What is Search Engine Optimization?

Based on information gathered during an online presence and internet reputation evaluation, followed by an informational gathering of major players within a company, a proposal is formulated to include the necessary work. This proposal can include design and layout, navigation, colors, background, font family selection, images, correction of broken and dead links, meta tags, web copy, HTML validation, browser and resolution compatibility, loading times, current search engine rankings, site statistics and error pages. All of these factors have some influence in attracting search engine spiders and visitors to your site.

Competitive research is conducted to help us get a clear picture of current search engine ranking performance by your competition. This research includes studying the sites of all your competitors who already have high search engine rankings to discover the keywords for which they are being ranked for. We then analyze your current meta-tags and recreate them based on the keywords discovered through our research of your industry.

SEO copywriting is the process of writing unique content for your website. Content must be keyword-rich, yet search-engine-friendly while remaining appealing to the human reader. Keywords relevant to your company or website are strategically used throughout your website so that your site has an increased chance of ranking high when the search engine robots crawl your website. With direct, highly targeted traffic to your website, your customers will be provided with the specific information they are searching for, which will hopefully lead to an increase in sales for you. SEO copywriting is a service that is priced according to your site’s specific needs and budget. See SEO Copywriting for more details.

The most important tag buried in the code of your website is the title tag. Title tags play a crucial role in your site’s overall rankings and when strategically designed, these words or phrases assist searchers as they appear in the listings on the search engine results pages (SERPs). The absolute most relevant and page-specific keywords or keyword phrases in the title tag best summarize the contents of the website page, and the search engines apply the tag according to their specific algorithm.

Equally vital is the meta description tag. This tag provides a brief summary of the content of your web page. The description appears in the SERPs (search engine result pages) just below the title tag hyperlink. We will make sure that the meta description tag is clear, concise, compelling and brief, and that it includes your top keywords. The words used must “tease” or convince the inquiring visitor and potential customer to check out your website further. Each page must and will be uniquely customized so that every web page has a diverse collection of meta tag descriptions.

Though not as relevant of a tag as the title and description tags, the meta keyword tag is still recognized by some search engines. We include a number of meta keywords for your site that are relevant only to the content of the webpage to which they are assigned. Listing keywords that do not actually appear on the page is considered SPAM by the search engines. In fact, it is this practice that has rendered the keyword tag irrelevant to many search engines.

The creation of an XML and XHTML sitemap page enables search engine spiders and visitors to more quickly and easily scan through your website. The XHTML sitemap helps visitors to quickly scan the pages of your website for the information they are looking for. The visitors will see all of your website pages in an organized, hyperlink tree format. The XHTML sitemap is set up as a link in the footer area on all of your website pages. The XML sitemap is created and submitted to the search engines.

A link from a trusted website to your own is like a “vote” of popularity in the eyes of search engines. The more relevant the inbound link or “vote,” the more valued and trusted the search engines see your website. Industry-related inbound links to your website will give you an even more relevant “vote” compared to links from non-related websites. There are two specific types of link-building techniques: The first is a one-way link, and the other is a reciprocal link. One-way links are websites that have a link to your website. Reciprocal links are like one-way links except they require you to link back to that site linking to you, so essentially you would be trading a link with another relevant website.

There are different ways of developing link-building campaigns for your website. Here are a few examples:

• Search Engine Optimized Press Releases. This is the most powerful way to increase inbound links and website traffic. It must be timely, relevant, well-written, and distributed.
• Link requests to trusted sites. This strategy involves requesting other websites to exchange (trade) links with relevant industry-related websites by extending a link to their site from your own site.
• Social Networking. Taking advantage of social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook can help you connect with other people and websites in like communities.

The load time of your website affects not only the website visitors but also the search engine spiders. There are many factors in the cause of a slow-loading website: HTML errors, file sizes, table-based design methods, too many images and bad image optimization. You can think of a search engine spider as a visitor that search engines employ to find useful websites to add to their search engine results pages. If the spiders cannot crawl your site properly and in a timely fashion, they will either partially ignore your website content or completely overlook your website all together.

Your website will be correctly submitted manually to all of the major search engines and directories. Each search engine and directory has a different set of rules for website submission; we make sure to adhere to each of the search engines’ associated guideline requirements.

Are you interested in getting started driving traffic to your current or new website? We are located in southwest Houston, answer our own phones, and are here 8:30-5:30p Monday – Friday,  if you’d like to drop by and meet the team. We’d love to show you around, chat a bit and get you moving down the right track. Call today – 832-327-3230!