SEO Top 10 Check List

[indieswal]

There are a lot of activities that seem to fall under SEO, which of those activities are your top 10 must do SEO activities for a business that is just starting out?

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

1) Develop content for your site that is relavent to the products you sell.
2) Develop content for your site that is relavent to the products you sell.
3) Develop content for your site that is relavent to the products you sell.
4) Develop content for your site that is relavent to the products you sell.
5) Develop content for your site that is relavent to the products you sell.
6) Develop content for your site that is relavent to the products you sell.
7) Develop content for your site that is relavent to the products you sell.
8) Develop content for your site that is relavent to the products you sell.
9) Develop content for your site that is relavent to the products you sell.
10) Develop content for your site that is relavent to the products you sell.

Seriously though...
Use good basic HTML when developing your site.
Employ CSS instead of Javascript navigation
Be conscience of the Structure of your pages. Meaning, have relevent H1, H2 tags..Use <p></p> for the body text
If you use Keywords, make them specific to the product
Get inbound links from "like" minded site. For example, sell fishing tackle...go to online fishing magizines and offer to create an article on the virtues of using Catnio verses Kibbles when cat fishing, etc

[dlasker]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

EXACTLY, Bruce!! In one post you just showed the complete irrelevance of supposed "SEO experts." :)

I think most people want to know how to do SEO, without doing any actual work, such as creating content and seeking out sites to link back. They're looking for that trick that shoots them up in the rankings. Alas, the 90's are over and those tricks don't exist anymore, except black hat tricks that end up getting your site banned. It's all about relevant content, clean code, and relevant links back, that simple, but highly time consuming.

[Ben @ eMediaSales]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

That’s the truth! New business owners first try to use hard and fast rules to jump into search ranking. This method does not help them in the long run and they get banned due to black hat methods.
The most important activity that you should do is:
1. Your site should be a happening site i.e. try to add new articles, news, content modification etc time to time
2. Always proper use of HTML tags, no broken links, and most important.. do not use java script for at least your navigation, it eats all the contents in the navigation
3. I would prefer to read "SEO, Search Engine Optimization - Bible" from Wiley Publications. It has vast information on search engine optimization.
Search engine is a very vast field now and it needs an in-depth study, one small wrong step can ban you in various search engines.

[Dan - Glendale Designs]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

3. I would prefer to read "SEO, Search Engine Optimization - Bible" from Wiley Publications.

I recommend this book to all of my clients as well. I was considering giving it out as a Christmas gift this year as I really think most store owners should read it to get a good understanding of the full scope of SEO.

[Mark Simon]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

I agree with what has been posted so far but I will contribute my top ten list for what it's worth:

1. Keyword Research
2. Content Creation
3. Keep Content & Design separate (http://www.csszengarden.com/)
4. Relevant Link Building
5. Build Relationships
6. Comparison Shopping Engines (Google Base is FREE)
7. Press Releases (use a service that allows links such as PR Web)
8. Analyze Your Site & Competitors (analytics,web master tools,site explorer,etc...)
9. Blog - yours and others
10. Repeat all of the above (yes, SEO is a repetitive process)

The order might not be the exact priority but if you are skipping one of the above you are missing low hanging fruit. Also some of the activities like blogging should only be done if you commit to doing it for the long term on a regular basis. Content is the key to SEO but it's about more than just content on your site; contribute content elsewhere to expand your web.

[jen.bas]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

For starters, I'd recommend a SEO Book.. particularly.. Aaron Wall's SEO Book which is by far one of the best books on SEO, but only if you're a beginner.

[morditech.com]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

Better late than never right?

1. Title tags
2. Description Meta Tags
3. Keyword Meta Tag
4. H1 Tags
5. Product & Category Names
6. Category Header Descriptions
7. Product Descriptions
8. Alt Image Tags
9. Use Short Links
10. Google Sitemap

I wrote an article with more information on each item in the list and specific instructions on implementing these changes in Miva: Miva Blog

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

I'll just add one rule here, and this is a compliment to all the other things said above:

Think like a customer (or a potential customer).

What key words would a customer use to search for your products? What things would get them excited about your product or services?

Bruce mentioned Great Content. But your idea of what great content is may not be the same as what potential customers think great content is.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

Having spent some time in marketing/copyrighting, i can suggest a simple method used by many firms to create content that is relevent to potential customers (as Mark wisely suggests). Interview customers about your product. (In a pinch, you can also just review correspondances customers have proffered.) Listen to how THEY see your product and what made THEM purchase/use it. Specifically, look for key phrases and use those exact words..."well, I think your product just makes my hectic life easier", "I smile everytime I use it", "it makes me feel secure", etc...and USE those terms in product descriptions.

The whole point of SEO for the future, IMO, is to make the site as relevent and useful as possible to the customer and forget (to a degree) about search engines. Why this blasphomous position? Because more and more, SEs are focusing their efforts on developing methods to find sites/pages that are relevent to the searcher. Additionally, the added benefit is that, once someone gets to your site, they are more likely going to be a customer rather than just a bandwidth liability.

After you do that, pursuing other avenues (credible inbound site linking, press releases, shopping comparison site, etc) can get you the last 20%...but the above will get you 80% of the traffic.

[wcw]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

Think like a customer (or a potential customer).

What key words would a customer use to search for your products?

If you are using a product like Power Search you can easily see what keywords your customers are searching for.

Many of you using Power Search have discovered a useful feature in a companion module, the Template Data Feed. As you know the Power Search has the "did you mean" feature in 5x MySQL. It can use word lists specifically tailored to your site. The easy way to build those tailored word lists is by using the Template Data Feed parse function. It can parse the name, description and any custom fields to create word lists that can be imported into the Power Search "did you mean" feature. You could look at the raw lists or could easily import those lists into Excel and sort alphabetically to see if you have covered the keywords folks are looking for.

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

I would just make another suggestion for a possible use of the Power Search features:

You could have a custom product field with alternate spellings / misspellings, and then fill that with words, and make it searchable by power search.

For instance, on one of my sites, we sell Buddha statues. So in my altspell custom product field, I list the words buddah budha budda which are all common misspellings of Buddha

This method bypasses the "Did you mean..." part and returns the products in the search results.

Another Example: I think somewhere in the merchant forums I remember someone saying that they sell North Face clothing and that due to restrictions by the manufacturer, they had to write it out as North Face, and couldn't have it written as Northface (without a space). Yet customers often search for northface.

So, with an altspell field, you could list it exactly the way the manufacturer wants you to, and still help your customers find it directly.

Another option is if you sell something that is very similar to a name brand product, but isn't, then you could put that name brand in an altspell field as well. So if you sell shoes that look a lot like Air Jordans but aren't, and don't want to get sued by Nike, then you could still have people find those products without having to put air jordans in the description.

[dcard]

Re: SEO Top 10 Check List

I found this article on Ezine article.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Top-Five-S...fic&id=3102610