What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a series of activities undertaken to improve the ranking of a web site when using web search engines such as a Google, Yahoo,  MSN, etc. It is not simply about registering web sites with search engines and loading web pages with meta data.

Why is SEO important?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is as important as choosing the right print or electronic media to promote your product or service. Creating a web site without SEO is like buying radio ad time without consulting the the market information provided by the radio station. How do you know that your money is being well spent? How do you know whether you are reaching your target audience?

SEO is a critical part of web development. Without effective SEO the resources dedicated to web development may be wasted because that information is not reaching its intended audience.

Common mistakes made

So we've established that SEO may be a good thing, then how do we go about it? First lets look at some common mistakes that people make:

• Build it and they will come – Simply uploading your web site to a web server won't put your site in Google's top ten.
  

• Loading up on meta tags – Meta tags are pieces of information such a keywords, description, author, location, etc. that are added to the head of a web page to improve web searches. They are a useful addition to any web page and will help your site with search engines, however many people rely on them too heavily as THE solution.
  

• Missing or poor page titles – A page title is part of the head of a web page and can be seen by the user in the title bar of the web browser. It is a really important piece of information that helps search engine robots index your site and is visible in a search engine search results page. Page titles like “Home”, “Welcome to Adobe GoLive 6” , or “Welcome to our Web site” are not going to help you very much.
  

• No content – Contrary to popular belief, the hardest part of developing a web site is putting together the content. Web sites consisting of slogans and catch phrases and short on content won't be as effective. Meta tags don't replace well written content.
  

• Search engine registration – Some people may register their site with Google or other search engines. This is only a start.
  

• I hired this firm that guarantees our ranking! – Most of the firms that promise top placement will optimize your site for keyword phrases no one would look for. Of course they can promise top position for that precise keyword phrase; but will anyone ever search for exactly that phrase? Not likely!
  

• Don't use Heading tags – With the common use of cascading style sheets (CSS), many web designers stopped using the heading tags such as H1, H2, etc. to structure their web pages. What they don't know is that when a search engine robot indexes the text on a web page it places greater importance on text found within a heading tag. This is just one example of how the structure of web page can affect a web site's ranking.

How do we optimize a web site for search engines?

Effective search engine optimization involves a number of steps. The following is the approach that some large SEO companies use when advising their clients:

Step 1: Keyword analysis and creation

• Customized keyword analysis to define the best suited key phrases for your business
  

• Creation of targeted, optimized META tags including title, keyword and description
  

• Keyword difficulty analysis

Step 2: Web site analysis

• Web site review and optimization to identify possible content trouble spots
  

• Analysis and report on web technology usage for developing the site
  

•  Web site spidering analysis
  

•  W3C XHTML and CSS testing
  

• Page optimization analysis

Step 3: Search engines performance analysis

• Link popularity investigation
  

• Search engine ranking review to find out where your site ranks today
  

• Analysis of competition and their methodology with similar implementation where needed
  

• Competition analysis

Step 4: Design analysis

• Design recommendation report
  

• On-going site tweaking

Step 5: Design implementation

• Creation of a search engine friendly site map
  

• Addition of robots.txt file so the search engine spiders are able to “crawl” your site with ease

Step 6: Search engines and directory submission

• Hand submissions to the top search engines & directories
  

• Submission to secondary engines and targeted directories
  

• Detailed ranking reports showing your new positioning (allow 3 months after submission is completed)

To conclude, SEO can be mastered, but it isn't something that can be learned overnight. Also, search engines continue to become more and more sophisticated in order to provide optimal service which then effects optimization work that may have already been completed on a web site. This means that the learning curve and optimization work is ongoing.

About the Author

Dominic Lachance, Vice-President

Dominic is the Co-Founder and Vice-President of Documédia a company specialized in the integration of technology as well as digital media training for the web, print and digital video industry.

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