Getting your web site ranked higher in the search engines such as Google requires search engine optimization (SEO). Rather than being a one-time “quick fix” effort, SEO involves a variety of factors that must be monitored and tweaked throughout the life of your web site. Some of the most important aspects involve the inclusion of pertinent keywords in your text, a properly coded web site, and incoming links from other web sites. Here I’ll discuss the most basic, and perhaps the easiest for a small business web site owner to tackle: keyword inclusion.
Let’s say in the small town of Aberdeen, Washington there are only two law firms: Smith Law Firm and Jones Law Firm.
Smith Law Firm’s web site has this content on their site’s home page: “Smith Law Firm offers the most comprehensive legal services in the Aberdeen area. Our legal team of 10 lawyers has been with the firm for 15 years. Our attorneys specializes in real estate law, criminal defense, employment law and a variety of other legal matters that effect the citizens of Aberdeen. Call the Smith Law Firm today at xxx.xxx.xxxx.”
Jones Law Firm has this content on their site’s home page: “We have been in business for 15 years and offer the best services in the area. Our office is located next to the Aberdeen historic train station on the east side of town (for more information on the historic train station click here). Please call us today at xxx.xxx.xxxx.”
All other SEO factors removed, the odds are pretty strong that Smith Law Firm is going to be ranked much higher in Google for search terms such as “Aberdeen lawyer” or “law firm in Aberdeen” (presumably the type of terms that people in Aberdeen would search for). Just the fact that those particular keywords are contained within the content on the page makes a huge difference. On the other hand, the Jones site doesn’t contain any of the important keywords. So it’s unlikely it would appear in the search results using those search terms. It’s that simple. (The Jones site would, however, very likely appear in the search results if someone searched for “Aberdeen historic train station”, merely because those keywords are on the site.)
In this scenario, within the small town of Aberdeen, it’s possible that some very basic rewriting of the content on the Jones web site is all that’s needed for it to eventually rank as well as their sole competitor, Smith. Jones just needs to incorporate the important keywords.
On the other hand, in a larger area such as Seattle, where there are hundreds of law firms, adding a few keywords to the web site may not have much of an effect – there is simply too much competition. This is where some of those other SEO factors come into play. These will be discussed in future blog posts (be sure to sign up/subscribe so you receive the future posts).
Now, keep in mind that there are rules to how all this is handled. One thing to avoid is trying too hard to “game” the system. Search engines are very intelligent these days and they expect web site owners to play by the rules. So, no, you can’t stuff your page full of hidden keywords (white text on a white background, for instance). Nor should you try to write outrageously long pages that repeat the keywords over and over. Methods such as these can actually get your web site penalized by the search engines.
Again, keyword inclusion is the simplest SEO method there is and should be the first step in any SEO plan. It should be automatic when creating the content for any web site.
Look for future blog posts where I discuss other search engine optimization factors: in-bound links, meta tags and web site coding, and lots more.