What is it?

SEO - or search engine optimization - is an internet marketing strategy aimed at improving the ranking/page placement of a website when searching with search engines like google, bing, yahoo, etc. By searching through all sites' text, keywords, links and images, a web crawler will rank the most relevant and useful websites that matches a particular search query. The best way to increase the search engine ranking of your website in a given area (e.g. "green building") is to make the content useful and relevant. Here are the primary methods to help your site gain relevancy and therefore a higher ranking as well as help the web crawlers find and travel your website are:

• Make your site's text and images useful and relevant to the topics for which you want to be ranked highly.
• Add links from your site to other relevant websites.
• Add relevant video(s).
• Add social networking connections such as facebook, twitter, etc.

Our search engine optimization:

The Basics

There are basic functions that we include in all our websites that will help your ranking. This includes listing obvious keywords, creating sitemaps, submission to google and other search engines, and some other basic strategies that help you and don't take extensive resources from us. Here are the essentials of what we include in every site.

Alt Tag (Alternative Text Tag). This tag supplies detail about an image. It helps folks with disabilities access your website as well as gives information about the image to those who have text-only browsers or who surf the web with graphics turned off.

Title Meta Tag. Some consider this to be the most important Meta Tag (tags describe certain parts of a web page). Each page should have it's own descriptive title using keywords appropriate to that page. Title tags are displayed at the top of the website page window as well as the title of a result in a search query.

Meta Tag. This tag can be used as the description of a website page in a search query. Keywords relevant to the page should be used.

Keywords Tag. Keywords for the specific page can be listed in this tag. It is a good place to use various spellings, abbreviations or plurals for keywords. It is less important than it used to be due to abuse in the attempt to improve ranking.

Extended Package

For an additional fee (currently priced at $400), we can perform research up front on your industry and the best/most relevant keywords to accomplish ranking where you need it. From that, we can better perform the steps in "The Basics" package above. We also do a few more functions to help the ranking at this level, all of which are described below.

Keyword Research and selection. Keyword selection is one of the most important elements of web optimization. A keyword is a word submitted in a search query in order to find relevant information/websites. The keywords chosen should be relevant to your particular industry and to the emphasis of your company. Finding a niche within your industry and using relative keywords will not only cut the competition, but will help find serious visitors.

Choosing a domain name. Use keywords in domain name if possible.

Keyword placement in content. Content is different for every page - and keywords should be different also; make them relevant to the subject of the page. When placing keywords in content, it should read naturally. Choose a handful of keywords from your keyword list and use different versions of them throughout the page. This is tricky - be careful not to overuse them or the web crawlers may see it as spam. Keyword placement is an ongoing process and as page web traffic is monitored, keywords can be changed.

Use breadcrumbs. Also known as a breadcrumb trail, this is a navigation tool to shows the user where they are and how they got there. Previous pages can be accessed through this "trail".

DIY & Hourly SEO

If you have an interest in SEO there are many books out there that do a good job of describing these techniques. Thank you Ben Norman for your book 'Get to #1 on Google in Easy Steps' . His book and several others were very helpful in putting together the following content. Visit our Resources page for more links to helpful sites.

Inward links are great. These are links to your site from other sites. The logic behind this is if other sites are willing to link to your site, it means that yours must have good, relevant, and useful content. Try to find important sites with good ranking and RELEVANCE to your website and industry.

Directory links. In a web browser window, type "directory + your industry" in the search query. Sign up for any that look interesting.

Top ranking sites. Do a search for your industry or keywords and see who is at the top. Research to see if any of those websites would be willing to link to your website.

More links. In a search query, search for "your industry + links + link + site". Peruse the results and create links where possible/appropriate.

Visit forums. Make sure they are relevant to your industry. Leave a signature and a link to your website. Try to find forums where the link (text) back to your site can be customized. It is good practice to add keywords to this anchor text if possible.

Write an article. To submit online enter "article + your industry/topic". Look through the results to find websites where you can submit your article.

Create a resource page. This is a page for outward links as well as reciprocal inward links. Create an email link that interested parties can use to send their links. If they are relevant to your website and industry, put them on your site! Most likely they would reciprocate the link. This is a more difficult DIY project - if necessary your web designer can help.

Become indispensable! Create or give something away that people will want: great content (super!), free downloads, articles, tools that link back to your site - or anything else unique and desirable.

Create a blog. Visit www.blogger.com

Videos. Create videos relevant to your industry and upload them to YouTube, and make sure they link back to your site.

Build social media. Social media such as facebook and twitter are powerful connective tools that can increase traffic and ranking. This is a large undertaking all on it's own. Begin with one and grow your list from there.

The following sites can help find social media websites:

http://traffikd.com/social-media-websites/ - (by interest)
http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/top-list-of-social-media-sites - (by popularity)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites - (alphabetically)

Here's a peek at a popular few:

Facebook - general

Twitter - general

YouTube - videos

Flickr - images

Digg - general

Blogger - blogs

LlinkedIn - leading business networking sites