More SEO tips for Designers

Placement Matters
When using Social Media as a method to attract viewers to your site you should think about other media outlet models. TV has prime time, radio has drive time, magazines have the first half, and newspapers have above the fold for a reason. Send your tweets and facebook updates when your audience is likely to receive them. For adults that means between 7 and 9 in the morning, around lunchtime, and again between 3 and 5. These are the times most people check their social media accounts while at work.

You can also capitalize on a big news day. If there's a political scandal, if a Kardashian gets married (or divorced), if there's a significant weather event, or any big news story. More and more people are turning to social media to check out their friends' opinions and responses. Use this for a spur of the moment sale that you tie into the event. For example a clothing store could easily have had a Herman Cain Sale: All Pants Half Off!

Ask sometimes...
SEO is really about generating interest in your website. Sure there are lots of little tricks and tweaks but sometimes we ignore the big stuff in spite of ourselves. Whether your on a date, in a marketing meeting, or an elevator one tip that always works is: "Let the other person talk." People enjoy talking, writing, and posting, so give them an outlet to do so on your website. Ask questions for viewers to answer! That is the easiest way to get started.

Social Outlets? No. Social Inlets!
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. should not be viewed as alternative ways to get your message out. Instead they should be strategically managed to create interest in your website. Post a short introduction to the content on your site and include a link directly to that content. This works best if you keep your website updated every few days with new and interesting information that relates to your website's product or service. How should you do that? Ummmm... blog.

Keyword linking... to do or not?
Keywords should both be used as links and also as regular text within paragraphs on your site. Using keywords as internal links makes sense for websites where individual pages can be devoted to a single topic or keyword phrase. Obviously though you should not use them as links going away from that page.

Folder Names
Yes, the names of the folders you use to organize your site are important. They should relate to the subject matter of your site content. For example the URL http://www.autostuff.com/cars/coupes/under30k/nissan.html is a huge improvement over http://www.autostuff.com/vehic/2whl/000175/x_7/nissan.html.

Be the Master of Many Domains
If you have several subjects within a website or even several important keywords that you want to dominate, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might want two or more. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get additional directory listings this way.
I created a domain and pointed it to my Tumblr blog... there is very little SEO friendly content but because the domain is joeburroughs.com it makes the first page of listings when you google my name... go figure!

With Links Context is Key!
Links found inside paragraphs of text relating to the subject of the linked page are more valuable than those that are isolated or separated from copy. This is true when talking about inbound links, internal links, and outbound links. So to make sure you are getting the most out of all your links include them in copy relating to the subject of the page you are linking to and most importantly ask vendors or others to include links to your pages within text copy on their site that relates directly to your keywords and page titles!

Don't hide your pages in folders!
Search engines consider folders a way to prioritize content. Those pages closest to your root folder are seen as more important and more central to the purpose of your site. The closer your pages are in your sub-directories to your index page, the better they will rank in search engines. This is because pages that are listed right off the root directory are viewed as being more important than pages that are found four or five folder levels deep in the site.

Don't Create Link Pages
While inbound links are a huge goal in the SEO game, creating a page on your site devoted to outbound links is a bad idea! If you agree to link to another company's website do so in a way that is meaningful to your viewers and to search engines. Consider writing a short blog post about a vendor that has agreed to link to your site for example. Face it, link pages are wasted content for your customers and not favored by search engines. Search engines highly value links that are in context and appear related to the linked page. Some social networking sites (like Digg and del.icio.us) do favor pages that are lists of links, but don't expect them to improve your page rank with search engines.

Think Local
It may be very hard to get high page ranks if your company sells a common product or service. Being on the first page of search results for terms like "Pizza" or "Electronics" is quite a challenge. However you may not need that to increase business. Most people shop locally for goods and services when they can and always for things that don't ship well, last minute purchases, and perishables so capitalize on this. Focus your keywords to include the name of your city, town, or even neighborhood to maximize your results when someone is searching for a local vendor. Camera stores for instance could benefit from people who need an extra memory card or battery for a special event taking place soon. So instead of competing for "Cannon replacement batteries" try "Cannon replacement batteries specific neighborhood." I have a few customers that even go so far as to include major highway names or street names in their keywords!

Optimizing Pics for Google Image Search
A large number of Internet searches are image searches. To capitalize on this you need to optimize your web images for image searches on search engines like Google. Here are a few key tips: use keywords in your Alt tags, use descriptive text around your images, name your images with a keyword, and use keywords in any links to those images. This should push your images closer to the top of images searches!