Site Optimization

[Theopod]

1)What exactly does it mean to optimize your site?

2) How do i optimize?

Many Thanks Theopod!

[Bethers]

Re: Site Optimization

Oh my gosh - I could write a book.

Optimizing your site means making sure it is ready for your visitors and the se's. The first thing to keep in mind is your visitors. Doing the research for what words THEY use to find your type of site and then using those words. For an example, let's say you sell a brand of ***** called women's stilettos. You put those words all over your site. But you get no visitors and no traffic. (Now this is all hypothetical, I have not researched this). And you don't understand it. Well, what if no one is searching for women's stiletto's but they are searching for women's high heels? Even tho your **** might be named stiletto - it would be very important that instead of using that word too often, you use the generic term women's high heels.

OK - that's the start. You need to research your keywords. You need to make sure that you use the keywords in phrasing that is good for the customers and that makes sense. You need to write your copy to look good, be appealing and use the keywords. You need to have your keywords in your page titles. You should have page headlines with keywords. Each page should focus on different keywords and you shouldn't try to do too much on one page. That dilutes everything.

You also write your page descriptions using the keywords those pages are emphasizing.

That's the very BASICS of on-site optimization. Then there is off-site optimization. First would be links back to your site. You get credit for them. The se's look to see what people are using to link to you. The anchor text (the words that are clickable) to get back to your site needs to be your keywords. Yep, those dang keywords again. So if your Women's Stiletto Store was named, Denise's Women's ***** - you'd think that's what you want to have used to link back to you? Wrong. If people know your name, they'll type it in and find you. But they don't - they want women's high heel *****. So THAT is what should be your anchor text.

Also off-site would be news releases, blogs, forums, advertising, etc, rss feeds, froogle, etc.

Now, don't get me wrong and think that you never want anyone to link to you using your name. If that's what they want to link with - take it. But when you have a choice, a text link using your keywords is best. And each link doesn't have to be the same - you want different keywords.

I'm going to give an example of a store that I'm in the process of re-working to move to Voda - so if you look at this page, you'll see what it is now - and hopefully in a couple weeks, you'll see the new improved Voda version. But the point here is to look at all the various linking options these people are given (forgive me, this site loads slower than molasses right now - a problem with that host and one reason I searched to find Voda): http://www.pinatapalace.com/site/918844/page/742592
Notice the different anchor text choices for the different links.

This is a very beginners course to optimization!

[OhScrap]

Re: Site Optimization

Thank You Bethers!!!!

[Bethers]

Re: Site Optimization

Thank You Bethers!!!!

You are very welcome.