Increase Web Site Sales with a SEO Proposal - Part 2

Part I of this article discussed some of points that should be included in a search engine optimization proposal. Visit resources section at bottom of page if you wish to get a copy of whole article.

Part 2 will discuss following topics:

Creation of Meta Information Site Map Creation Link Popularity Building Web Site Load Time and HTML Validation Downloading and Uploading of Web Pages Browser Search Engine and Directory Submissions Compatibility and Resolution Checking

Creation of Meta Information (title, description, keywords)

Meta information is used to provide additional information about HTML documents so that search engine crawlers are able to index information more accurately.

There are 3 important types of Meta tags as far as search engine optimization is concerned:

Title tag:

The Title tag is not a Meta tag. However title tags play a vital role in your site’s rankings. It is these words or phrase that appear in title of your page in hyperlink listings on search engine results. I include most relevant and specific keywords or key phrases in title tag that best describe contents of page.

Meta description tag

This gives a short and concise summary of content of your web page. The description appears in SEs just below title tag. I ensure that meta description tag is brief but includes some of your top keywords. The words used must inspire visitor to check your site out further. Each page must be customized so all your web pages will not have same meta tag descriptions.

Meta keywords tag

Although not as relevant as other tags mentioned above, Meta keywords tag is still recognized by some SEs. I include a number of meta keywords for you that are relevant to content of your web pages.

Site Map Creation

The creation of a site map page enables SE spiders better crawling of your site. It also helps visitors to quickly scan your whole site for relevant information. A link and a short description of that link is created for each page of your site. The site map page is then added to your main navigation menu.

Link Popularity Building

Link Popularity refers to number of links pointing to your site, from other sites on web. There are other terms used for Link Popularity, such as Link building, In Bound Links, Back Links, etc The Search Engines consider your site important and rank it higher if other sites link to your site. There are two types of links you can establish on web. One type is to trade links (Link Exchange), where you give a link from links Page on your site to partner sites. The second method is to establish only "incoming links" also called ‘one-way links' or ‘non-reciprocal links”. With non-reciprocal links, you do not need to link back to them.

How to Identify Bad Link Exchange Transactions

Now that more emphasis (to get better ranking in SERPs) is put on quality of links rather than quantity, I will try, in this article, to identify signs that may be precursors of bad link exchange transactions.

1. Quality of content

   I try to make sure that my links come from pages with original content that are not sourced from an affiliate program or duplicated hundreds of times on Internet. I want links from websites that someone seemingly to have taken time and effort to put together. In addition, it is steer clear of ecommerce sites that is only recently launched and heavily SEOed.

2. The links page

   Check what links pages are like. Definitely avoid links pages that have over 50 links, or use dynamic URLs, or are not ind exed by search engines.

3. The links page should be too far from home page

   Search engine bots are unlikely to go more than three levels deep on any website. So links buried deeper may not be found. When looking for quality links look for websites that provide links as close to home page as possible. Even a massive site like BBC News has a rule that every piece of content must be available within three clicks of News home page.

4. The topic

   Unless links page of site receives a large amount of traffic or that they have a high PageRank, stick to sites about same topic as your own. If your site is about widgets, I usually look for sites that are about widgets, widgeting, or anything widget-users would find useful.

5. The request email

   When I receive link request emails, anything that

   • Has a generic subject line (i.e. attn webmaster, link request, We linked to your site! etc)
   • Makes ludicrous claims (ie.e we believe ...)
   • Doesn't use personal names (i.e. Dear Site Owner -- you want a link from me - find out my name!)
   • Resembles an automated form email from bots
   • Contains excessive grammar/spelling mistakes
   • Are long and tells me how good links are for me etc etc etc.