Appendix A: SEO – Process and Strategies Moving Forward: Overview of the Search Engine Optimization Process There is a five-step process to search engine optimization (SEO), understanding that search engines look at meta tags, original, useful site content, internal link structure, external link popularity, as well as your site authority and fresh content to determine your ranking in the results.

1. Brainstorm, research and analyze the key words and phrases that will draw profitable traffic to your site.

2. Optimize your content against these key words and phrases a. Create pages specific to individual terms b. Include keywords/phrases in title tag c. Write meta descriptions around keywords/phrases d. Develop or improve headline tags and text tailored to key

words/phrases e. Incorporate links and alt image tags appropriately

3. Register site with directories, submit optimized pages to search engines

a. Submit site to search engines and free directories b. Subscribe to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools, use these to submit new or updated pages.

4. Monitor the results, tweaking as needed to increase traffic and improve your position in the search results

a. Install Google Analytics (free)

b. Monitor rankings (our clients have the SEO dashboard for this)

5. Develop a strategy for external linking – listing your URL on popular directories and other relevant web sites – because links are increasingly important to page ranks on Google and other search engines.

Optimization will help increase your site traffic; the larger question is how to increase the percentage of visitors converted into customers. To monitor your results, we recommend that all our clients subscribe to an online web analytics package like Google Analytics, which we can also access. Many sites experience site visitors who look at a single page and leave—these obviously weren’t prospects. What we want to do is motivate people to engage with your site—to call or ask for more information. The most important advice: optimize each web page for search engine visibility Determine which keywords are the most important for targeted traffic, and organize them across the primary pages, one or two per page.

• Page titles – must be specific to each page’s content focus - put primary keyword and second keyword at the FRONT of the page title.

• Meta keywords and meta descriptions specific to each page. Headline tags (H1 tag) repeat keywords for that page.

• Alt image tags – use where you have graphics to describe the picture, but also repeat primary and secondary keywords

• Useful, practical keyword-focused content on every page. Start writing for search engine visibility, but keep the content meaningful to the prospect.

• Make sure pages (including image files) are typically 35-50k. Always aim for a fast-loading page, as this has become a ranking factor.

• Deploy an XML site map and create an HTML site map page to make it simple for search engine spiders and users to find all the pages.

Selling “system” in place Marketing theory for web sites says you need to provide the prospect with a clearly understood path…anticipating the informational needs of a prospect as they move from awareness, to consideration, to evaluation, to purchase. Obviously, a prospect has very different needs than a customer, so you have to organize your site appropriately. The goal of every prospect interaction is to motivate them to move further along in this decision-making process. Every page needs review to be sure your “most desired action” is present. In most cases, we would expect that to be a phone call, a demo or some information download like a white paper. Other parts of a selling “system” can be an e-mail series on issues relevant to your solution, additional audio or video interviews with staff/customers, etc. These all supplement the Web content, are likely to be saved and/or shared, and require no human intervention. These should require no more information in registration than an e-mail address. It’s important for prospects to be able to quickly find you again—they are more likely to save useful information than they are to bookmark your site. We will work with you to develop a straightforward, rational path for the prospect, and to recommend ways to encourage calls or request additional information. On each page of a site optimized for sales, there needs to be a clear “most desired action” for the prospect to take, and you need to expand content, such as FAQs, comparisons and testimonials, that support a broad range of prospects at multiple points in the decision-making process.

Site Optimization Strategies Item and strategy Recommendation

KEYWORD PHRASES

Primary Integrate up to five keyword phrases (KPs) into the page copy on each top level page, each about 2-3 times. Scatter home page KPs across the top level pages. You should prioritize the keywords according to their counts and relevance (looking for traffic that will convert to sales). Secondary An excellent strategy for having high rankings on secondary phrases is to develop KP-specific pages, such as in your FAQ section, or in press releases. On all pages, “content is king.”

METATAGS

The Title and Description meta tags usually appear in the search engine results. The page title is especially important; it integrates the top two or three KPs, also emphasized in the page content, to draw traffic based on real search terms. Each should be unique, but should be in readable, logical form (for Google, 89 characters max for the Title tag, the Description gets 155 max characters including spaces). Don’t worry about the Keywords tag…it doesn’t factor in your rankings.

HOMEPAGE

Copy is SO important: in SEO, “Content is king.” It is important to have good keyword density on the homepage; when we optimize copy we also build an internal link structure for better KP visibility. Often, optimized content appears “below the fold,” when you scroll down the page. 80% of user activity is above the fold, so your optimized home page can still be light and airy in its design.

GRAPHICS AND alt.image TAGS

Anything that is a graphic should get a written description, for visually impaired people. We use this alt.image tag, and include keywords in it. Use alt.image tags for the company logo, photos, headlines which are graphics (not text). Alt.image tags are especially powerful in the top banner.

HEADER TAGS

Headers (<H1>, <H2>, etc.) are style definitions, but these are typically used in headlines, subheads, caption, lists, etc. The spiders pay attention to these H tags and use KPs in them as part of the page index. They can be a sentence or a phrase that contains keywords, and they are an important resource for KP-rich page content.

MOTIVATE RESPONSE

Call to action: Consistently, effectively, and deliberately placed on each page. Optimize the response mechanism on every page. Determine your “most wanted [realistic] result” and frame an offer accordingly.

SITEMAP

Use both an XML sitemap and an HTML sitemap. For the HTML version: View the map not just as a way to describe the site, but as an index and glossary to your entire business. Definitely incorporate keywords into the map itself, and include a title tag. Also, this is an excellent place to incorporate messages for market segments – savvy web users often go straight to the site map and navigate from there. The XML sitemap is for the search engines.

SUBMITTING TO SEARCH ENGINES – CREATING MORE TARGETED TRAFFIC

After the updates have been made to the web pages we will submit your site to the major search engines. It will take about a week to see the new pages start showing up in all the sites. Top rankings generally take time, now that the web is so large…you are shooting to be one of the top ten pages on the internet. This table shows approximate times for a search engine spider to cycle around to your site (once a page has been submitted) and the time it takes for key directories. There are about 15 directories which are essential external links which show the search engines serious intent…earning respect is important.

Search Engine / Directory

Time to Index

Google Generally, within a week Bing/Yahoo Usually takes longer, 2-3 weeks Yahoo Directory 1 week with paid listing ($299) All The Web 3-8 weeks for free listing, 1 week if paid Open Directory 2 weeks to several months, but it’s free Best of the Web 2 days (paid listing) Business.com Another excellent paid directory, $299

LINK DEVELOPMENT

Link popularity is a very important metric for the search engines, especially Google. Adding links can be difficult. However, it is worth the effort for top rankings. One easy way to generate links is to comment on blogs; if you post interesting content, your blog posts may generate external links. It is important to maintain current links and continue to acquire new ones. By systematically increasing the number of keyword-specific external links, you can develop a richer link structure which will increase your rankings with Google.