If you have a small operation, and are competing for a major ultra competitive term, chances are you will never see the light of day. Not to say it is not possible, but if you are competing in a well established industry where literally 10′s of thousands of links are required, and your target phrase is experiencing millions of searches a month, you need to weigh your targets. Chances are your keywords need to be re-evaluated as your chances of success are slim.

Not Listening

If your SEO gives you actionable recommendations, follow them. Recommendations are given for a reason, to help you achieve rankings. If you are not willing to implement what is suggested, then your campaign may go nowhere. I have seen websites fail to rank simply because clients ignored recommendations. Your SEO will not be able to help you if you refuse to implement their advice.

A Little Success Story

I have seen rankings come literally within hours. It is very rare but it happens. In one specific example a blog post was put up on a very specific niche topic that had almost no coverage online. Google coincidently spidered the blog within an hour or so of posting, and within an hour from that, the blog post was #1 in the organic results for the most relevant phrase. The site saw a giant spike in traffic for the next couple days while the phrase was a hot topic. (The search phrase was very specific and localized: ” election results”). This shows that for a site with an established link base, and a good reputation in Google, rankings can sometimes come extremely quickly.

Regardless of industry and target phrases, you will have to wait for your search results. Just how long you will wait varies on far too many factors to give a solid number, but expect to wait for results anywhere from a few days to several years. It’s the best time frame I can give without knowing specific details of your site and project.

Negative Impacts of Long Load Times

If
your site takes too long to load this can have a number of negative
effects including loss of sales, loss or rankings, and increased pay
per click cost. It can even increase your hosting costs depending on
the cause.

Loss of Sales
Let’s
pretend for a moment that search engines just didn’t exist and rankings
didn’t matter. People are impatient – if your site takes too long to
load, many potential customers will simply give up and go elsewhere.

Broadband connections are growing incredibly fast in the US; however, according to a study posted at FoxNews
this past July, approximately 10% of Americans still have dial-up
internet access. If your site loads slowly, you may be alienating 10%
of your potential customers.

The last thing you want to do is
frustrate your visitors. If you do this, you may drive them away, never
to return. If you can provide a fast loading efficient website, you
will increase the likelihood that your visitors will make a purchase,
and return again in the future.

Increased Pay per Click Costs

Only a few short months ago a post by Heather Lane at the Inside AdWords blog
announced that landing page load times will affect a keyword’s quality
score. The reason for this is quite simple: a fast loading website
improves the end user experience. As a result, ads directing to a slow
loading page will be given a lower quality score. This in turn will
cause your keyword bids to be higher, costing you significantly on a
per click basis.

Loss of Organic Rankings
We
know two things for a fact. Google factors in load times with AdWords,
and Google focuses on an improved end user experience. As a result, I
for one am convinced that a site’s load time does impact overall
organic search rankings. While this is likely only a small piece of the
very large algorithmic puzzle, it does play a part, and if you can
speed up your site, you just may be able to move your rankings up a
notch or two.

Speeding up your site is unlikely to move your
site from page 8 all the way to page 1, but it may be enough to move up
a few positions.

Increased Hosting Costs
Assuming
your load times are due to file size issues and not other server
constraints, your hosting costs may be more than they need to be. This
factor will vary a great deal based on the hosting company and the
package you have chosen.

Many hosts now offer packages where a
significant amount of bandwidth usage is included, resulting in a
single flat monthly or annual rate. (LunarPages for
example, has a $4.95 monthly plan with unlimited bandwidth per month.)
If your hosting provider does put a limit on usage and you are using
beyond the allocated max, you could be paying a fair bit in overage
charges. If you fall into this category, optimizing your files to
reduce bandwidth usages could save you a considerable amount of cash.


Issues and Fixes
There
are a number of issues that can cause a site to load slowly. Below I
have noted a few items that are fairly common and can be relatively
easily corrected.

Issue: Un-Optimized Images
This
is probably one of the biggest culprits out there impacting load time
today. I have seen countless websites where image optimization is
simply not done, resulting in significantly increased page load times.
One of the biggest problems is when images are scaled down to fit the
application.

Quite often webmasters will take a large image, and
scale it down using the height and width attributes rather than
physically resizing the image. What this does is then require the
browser to load the full high resolution image, when it really only
needs a fraction.

Let’s take this real world example. A client
recently had a photo on their home page; the photo was 600 x 403
pixels, weighed in at 124.68 KB, and visually they had scaled the image
to fit 473 x 317 pixels.

By resizing the original image to the
desired dimensions, and then reducing the quality of the jpg to 70%,
the end result was an image that looked identical on his website but
weighed in at only 23 KB – that’s 101.68 KB smaller than the original.
Using a simple filesize download calculator
I found online, 101.68 KB would take 14 seconds to download using a 56
Kb modem, or about 2 seconds on your run of the mill broadband
connection.

For broadband users 2 seconds may not seem like
much, but remember, this is only for a single image. When you add up
all other images and on-site components, the time can significantly add
up.

Issue: Un-Optimized files
Another
way you can speed up your sites load time is to have clean HTML, CSS,
and other included files. Remove extraneous code from your files, and
use CSS wherever possible. Every piece of old html code adds up in
size, even if it doesn’t impact the visual site itself. I have seen
many cases where links have been removed but the code remains
accidentally, leaving something like:



This
code, while as tiny as it is, does contribute to an increase in load
time (and in this specific example, could also be seen as spam by
search engines).

If your site makes use of CSS, consider
compressing it to save on load times. You can do this by grouping
identical styles to save space. For instance,

p {
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:12px
}

li {
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:12px
}

can be compressed by grouping these two styles, reducing the coding by half:

p,li {
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:12px
}

Again
this may not seem like much, but when you add this up with all of the
other little things, it can ultimately result in a significantly
increased load time for the page as a whole.

Audio and video can
also be compressed. If your site uses a fair bit of multimedia, see if
you can compress these files a bit more than you have already. You may
be able to save some load time here as well without impacting user
experience.


Issue: Hosting Server
It
is possible that your site is perfect in every way, but the culprit is
simply your web host. It does not necessarily mean that your host is
slow, but if you are paying for an account on an old archaic computer
with limited system resources servicing 1000 websites, this could
seriously impact your site’s load time. If you have worked to ensure
that the site is well optimized for efficiency and the load times are
still extreme, you may need to upgrade your hosting account to one more
suited for your business needs.

If your site is a fairly basic,
such as a static 8 page html site, then a slow server may have little
to no impact, but if your site requires extensive database queries and
the help of an intensive content management system, and serves up tens
of thousands of visitors a day, then you may need to switch to a higher
end dedicated server. If you have found that your server is the only
problem in your slow load times, contact your host to see what they can
do for you.


Issue: HTTP Requests
According to a post at the Yahoo Developer Blog,
“80% of the end-user response time is spent on the front-end. Most of
this time is tied up in downloading all the components in the page:
images, style sheets, scripts, Flash, etc. Reducing the number of
components in turn reduces the number of HTTP requests required to
render the page. This is the key to faster pages.”

The article
discusses combining files in order to reduce the number of HTTP
requests, largely by the use of CSS Sprites. They also discuss using
image maps to combine multiple images, however, from an SEO
perspective, this is not something that I would recommend as my
experience has shown image-mapped links are not always followed by
search engine spiders.

They go on to explain a vast number of
rather technical aspects to speeding up a page. If you are a technical
person capable of implementing advanced techniques, the Yahoo Developer Network is definitely something you should check out.


Load Time Tools
Before
you undergo any changes to your site to resolve the slow load times, I
suggest first finding a tool and benchmarking your progress. Record how
long your site takes to load, and then try again after you have made an
effort to correct the problem.

There are a number of tools out
there that can help you calculate your load times. One such tool is
WebSiteOptimization.com. This site specializes in optimizing the
performance of your site in order to decrease bandwidth and load times.
They have created a very simple tool which will give you the load times for the individual components of your site, which can give you a good idea where to start.


Summary
If
you take a bit of time to speed up the load time for your website by
optimizing your existing content and cleaning up your code, you may
just find yourself making more sales. As an added bonus you may also
find improved search engine rankings, which will then in turn increase
your sales further. Depending on your hosting provider, you may even
have a reduced monthly hosting bill. Decreasing the load time of your
site is really win-win for everyone.

As the internet becomes
more and more bandwidth intensive with an ever increasing stream of
users and higher use applications, doing whatever we can do reduce the
strain on the system will make for a faster internet for everyone. If
every webpage on the internet could be reduced be even just 100 kb, the
web would be a much faster place.

Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml

There are many tools out there to help you build your xml sitemap. Google has placed a list of some of these tools on their “Third Party Programs” page.

Directory Submission
Back in August I wrote about using Directory Submission
to help build links. The general gist of it is to be sure that there is
a high level of relevance in the directories you submit your site to,
especially if it is a paid directory. Currently DMOZ still has a high
level of value as it is seen as a strong authority at Google. Make the
attempt to have your site listed here in the most relevant category
possible.

Link Building
There are a number of ways you can work to increase your back links. In July I wrote about 13 ways to help build links.
Links are one of those strategic tools that will never be a bad
investment. Today they play a significant role in search rankings for
most industries, especially in Google. While the future will almost
undoubtedly still see search value in links, even if that value
declines, or disappears entirely, quality links can still help drive
traffic as well, and a strong base of inbound links can deliver you
customers well into the future.

Explore the different ways to
build links to your site. A steady progressive increase in inbound
links will help Google look positively in your direction. Do not be
afraid of reciprocal links either. If you are trading with highly
relevant websites to your industry, then you should have nothing to be
afraid of.

Social Media
Promotion largely
consists of building links and becoming recognized by the search
engines, but in order to help you build those links, getting your name
and brand out there can really do wonders. By increasing awareness of
your site and product, the public will often help create the buzz you
need, and often, this can result in fresh links to your website.

To
help get your site in the eyes of as many people as possible, take a
look into Social Media and consider creating profiles on some of the
popular platforms. This can include creating a YouTube account and
uploading instructional, informational, or interesting product videos.
You can set up a Facebook page, and work to build a community around
your product. Create a profile page on Squidoo, MySpace, and Flickr,
amongst many others.

These pages often act as backlinks to your
site, and also help spread awareness. Be sure to keep your social
endeavors updated regularly or any viewership you have will dwindle as
people lose interest. If you are able to build a strong following, this
can result in many individuals linking to your site and spreading the
word, resulting in long term benefits for you and your site.

Your
use of social media does not have to be exactly about your company. For
instance, let’s say you sell cars. Your use of the social platform,
while it may note your business, can focus on other car info including
trivia, news, photos, etc. The key is to keep it relevant, not
identical – you are not looking to create a mirror of your site.

Article Writing
Write articles about the subject of your website and submit them to various services such as EzineArticles.
Consider also writing for your own blog to help grow your site content.
By writing and distributing relevant articles you can create a nice
cushion of relevant incoming links. By writing articles that closely
match the topic of your site, and including a link back to relevant
content within your site, you can help out not only with search engine
rankings, but by creating an extra traffic stream for your site

Pay Per Click
While
Pay Per Click (PPC) will not give you many long standing benefits, it
can help you to start making sales immediately which in turn can give
you the funds needed to promote your site via other means. If you need
that immediate traffic, this is one way to get it, but at a cost, and
as soon as you stop paying, your traffic stops, so it is far from a
reliable long term means. In some industries however, it can pay off,
so it is definitely worth considering.

Summary
In
general, reference your website everywhere possible. Get links from
every relevant source you can think of, issue a press release, and get
your site listed the key directories for your industry. The more eyes
you can put your URL in front of and the more relevant sites you can
get to link back to yours, the sooner you will start to see progress in
the search engines.

For many industries it can literally take
years to get those coveted first page results – in some industries it
may be near impossible, but if you want a chance, you need to start
promoting that new site of yours immediately.

/recreation/parks.html
/recreation/trails.html
/recreation/beaches.html

Keeping
your URL structure clean and tidy can not only help with search engine
rankings, but it will give a good visual impression to the site visitor
as well. Often, using each of these categories as main points for your
primary site navigation may make the most sense.

Also be sure to
keep your site relatively flat, with as few layers as possible. Don’t
make the search engines follow a dozen links to get to the deepest
levels of your site. Unless the site is literally tens of thousands of
pages, there is no need to click more than 2 or 3 links to get to any
deep content. The shorter the path to an internal page, the more credit
by the search engines.

Step 5 – Navigation
When
developing the end site, you also want to make sure that your site
navigation is search engine friendly – this is critical if you ever
want free organic listings.

If possible use a text based form of
navigation. You can use CSS to style the text links to fit into your
graphical design. Text links are the best method, however, image based
navigation and even some forms of drop down menus are search engine
friendly.

If you choose to use image based navigation be sure to
include image alt text relevant to the link to give something for
Google to associate with the linked page. If you absolutely must use
Flash, or any form of navigation not friendly for search engine
spiders, be sure to supplement this with text based links on another
location of the page.

Step 6 – Analytics
It’s
never too early to start thinking about your stats. Before your site
goes live you must have some form of accurate analytics in place so you
can measure your site’s traffic and progress.

There is an
endless supply of analytics options out there to choose from. You can
simply use the stats software that comes free with your web hosting,
however, more often than not, they tend to be very basic with no
flexibility. Advanced choices such as ClickTracks can give you rather
in-depth statistics, but for a very small mom and pop operation it may
be too expensive. Google Analytics, is a free option that can give you
most, if not all the data you will need and does not require access to
your raw log files.

If you do opt for an option such as
ClickTracks, check with your host to ensure that you will have the raw
log files you require. StepForth can also help you with your
statistical analysis and offers a number of inexpensive ClickTracks service packages.

Step 7 – Content Creation
Now
is the time to get that new, fresh content posted to your site with the
SEO in mind. Make sure that the content you write reflects your
industry and target keywords. You don’t need to flood the content with
your target keywords, but make sure they are in there a few times. When
it makes sense to do so, also include some acronyms to help Google
establish the overall relevance.

If you perform a search in
Google for “~keyword”, any words that Google bolds in the search
results will be acronyms that Google deems relevant. Include some of
these where possible.

Step 8 – Basic SEO
Ensure
that ALL pages of your site include unique Title and Meta Description
tags. This is one of the core fundamental aspects of an optimized size
and it does play a significant role in your search rankings. Make sure
that these tags are not only unique but are accurate representations of
each page. Also be sure to place your target phrase in heading as well
as image alt tags where applicable.

Step 9 – Initial Promotion / Launch
Now
that you have your new site all up and ready to go, you want to give it
that kick start to help drive some traffic. It will be a while before
the search engines fully index your site and even longer before you
start to see organic rankings for your target search phrases. It is
important to start off right away to get the ball rolling.

Start
off by issuing a press release to announce the launch of your new
business website. Press releases are a great way to get some traffic
and a rather valuable first link into your site. Submitting your press
release using a company such as PRWeb will get your link in the engine’s path and should help your site to be initially indexed by Google right away.

Next
submit your site to some relevant directories starting with DMOZ. It
can take months, even years, to have your site listed in DMOZ, so it is
important to get it submitted right away. Consider submitting to other
industry relevant directories. For some information on how to select
the right directories take a look at Building Links with Directory Submissions.

Work
on getting as many links from relevant industry websites as possible.
The more links you can get from reputable sources, the better the
overall performance of your site.

Step 10 – Ongoing Promotion
Once
you have completed the site, the content looks great, and all appears
finished, you’ve still got work to do. For long term success,
especially for a brand new site, you need to continually promote your
site. You should always be looking at ways to increase your inbound
links, and increase your relevant content.

Consider creating
accounts with various social media platforms to help promote your site.
These can not only give you a link back to your site, but they can help
you drive traffic and raise awareness about your business and product.

A site that is always growing, and always getting new links, has the best chance of getting a stable top 10 listing in Google.

Completing Optimization: Other Considerations

Redirects
If
you need to use redirects on your site it is very important to use the
correct one. If a page is moving to a new location, or being removed
all together, it is very important to have this page redirected to
either the new location or the next closest page using a Permanent 301
Redirect.

While rare, if a page is being moved to a new location
for a short term, with the intent of it returning to the original
location, then and only then, will you want to use a Temporary 302
redirect. For more information please see Redirects: Permanent 301 vs. Temporary 302

Non WWW Redirects
To
help eliminate page rank split, and provide your site with a little
extra value, implement a non-www redirect. What this redirect will do
is change the URL to include the “www” whenever a URL is accessed that
does not include it. This can help to consolidate links to the correct
page and give your site some additional strength. For more help on Non
WWW redirects please see: How to 301 Redirect Non-WWW to WWW URL’s

HTTP Headers
Check
your page headers! If you have implemented any form of redirect on your
site including mod rewrites, check your HTTP headers. You may be
surprised at what you find. Some forms of redirects may use a 302 code
where you really want a 301. By checking your headers you can ensure
all is well, and troubleshoot problems. On our website we have added
our own HTTP Header Checker for your convenience.

Home Page URL
Never
have more than one URL for your home page. If your home page is
available and displays on more than one URL, then utilize 301 redirects
on all but the main URL you want to focus on – in most cases
“http://www.domain.com/”. All your links pointing to the home page
should direct to the exact same URL otherwise you will split the value
of your home page into multiple duplicate URL’s.

Google sees
“http://www.domain.com” and “http://www.domain.com/index.html” as
different pages, but displaying the same content. This splits the
overall value of your home page, and can decrease the chances of
rankings. By keeping it consistent with a single URL, you remove this
split and retain more of the strength.

In theory having your
home page split like this could bring with it duplicate content
penalties, however, I have yet to see this actually happen – that said,
it is best to avoid the risk all together.

XML Sitemap
XML
Sitemaps are great for ensuring that Google and the other engines are
able to spider your entire site. While an XML sitemap will not directly
impact your search rankings it can help as Google is more likely to see
any SEO based changes more quickly, which in turn can have an impact.

Robots.txt
This
is the first file all search engines look for every time they visit
your site. While placing a blank robots.txt file in your root folder
will not help with search rankings, it will help reduce 404 errors
appearing in your log files.

It is also highly recommended that
if your site utilizes an XML sitemap, to include a call to this sitemap
within the Robots.txt file. Simply add the following line to ensure
that the major engines (including Google) can find your sitemap:

Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml

Potential Blockages
If
you are finding that your site is simply not being indexed it is
possible that you are blocking the spiders in one way or another.

Start
with checking your main site navigation, if you are using Flash or some
other fancy form of navigation that could be your problem right there.
Next check your HTTP headers to ensure that your home page is returning
a 2xx code which indicates that the clients’ request was successfully
received. Finally take a look at your Google Webmaster Tools for any
noted errors. If you are blocking Google, chances are you will be able
to uncover the issue with these steps.

Duplicate Content
Duplicate
content can be quite damaging to your rankings. Ensure that all content
on your site is unique. Never steal or “borrow” content from another
site, and never cut and paste large portions of text from one page of
your site to the next. By keeping all pages of your site entirely
original you stand the best chances of getting a thumps up from Google.

Fresh Content / Regular Updates
Update
your content. In highly competitive markets, sites with old static
content can often slip away. Keep your content fresh and updated to
keep bringing Google back to your site. If they find new pages and
updated pages with every visit, they will come back more often.

Site Age
The
age of your site can also have an effect on search engine rankings.
While there is little you can do (short of keeping the same domain) to
help on this matter, remember that the longer your site is online, the
better its chances for success. It pays to select the perfect domain
right from the start and not to change domains mid-stream. Older sites
that stand the test of time add a level of authority in Google’s eyes.
New sites seldom see rankings for competitive terms in their first year.

Note:
Site Age is determined not by the date the domain was originally
registered by rather by the date Google first discovered content on
your site.

Load Time
Load
time can have an impact in your Google AdWords Quality Score but it is
unknown for sure if it can also impact your organic search rankings. It
is best to keep you load time to as little as possible. If it is not
already a part of the Google Algorithm, it likely will be soon.
Besides, it is also best in order to give your site visitors the best
experience possible.

Server Up Time
This
can be a rather significant issue. If you find that your web hosting
company has a history of down time, change hosts. If Google comes to
visit your site once and it is down, not to worry, they will come back,
but if Google visits your site often only to find that it is
unavailable, you can find yourself with drastically depleted rankings.

Google Local
If you have a traditional brick and mortar store, consider submitting to Google Local.
While this will not directly impact your regular organic rankings, you
may find your site ranking above the organic results with a “local
business results” map listing. This tends to be most common when your
business is near the geographic center of a city, and when the search
phrase uses a geographic modifier.

W3C Compliant Code
There
is much speculation as to if W3C compliant code can have a positive
impact on search rankings, and the majority believe “maybe” with some
saying “yes”. Regardless, it is definitely a good idea to have your
site be W3C Compliant if at all possible. Not only may it help you in
terms of search rankings, but having compliant code can decrease load
times, and help to ensure cross-browser compatibility, all of which are
good things. If at all possible, it is recommended that sites be made
to be compliant.

Many experts who took part in the SEOMoz “Google Search Engine Ranking Factors” lean towards it not being a big contributor, however, it may be an issue if Google has difficulties indexing a page properly.

A code validation service is available at validator.w3.org.


DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME
I
want to stress that this section is about things you should NOT do.
These issues could be damaging to your rankings. If your site is
implementing any of these, it may be best to remove it.

Hidden Text
This
includes any text that you can simply not see when viewing the page. It
may be text hidden in invisible div layers, text located below the fold
with vertical scrolling disabled or even text on the same colored back
ground (white text on a white background for instance). Whatever the
case, hidden text can get your site into hot water and it is not
recommended.

Excessive Keywords
Don’t
go over board in placing target phrases within your body text. Stuffing
keywords everywhere possible just because you can, is not only unlikely
to help you achieve rankings, it could very well have the opposite
effect.

Duplicate content
Large
amounts of duplicated content or pages, as well as stealing or scraping
content from other sites is one good way to get your site banned.

Doorway pages
Creating
multiple websites or pages with nearly identical, yet slightly
different content for the purposes of trying to grab some Google
rankings is a good way to get your site into trouble.

If you
have created pages of this nature for PPC campaigns, make sure that
they are blocked from the search engines as to not get you into any hot
water.

Cloaking
Simple
- Don’t Cloak. In a nutshell cloaking is when you display different
information to the search engines than you do to your human visitors.
Google frowns on this, and if they catch you, watch out!

All Flash
Websites
that are entirely flash based will not get you into trouble. The reason
I have included it here however, is that they won’t do you many favors
either. Sites that are all Flash, have little to no content for Google
to digest and thus, drastically reduce your chance of rankings. If you
must keep your “All Flash” site, it is recommended that you also create
a secondary HTML version for the search engines and for those visitors
who simply prefer it.

Frames (including iFrames)
Frames
are also one of those things that won’t get you into trouble, but do
significantly reduce your chances of rankings. If you want any chance
of ranking in Google using a Frames site, be sure to copy your relevant
content from each page into your ‘noframes’ tag. While this is far from
ideal it may help you salvage some listings.

When it comes to
including content through the use of an iFrame, remember, Google can
not see any of this content located within the frame. It will be of no
use to your rankings. If you rely on this content to help your
listings, find another method such as a server side include.

TOOLS

In
this article I mention a few items which can be made much easier with
the help of available online tools. Here are some to help you on your
way:

HTTP Header Checker
The StepForth HTTP Header Checker

Spider Simulators
XML Sitemaps, Search Engine Bot Simulator

Page Size and Load Time
1-Hit Load Time Analyzer

Google’s Cached Text Version
Click
on “cached” next to your listing in Google, then click “Cached Text
Version” at the top of the page. This is Google’s Cached Text version
of your page. Substituting www.domain.com with your website will also
bring up the cached version:

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:WWW.DOMAIN.COM/&hl=en&strip=1

To see a larger selection of tools visit our SEO Tools page at the StepForth website.

SUMMARY

There
are a lot of little pieces to getting a site to the top of the rankings
in Google that I didn’t have time to mention here. In most cases not
all items noted in this 3 part Google optimization series
need to be in place to achieve top rankings, however, the more you can
implement the better. Links, optimization, and content all play a
significant role in Google rankings and the more competitive the term,
the bigger the role they play.

If you have a site in a
competitive market it is best to ensure that the site is entirely
Google friendly and well optimized, while working on increasing links,
and expanding on relevant content.

Patience is important and
Google rankings are possible, but they do take time and effort. In
nearly all cases it can take several months before you start to see
significant results, although in cases where a site is just missing one
or two pieces of the puzzle and those are put into place, rankings can
come much quicker.

- Flash: One
of the most commonly made mistakes is the use of flash. If flash is
used as a sole means of site navigation then you can count on Google
not viewing your internal pages, and having a significant disadvantage
in terms of site rankings.

- Java Script / DHTML:
These days most Java Script and even DHTML menus can be spidered by
Google, however, this is not always the case. If your site utilizes any
kind of fancy navigation and you are wondering why Google has not
indexed your internal pages, check out Google’s Cached Text version of
your page. If you do not see any text links, then your navigation may
be invisible to Google.

- Images: Image
based navigation has been safe for many years now, but if your site
uses this form of navigation it is essential to have brief, relevant
alt text on all your buttons. This alt text will act much like standard
anchor text for text based links. This is not only for the purpose of
search ranking value, but take a look at Google’s cached text version
of your page. If you have image based links that do not have alt text,
those links do not appear. This doesn’t mean Google won’t follow them,
but for anyone viewing your site on a text based browser, your links
will be invisible to them.

URL Structure
Avoid
long elaborate URL’s with extraneous characters. While Google has
reached a point where they can index massive URL strings, it is best to
avoid them if at all possible. For dynamic sites consider utilizing mod
rewrites to significantly clean up the URL to not only make it more
search engine friendly, but more user friendly as well.

MyTourismSite.com/?locid=”victoria”&catid=”accommodations”
&type=”hotel”&comp=”hilton”

stands a better chance if cleaned up to read:

MyTourismSite.com/victoria/accommodations/hotels/hilton.htm

SUMMARY
Basic
website optimization is a critical component for successful placement
in Google but is only part of the overall picture. Stay tuned for “How to Optimize for Google – Part 2 of 3″ where we will discuss Links and Google Webmaster Tools.