Search Engine Optimization Check-List by Don Pedro

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What is SEO?

"SEO" is an almost generally accepted abbreviation for "search engine optimization". When optimizing for the search engines you are targeting them as a group, i.e. you are search engine marketing. There is the very old marketing rule:
- Know your customers (search engines),
- Know what they want, and
- Give them what they want.
Search engine marketing means you give the search engines what they want in the way they want it. That's what search engine optimization is all about.

If you use a software program to optimize your webpages, remember these are mechanical tools based on statistical averages and supposed to apply to all kinds of websites (a "jack-of-all-trades"). You can use a simple program as a "first-aid" kit to get yourself started. You are yourself anyway the person who knows your website best - let the program give you ideas and inspiration only.

As a "first aid kit" you can download a free search engine optimization program (8.9 MB) with FTP ( File Transfer Program ) and a search engine submission tool. You can analyse your own webpages' content off line and get suggestions for your search engine optimization work. Using the program online gives you a possibility to check which keywords are efficient and which keywords are not. Remember, however, it's a tool only. Use your common sense when applying the program's (i.e. the "optimizer") optimization suggestions.

If you are targeting Europe then the German webpage promotion tool (IBP), (15.7 MB), would probably be more suitable for you (it's in English). The Demo version (7.9 MB) is free but stripped of certain functions. Together with the wine program "IBP" runs also on Linux.

Search Engine Optimization Check List

When you "search engine optimize" you should keep your code as simple as possible. The text you should write for your visitor = visitor optimization.

Your first goal with the search engine optimization is for the site to appear on the first or the second search results page. Less than 50% of searchers go any further than that. Your second goal is to keep it at the first results page.

The check list gives step-by-step advice on how to do-it-yourself.

On-Page Factors

Optimization before uploading webpage/site.
1. Before Google and MSN used to take a webpage description from "DMOZ" (Open Directory Project). Starting July 14, 2006, you can add a new meta tag in your <HEAD> section: <meta name="robots" content="NOODP>. The result is all search engines that recognize this tag will use either your own description tag or a "snippet" of your actual text instead, especially Google
  
  Starting Feb.-March 2007 Yahoo has implemented an other meta tag: "noydir", which will cause search engines not to use Yahoo Directory titles and descriptions. It works the same as "noodp". If you use both tags it's recommended you make one meta tag only: "noodp,noydir". From April 2007 Yahoo stopped using their own directory "title" and "description" information for registered webpages. Other search engines can still, however, use them.
2. If you use FrontPage, correct all spelling and grammar errors while writing. If you don't have FrontPage available you can copy and paste your text into a Word document. Use this only to check your errors. You correct the errors in your webpage HTML code. Do not upload the Word document. For other HTML editors, see HTML Editors.
3. When you have written the full text, print out the whole webpage and go through the text 2-3 times again checking for spelling errors. If you write "the" instead of "then" the spell-check program doesn't "know" it's the wrong word. The computer identifies only spelling errors that turn a word into a non-existing one.
4. Check heading, <h1>, matches main subject on each webpage and contains one or two popular keywords describing that subject. Are these keywords or their synonyms repeated in the text many times without breaking the continuous flow of your story? Each keyword can appear maximum 1-2% of total number of words on the webpage. Each key phrase shouldn't appear more than 3-4 times per page.
5. If you are using layout tables or frames, have you included the correct <DOCTYPE> tag?
6. Does your webpage contain "sub-subjects"? If so, use subheadings, <h2>, with important keywords as in point 3.
7. Are all your important keywords (max. 25) included in your keywords meta tag?
8. Does your "description" meta tag (max. 250 characters) match the content of your webpage? Have you included one or two of the most important keywords in the description?
9. Have you repeated your description in the text on the top of the webpage? What about using it in your site map too, if you have one?
10. Does your <title> (max. 67 characters) match your page heading, including popular keywords?
11. Make a final check there are no coding errors. You can upload your webpage HTML code and pre-validate before publishing your new webpage.

Optimization after uploading your page/site.
1. Check your webpages (including pictures) display correctly.
2. Is your Menu working correctly on all webpages?
3. Is every link working and going to a webpage with the correct content? (Internal and External)
4. Is the download and display time with the slowest connection in your hometown acceptable? On average people wait only 8-10 seconds (with a slow connection) before leaving your webpage. In this time your background, your logo, and at least some of the first text should be displayed.
5. Make a search engine spider simulation and/or a real search of every webpage. Repeat the simulation and/or search until you are satisfied with the result.
6. Validate the HTML code on every webpage and correct all mistakes in the code. And revalidate until everything is correct. Use at least two different validators.
7. Once the big search engines (Yahoo and Google), have picked up your webpages, search with your most important keywords. Note your webpage descriptions in each search results page. Is it satisfactory? If not - change your text accordingly. Repeat this until you are satisfied.

You can get an actual keyword analysis, which tells you, for instance, which 2- or 3-word strings are present how many times on any one webpage. This you should compare with the actual search word strings already used to find your webpages. When you have these two data sheets you can start changing your text and keywords. And then, of course, you repeat the process as many times necessary for yourself to be satisfied.

Or you can type in full URL below. This is a different simulator tool from what is mentioned above.

A well optimized webpage should show up on the 1^st or 2^nd results page, depending on how competitive your sector is. Every popular keyword isn't, however, equally good. To choose the best keywords for your purpose see Don Pedro's How to Find the Best Keywords ?.

The search engine optimization work is an ongoing effort. The search terms people use change over time. Some sites on 3^rd or 4^th search results page may suddenly one day decide to optimize their website. When passing your website in ranking they will push your webpages further down. Or some search engines may change their ranking algorithm and may be your webpage drops to the 5^th results page.

You get a free online assessment of the strength of your webpages - page by page. The appraisal gives ideas as to what you can still do to make your page and website position even stronger.

Important for Good Rankings

In 2007 a German Language ranking report was published (Deutsch), English language abstract is available. The report concentrated on high rankings in Google, but one can say what's good for Google can't be bad in other search engines. To the main findings from that report I have below included details from a newer SEO report [ June / 2009 ]:

Keywords in title are very important. Keywords in sub-headings, <h2> - <h6> have considerably more effect than the keywords in the heading, which means it doesn't matter for ranking in the search results if page heading is different from Title.

The most important keyword / key phrase should come first. If your name is important for branding, that could be first or last in the title. Of course each page should have it's own different title - the content on each page is different, isn't it ?
Keywords in heading (<h1>); what a searcher sees first and what he/she clicks on to come to your webpage is the title. Once on your page the searcher expects to see something at least similar to that on the first screen view. If there's nothing like that some visitors can think they are on the wrong page and they hit the "Back button".

Therefore the headings on all my pages are either similar or very close to the page title. The title is for the search engines as well as for the searcher, while the heading is for the human visitor, whom you want to stay and continue reading the text.
Bold text (<b> or <strong>) have an effect as well as keywords in image file names and "alt" text.
Keywords in domain name have strong effect, because many webmasters use a website's URL, i.e. domain name, in the link text.
Simple URLs tend to be better than long ones with many parameters. If several parameters are absolutely necessary ( Due to something like company CMS ) use no more than 2 parameters.
Page file size doesn't seem to have any effect. Smaller websites tend to rank better than very big ones. Possibly because a smaller site (30-50 pages) usually is more focused on one topic, while the bigger ones (1.000+ pages) are more "multipurpose". The latter causes problems with categorizing because they can cover several subjects.
Number of incoming links have strong effect, which is a fact that's been known for quite some time.

In the report referred to at the top ( SEO Best Practices ) there are some further points. Like about the Keywords meta tag - whether to use or not. The report comes to the conclusion that because Yahoo ! uses it ( at least sometimes ) it cannot harm if you use it. My comment would be: If you are not using it, then no need to start using it now because next year there isn't any Yahoo anymore. If you are using it, then let it stay as there's no harm in it.

Each small detail taken on it's own doesn't always have much effect, it's the total effect of all details together that produces the final result.

The rankings in the search engines results pages are not really important by themselves. It's no use to follow one or several keywords' rankings, for instance every day - as some people do. What is much more important is what you and your "competitors" do with the webpages because that's what affects the rankings.

A webpage's ranking on the results page is simply the total effect and visible measure of the result of your and your competitor's (and others') optimizing efforts. And a webpage's competitors are webpage specific, they are always other webpages, the webpage competitors are not "companies" or products.

See also Google's Search Engine Optimization Guide

Ranking Systems Change

Peoples' interests and therefore also the search queries and search behaviour changes over time. And so do the search engines' ranking algorithms, i.e. the rules for weighing each factor / detail that affects the ranking of a webpage on the search results page ( SERP ).

Early 2009 "Randfish" published a diagram of factors / criteria over changes of Google's ranking algorithms over time - from 2002 to 2009:

Anchor text in external links, On page keyword usage, and Page rank / "Link Juice" were all down, i.e. less important than before.
Only one that has increased in importance over time is "Trust / Authority" of host domain. One important detail in this is the age of the domain name.

From my own observations I have concluded 5 years is some kind of threshold value for the age. Once a domain is over 5 years old the rankings tend to be somewhat better. Especially when the webpage has been continually up-dated / refreshed. And of course, new websites / domains still suffer the first year from Google's "Sandbox" or whatever it's sometimes called.

Off-Page Factors

What exactly are those "off-page factors"? These are all those matters you find on other websites that still are important for ranking of your webpages on the search engine result pages. Once you have optimized your webpages the off-page factors determine what the actual ranking of each webpage will be.

The important ones are mainly everything concerned with your incoming links:

Total number of your incoming links; total to the website and total to each webpage are important separately. Many webmasters will, for convenience, link to your home page which means the navigation (= menu) from that one to all other pages should be "perfect".
Number and type of websites linking to you. Google Page Rank number (Google toolbar) and general quality are important factors (see below).
Number and kind of links on those other websites linking to you:
Let's call your website "A" and the websites that are linking to you we call "B"; then those websites that link to "B" we call "C". Now we'll have following chain - each letter "B" and "C" represents many individual websites:
C --> B --> A
The description and/or the link text for your incoming links from B.
The relationship between number of incoming links to your webpages (A) and total number of outgoing links on (B). It's better if the link to your website is one out of 5 instead of one out of 100. When you have a link on a webpage with only a few outgoing links your site's exposure will be stronger and most search engines will take this into consideration. On your own webpages many outgoing links should be balanced by a great number of incoming links (to the same webpage if possible).
Number of incoming links to websites "B" and the quality of the websites those links are coming from. You need to know at least a few (the more the better) "B" websites, are they good or bad from your or your visitor's view? Try to find a few "C" websites as well.
Generally your incoming links should be from as many different websites as possible. If you get more than one link from the same website, those should, of course, point to different webpages on your website.

How to find incoming Links?

So how to find those "B" and "C" websites? You need to collect "Visitor Statistics" from your webpages. Then you know what websites are sending traffic (visitors) to your webpages, obviously these websites must have outgoing links to your website or pages. Then you go to Google and type in the search bar:
link:site or page URL
No need to include "http://". Of course you then use the URL for a "B" website. The list you get from Google is now a sample of "C" websites. You won't get all "C" websites, but you can start with the list you get. Start with those "B" websites that have a high Google Page Rank number. Then you start asking for links from the "C" websites. And why do this? If the "B" website has a high Google Page Rank, then obviously there must be some good websites linking to that one, right?

Bing have the same function; you type: LinkDomain:yoursite.com and get that report on your backlinks. It's different from Google's.

Or you try to get traffic data that gives you a list of exit links, i.e. how many times your visitors have clicked on each of your outgoing links. Then if those websites have a links page you can always contact the webmaster in a very polite way; you tell the webmaster "according to my traffic data your website is receiving a steady stream of visitors from my website, would you kindly consider opening a link back to ..." and so on.

Don't push! Always be polite, friendly and "understanding". If you don't get the link this year, mañana otro año. Of course you cannot expect a back link if the content on your page isn't good enough.

Naturally you can check the same thing also for those web sites that are coming out on the top in the search results pages for your own keywords. Then you can ask for links also from those (B and C websites) - if they are in your sector and no competitors. You can also use country specific Google (or Yahoo or MSN) search engine versions. Mostly AltaVista and Yahoo gives better results than Google or MSN.

To find backlinks to a certain webpage:

Use Google's Toolbar. Go to "Options", find "Page Info", click on it or drag it to the toolbar. You will get a round blue circle with a white "i", i.e. the international "INFO" symbol. Click on that one and choose "Backlinks", the list you get is Google's list of webpages linking to the page you are currently on.
Use Yahoo's site explorer, a on-line service where you get:
- All pages within an URL indexed by Yahoo,
- All incoming links to an URL, indexed by Yahoo,
- You can submit missing website or webpage, and
- Last crawled date.

Alternately you can use the search engine Clusty, which uses a "clustering" technique to group same kind of websites together. This means you get a kind of "map" over a network of websites, from where at least one is linking to you. By getting links from more websites in that same network your site gets stronger.

In August/September 2007 Google published a tool for finding clusters of related websites, it's called TouchGraph. For more info on this, please see Website promotion.

Or, you can go to Backlinks Watch and get an almost complete list of incoming links to any website you specify, maximum 1.000 links. This online program gives backlinks only for a base domain, i.e. like "www.donpedrowebdesign.netfirms.com/". If your URL looks like "www.angelfire.com/ok4/donpedroshipping/" you can use Online Utility.

Search engines have started devaluing incoming links that are obvious reciprocal links, especially non-relevant links. Once you have had a link to another website 6 months or more, may be that other webmaster will put up a backlink to you without you even asking for it. If not, you can ask for a link (after 6 months) with a description that is adapted to the context on that other website or page. This makes a links exchange look less obvious. In other words, be generous with your outgoing links, and keep them relevant.

Google's Page Rank Number

To see the Page Rank Number (PR) you need the Google toolbar. When you put your mouse arrow on the Page Rank bar a yellow rectangle pops up with a number between 01/10-10/10.

But what is this PR number? It has nothing to do with a web page's ranking on a search results page! It indicates only number of incoming links to the web page that is displayed. A much more correct name for "PR" would be page popularity index. The word "Page" doesn't come from "webpage". It comes from "Larry Page", who's one of the founders of Google.

For more information go to Don Pedro's What is Google's PR-Number?.

Summary

There are two parts to search engine optimization:

Links & Content

On-page factors, which are everything you do with your own webpages, and
Off-page factors, which are everything other people do that affects the traffic to your webpages; mainly it's about links:

- Not only how many, but how good websites,
- Not only how good, but how your webpage or website is described,
- Not only how it's described, but in what context is the link to your website.

Incoming links with different text links from different websites are "natural", so this kind of incoming links are also the best from the search engine's view. A one-way incoming text link from the middle of the text on another webpage is the best.

This is the never-ending work which in the end will decide how successful your website optimization is.

To achieve your search engine marketing goal you try to make a website that is,
- easy to find (use the most popular keywords),
- easy to surf ( navigate ), and
- easy to read
both for visitors and search engines (with good content and a number of relevant incoming links).

You can get additional help from an online page strength analysis tool. This checks your webpage or website for:
- relative importance and visibility,
- the ability of it to rank in the search engines,
- data on popularity (such as links), and
- mentions of the webpage or website across the Web (incl. Wikipedia).

With the help of this analysis you have a firmer footing when drawing your search engine marketing plan for next year.

Reputation & Maintenance

A few matters you attend to at the very start and after that only infrequently, while other matters you have to work with continuously:

Less frequently:

Keyword Research - once you have decided on the keywords and key phrases to use, you only return to this sometimes to check whether people still are using the keywords and key phrases you have used.
Check your Competition - Has anyone of the competitors done extra optimizing or have I got some new competitors?

Frequently / Continuously:

Traffic Data Analysis - Your traffic data is of no use if it's not analysed: any changes?, any trends?, new questions coming up?, etc
Content Building - You need to continuously add good content and/or up-date the current content to keep your website fresh.
Linkbuilding - You need additional good trust-worthy incoming links added all the time. Preferably at a constant speed.
Trustbuilding and Reputation management - Trust and reputation go hand in hand. If you don't build on it and spread it around you are slowly loosing ground.