Utah SEO – Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing

Search Engine Optimization is becoming increasingly important in today's marketplace. Would you like to do your own SEO? If the answer's yes, let's begin.

Choose the right keywords

Identify the most popular keywords for your site using web and PPC data. Try the SEO Keyword Generator at http://www.searchengineoptimising.com/keyword_generators/overture.htm, the Google Keyword Tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal, or the free trail of WebCeo avilable at http://www.webceo.com (Trail has a 5 keyword limit).

Use the information gathered to estimate the likely conversion ratios or use some pay per click advertising to identify your best performing keywords.

Optimise your Site

1. Get your best keywords inside the title, h1, h2, tags and menu items. You can also use bold to place emphasis on your keywords. Target 1 to 3 keywords per page.
2. Make sure there is no duplicate content. For example, does http://example.com and http://www.example.com show your pages but act as separate sites? If so, add a redirect to your .htacess file to redirect http://example.com to http://www.example.com.
3. Use mod_rewrite for dynamic pages to show them as static. Ensure they all have at least the title, description and keyword meta tags.
4. Ensure there is a good internal linking structure: Ensure links are visible in source code. Do not use JavaScript. It is possible to use a combination of CCS and JavaScript to produce attractive search engine friendly menus. For example, http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/example/
5. Check for and fix broken links: Try: http://validator.w3.org/checklink
6. Ensure your HTML and CSS Validates. Try: http://validator.w3.org

Build Links

Now that you have a search engine friendly site, it is all about getting links.

1. Check the back links of your competitors and get your link where you can. Yahoo provides a much more complete list than google type links:www.yourcompetitorsaddress.com into the search box at http://www.yahoo.com.
2. Do whatever possible to get authority links. Link bait such as free tools, free guides or tutorials will make it easier.
3. Submit your site to web directories. A good search engine friendly list can be found at http://info.vilesilencer.com/seo-friendly-list.xls.
4. Write Articles and submit them to as many sites as possible. Don't forget to add a link to your site in the Author section.
5. Use social networking sites, blogs and forums to build links to your site.

Keep the Link Juice Flowing!

If you ever need to change the domain, the structure or a web address within your site always implement a 301 Permanent Redirect, that way you can make the changes without risking your hard earned SEO results.

For an entire site: Redirect 301 / http://www.example.com

Just a folder: Redirect 301 /olddirectory http://www.example.com/newdirectory

Just a page: Redirect 301 /oldpage1.html http://www.example.com/newpage1.html
 

You have to edit 3 files

H1 in Header

Depending on which template you are using the logo Alt tag is normally set as a H1 tag. This is not good for SEO. There should be only 1 H1 tag on any particular page so having on in the header of every page is not good. To remove this tag  edit the following:

\app\design\frontend\default\YOUR THEME FOLDER\template\page\html\header.phtml

Line: 30

here you can edit the title. i usually will make it <strong> or <h3> – up to you.

Category Headings

/app/design/frontend/default/YOUR THEME FOLDER/template/catalog/category/view.phtml

there should be around 3 to 4 pairs of “<H>” tags, just change them from whatever heading they currently are to H1’s.

Product Page Headings – Make the Product name an H1

/app/design/frontend/default/default/template/catalog/product/view.phtml

change the current H tag to <H1>

If you want to change the style and size of the H1 tag, you can use CSS. Also if your custom theme folder doesn’t have those files, edit the ones in the Default template folder instead.