The hot topic in online marketing today is search engine optimization, or SEO, so I decided to jump into the mix with my two cents. First, there are very many SEO articles on the web, and a lot of them are full of garbage that can throw people off, while others are strangely trying to remain mysterious ("Optimize for keywords"? How?). Before I start, note that I'll be using a fictional Montreal Chinese food restaurant called Zuzu through this article when giving examples on topics I will be discussing. Kapish? Great. Let's begin.
First, you need to assess your competition. Pick a few keywords related to your (future?) Website and look them up on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. A simple way to see what you will be up against is to check the PageRank of the top sites listed in the results. To easily check PageRanks, get the Google Toolbar. It does not measure up your competition to a 100% accuracy (PageRank is not as important as some make it out to be), but it will give you a good idea. In Zuzu's case, I would type in "chinese restaurant" and open up the first couple of results, then I would try "Montreal chinese restaurant", and open up the first couple of results. Keep all open results organized according to searched keywords, as this is important for a topic discussed below. If I see that "Montreal chinese restaurant" returns some highly ranked pages, I will need to get more specific in my keyword selection to target a smaller audience. This way I at least have a chance to get Zuzu ranked at the top of the search results, and so I try "inexpensive Montreal chinese restaurant", which returns some low ranked websites as the first few results. This is where I will claim my territory, and remember, this is SEO on a budget. If you have the dough, you can spend your way to the top for more generic search keywords.
Now that you have your main keyword set, you need to list a few secondary keywords you want to work with. In Zuzu's case, I would include the neighborhood where the restaurant is located, as well as some specialty dish types if people search by this criteria. Moving on.
Now it is time to optimize your website for the keywords you picked. Do not stress over your business' name, as its uniqueness will get you at the top of the search rankings if people are specifically looking for you. In Zuzu's case, the word "Zuzu" will most certainly bring up the restaurant as the first search result (maybe not zuzu specifically, as it is widely used, but any distinct business name). Here is the bad news, and you will not find this in the SEO articles on the web, there is not a bullet proof way to optimize your site for specific keywords. The basics always apply, such as the page titles, which you should keep distinct and not too long, as well as the "alt" tags of pictures, but the rest is quite fuzzy.
I can give you the following advice. From the search results you previously saved, look at those from the most generic search, which is Zuzu's case would be "chinese restaurant". Find one search result that is ranked high but has a lower PageRank than one with a higher PageRank that is ranked lower in the results. In Zuzu's case, if result # 2 of the "chinese restaurant" search has a PageRank of 3, and # 3 has a PageRank of 5, # 2 is well optimized for the search terms, which gives it the high ranking it has (not absolutely true, but you can not go wrong), so this website should be your study case. Find a couple of these, and open up their source codes. Look at all the positioning positioning and formatting you find. Try to notice a pattern. Are they always bold? Are they in links to subsections of the site? Do they run around and yell "STELLA!"? A combination of the first two? Whatever you find, take note and try to apply the same strategy to your site. If you expected a how-to guide, I apologize. There is no such thing, even if many claim there to be one. However, with this strategy you can find out what will work best in outranking your competition, and in the end that's what matters. Be sure to sprinkle around your secondary keywords in the same way you did for the primary ones, but less frequently to avoid taking the focus away from your main website topic. I would prefer people finding Zuzu with "Montreal chinese restaurant" rather than "fancy asian dishes" because the former search will bring me more customers, but the latter could be from people half way around the world, and I am focusing on a small niche (SEO on a budget, remember?).
Alright, so the website is optimized for keywords and ready to be seen around the world wide web. To get good rankings in search engines, you need to raise your site's presence on the Internet, which means that you need links from other high traffic sites to point to yours. This can be achieved by submitting the website to numerous online directories, but be careful. I found that most SEO articles do not address this issue, and people wind up hurting their rankings more than anything else. You must submit your website to online directories that search engines will not consider to be hazardous. There is a process used to find out which ones are or are not, but that's too complex, so instead use a simple rule of thumb. If a directory has a PageRank of 3 or higher, that means search engines (especially Google) considering it to be legit, and so should you. The obvious one to submit to is DMOZ, and that will boost your rankings up a notch, but it's difficult to get into, so you will have to work through lower class directories. If you are serious about your business and Internet traffic is a key element for you, then submit it to the Yahoo Business Directory or BOTW. I will cost you some money ($ 99- $ 299 per year), but your search rankings improve significantly.
However, you should also be careful when submitting your website to all of these directories. Search engines look at the text in the link pointing to your website, so avoid repeating the same thing for all directories, or you might be labeled a link spammer and penalized in search rankings. In Zuzu's case, I would variate the link keywords between "Montreal's Zuzu Restaurant", "Chinese Restaurant Zuzu", and so on, in order to avoid being too repetitive.
After some time your PageRank will rise and you will have more leverage on the Internet scene. If your PageRank reached 3, you can offer other high ranking websites with similar but non-competitive content to exchange links. In Zuzu's case, I would exchange links with websites about Chinese recipes, cookware, etc.
This is all there really is in terms of SEO. There are other things you should consider, but that's getting too specific and the results are marginal. You can pay someone (like me) to do it for you, but if you're reading this, you probably decided to do it yourself, so I spill the beans. Just remember one important thing: the website's content should first and foremost be pleasant to the eye of the human reader, so if your site is super-duper optimized for search engines but the text on it has major grammatical errors, then you messed up. In Zuzu's case, I do not want visitors to read "Zuzu Chinese food restaurant good food low price" since the point of SEO is to drive traffic to your website, and keep it there, not scare it away. Also, SEO is a continuous process, so keep monitoring your rankings and do not stop trying to improve. The minute you do, your competition will outrank you. That is all, so congrats, you are now a SEO expert, reliably speaking …
