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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

What is SEO
The process of increasing website traffic by achieving the highest possible position on the major search engine results pages.

Why SEO Matters
If your website is visible on search engine result pages you miss opportunities to connect to people interested in what you do. These connections can provide publicity, revenue, and exposure. Investing in SEO can have an exceptional rate of return when compared to other types of marketing.

How Not to Optimize
When optimizing never try to "trick" a search engine. Search engines only goal is to provide the best search results possible. They will eventually catch on and filter out tricks. Trying to trick the search engines may end up lowering your rank, or even getting black listed.

How to Optimize
There are many different factors that search engines consider when determining rankings for the search results pages. Those elements can be divided into content on your website On Site), and content that's about you but not on your website (Off Site). The basic elements of both are discussed below:

On Site

Page Title
The page title shows the search engines the most relevant keywords for each page of your website. Make your titles relevant, and use your most important keywords. Don't repeat keywords or add so many that the search engines feel that you are including them just to gain visibility. Being too repetitive or can result in a lower ranking and less visibility. If you use too many words in your page title the search engines may ignore everything after a certain number of characters. A good page title should be no more than about 70 characters.

Page Content
Pages should be well written within content that is valuable to your website users. Try to use as many of your important keywords near the top of your page as possible. Do not just list your keywords at the top of your content. You want them to make sense to your website users. Repeat as many of the keywords and keyword phrases throughout the text as makes sense to the reader. Do not repeat keywords just to repeat them. The search engines may penalize you if those keywords are repeated unnecessarily.

Keywords
Pages should contain words that you want to be visible for on the major search engine results pages.

Engaging
The content on your page should have enough value to keep readers on the site for as long as possible.

Freshness
Content on your key pages should be updated on a frequent basis with topics that are current.

Meta Description
This is a summary of the content that is on your page. A few sentences will almost always suffice. Write your description by using as many of you primary keywords as makes sense without over doing it.

Meta Keywords
This is a list of keywords and keyword phrases that are on the page. Keep in mind that you should:

1. Use both keywords and keyword phrases.
2. Organize your keywords from most important to the least important.
3. DO NOT repeat keywords unless they appear alone and then within a keyword phrase.
4. Separate keywords and phrases with a comma
5. You do not need to worry about misspellings in your list.

Meta Data
Meta data includes the meta tags such as the page description, the keywords noted above, your H1 or (headline) tags, and other tags that define things like your content type and settings.

URLs
Keep website URLs short with keywords related to your website topic.

Ease of Use
You want your website to load quickly. Too much video, excessive flash, and large files can make your website load slowly.

Site Map
Build a site map page and place a link to the site map in the footer. This will make it easier for the search engines spiders to find your pages. You should make sure to submit your site map to the major search engines.

Mobile Version
Your website should be easy to use on a tablet, notebook, and mobile phone. Although there are technologies that reformat your website for mobile devices, it is best to develop a separate mobile website.

Off Site

Links
Earning links from your other trusted websites by generating content that others find useful so they want to link to your website.

Trust
Try to establish a consistent history. If possible, do not make fundamental changes to your website address, your online listings, your name, and the way you operate. Never use someone else's content.

Social
Publish content on the major social networks that others will find helpful and useful. When others share your content it helps build your authority and trust.

Putting It All Together

1. Develop a list of top keywords
2. Prioritize the keyword list from most important to least important
3. Write a title for each page using as many primary keywords as possible
4. Write the description on the page using as many primary keywords as possible
5. See if there needs to be a rewrite to bring primary keywords more to the top
6. Put it all together on the web page
7. Use the keywords and content in your meta data
8. Build profiles on the major social networks; including Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.
9. Review, claim, and update your online directory listings.
10. Add new, content to your website and your social profiles on a regular basis.

Remember that the search engines are constantly changing how they rank results. Some changes will be announced the public, others will not. If you need additional help contact URWA Consulting at (720) 217-3993, info@urwaconsulting.com, or use the “contact us” form on the website to tell us how we can help. Good luck optimizing.