Business Learning Center

A high placement in a search engine query result can mean a huge jump in targeted traffic for a business.

When someone goes to Google looking for a specific product or service, they are likely to review the first few results that come up in the results and ignore results that are not featured on the first page of results.

For example, when people are searching for a “website design company” on Google, this is the result that comes up:

As you can see, just below the three paid results, the first organic result is Blue Fountain Media. How did we achieve such a result? It is the result of employing SEO techniques and putting a great deal of time and effort into making sure the SEO campaign is successful.

Title Tags, Meta Tags and Keywords

How your site identifies itself in the source code goes a long way to determining how your site will be valued by the major search engines. The most important coding is your “Title Tag.” Your title tag is exactly that, the title of your website. Search engines pay very close attention to the content of your title tag, so the words should closely reflect the content of your site.

This is also often the user’s first impression of your site, so it should give the user a reason to click on your result. Words in your title tag will also show up bold if the user has included them in their query, so high-volume keywords are a good place to start.

It is generally recommended that your title be under 100 characters, keeping in mind that Google will only display up to 70 characters on a search results page.

Meta description is what will usually show up in search rankings below the title. The best way to approach a meta description is to think of it as your website’s sub-title. Google recommends that they shouldn’t be longer than 100 characters, while DMOZ (the web’s Open Directory Project) suggests no more than 25-30 words.

Finally “Meta Keywords” is a list of words, specific to your site, that are embedded in your site’s source code. However, search engines no longer give weight to the terms listed here. Sometimes including a few misspellings can help give you an edge in ranking for the misspelling (provided you already rank for the correctly spelled term), but for your main target keywords, the content that users see is what is most important.

Keyword Targeting

You won’t be able to rank for a particular keyword unless you actually use that keywords in your site’s content.

Being “found” on the web really isn’t much different from being “found” in the brick and mortar world. Before people ever heard of Google, they found service providers in the Yellow Pages, by word of mouth, through advertising.

If your business happens to be a law firm, how would people find you? As a rule, they want to find a lawyer who is in relatively close proximity, a lawyer who specializes in the precise area where the potential client has a need (immigration, real estate closings, drunk driving, e.g.) and a lawyer who is in their price range.

When searching for a lawyer online, people won’t just Google “lawyer,” because they know they will be getting a lot of untargeted, general results. They are much more likely to add a geographical modifier (“New York City”) and a specialty (“criminal defense”).

An Entriweb study found that 31% of people use two-word searches on Google, while another 25% use three word searches. Single word searches constitute only 19% of searches. That leaves another 25% of searches with four words or more.

Keyword Optimizing

Once you’ve figured out the keywords most relevant to your site, then you must make use of them in the most “search engine friendly” way you can. “Optimizing” keywords means using them prominently and frequently in the content of your website. Context and relevancy also counts, and you don’t want your language to be awkward, so it is important to integrate your keywords as transparently as possible.

As a rough guideline, try to optimize every page on your site for a different search phrase. Each search phrase should contain 2 to 3 highly targeted keywords. When optimizing your keywords, remember that search engines pay more attention to words at the top of your content than at the bottom.

Linking

One of the most important SEO tools and one of the most difficult to do well, is “back-linking”. Back links are direct links to your website from other websites.

Back links are the equivalent of good reviews and search engines pay particular attention to them. Just as a good movie review in The New York Times means more than a good review in a local community newspaper, search engines like Google give far more weight to back links from major sites.

The key is being diligent. Research the sites that you really believe have some relation to your business and contact them. If you sell sneakers, contact sports-related sites. If you sell weight loss supplements, contact health and beauty sites. If you design websites for entrepreneurs, contact every online entrepreneur publication and blog.

Many of the sites you contact will ask for reciprocal linking. This is generally not beneficial; reciprocal linking is recognized as such by search engines, and unless there is relevant content to justify the incoming and outgoing links, their value will be discounted. The same goes for a “links” page; a given page has a finite amount of link value to pass through its links; the more links on the page, the less valuable the one that goes to your website.

In Conclusion

Search engine optimization requires knowledge, experience and a bit of artistry. To maximize your website’s exposure it is important to devote time and effort to do your SEO properly. Investing in an expert SEO team may seem expensive, but the return on investment can be well worth your while. You’ve already seen what Blue Fountain Media has done to help its own search engine optimization (Google search “website design company,” Yahoo search “website design company”). If you want to see what we can do for you, call us at 212.260.1978.