Site Design for Better Search Engine
Positioning Part VI - Complete Site Design From The Ground Up, A
Professional Perspective Case Study
Keeping The Total Site In Mind While Doing The Research
While doing the research on search terms that Pegasus Sound Systems
wants to rank for, we found that wedding entertainment had 9,148
searches in January, and just happens to be one of the services
our client offers. Google search results reveal 4,140,000 results.
This is a highly competitive search term and keyword phrase. In
attempts to position our client, we will optimize their wedding
service page for the search term, and add a geographical delimiter
to it. We will also use file naming to help improve ranking by naming
the file something along the lines of wedding-entertainment-pa.htm.
Many things come into play when you are talking about optimizing
a page for search engines. We prefer the page approach as opposed
to the site approach. The page approach allows for each page to
be an individual site or sub site. This approach leverages each
page's ability to be ranked on its own merit based on what it links
to. While approaching optimization from this point reduces your
control of what a potential visitor might view as an entry page,
it increases the chance for each of your pages to gain search engine
traffic based on the information a potential visitor is looking
for. This is a visitor driven model, and is against what most other
companies promote as proper SEO practices.
Further relevancy and popularity can be gained through what you
link each of those pages to. Think of each page as its own sub site.
The main page should role all of the sub sites up into one, and
be optimized to reflect the group as a whole. Where you may fail
to gain high rankings on the main page, or all of the sub site pages,
you will gain in results for some of the sub sites because of their
highly targeted and optimized nature. That is the theory behind
our site design practices. SCGP doesn't presently rank highly for
web site design, or even webmaster resources, but our canspam sub
site ranks on the top page of all the search engines when searches
for canspam are performed. Our affiliate strategy sub site ranks
similarly when searches for affiliate strategy are performed.
What do these two pages have in common? Both have been optimized
for the keywords mentioned for each page. They are written so that
their keyword density is high. They include keywords in their file
names. They include the keywords in their head and title. In addition,
they also include the keywords in their <H1> tags. Since the
pages also span more than one page, they also link to other files
containing the keywords, so the keywords are also located in the
links on the pages. Beyond that, they also link with other pages
outside the SCGP domain that rank highly when the keywords are searched
at Google. Care must also be used when attempting to use this type
of strategy. There is a fine line between optimization and what
search engines consider spamming. It is important to not cross the
line or risk your pages being dropped because of search engine spamming.
Keeping the overall site in mind, and having an idea of the initial
site structure allows you to take advantage of these little gems
you find in your research. Just like dj gained 91,691 searches in
January. It just so happened that radio dj had 1,334 searches in
January and we can apply that keyword to their experience page.
Pegasus Sound System's owner has radio dj experience in some of
the large PA radio markets around both Harrisburg and the Pittsburgh
areas. The page can be optimized for the radio dj phrase and leveraged
to rank high in search results for the keyword phrase radio dj.
The main point is finding keywords that actually get searches.
It makes no sense to optimize a page for something that never is
searched for. We are looking for keywords we can apply to the present
rough site structure that will get results. We will then work on
leveraging the pages to gain the link relevancy and link popularity
needed to boost those pages in search results ranking. At the same
time, it can be difficult to know if you are trying to tackle a
phrase that is too competitive. You have to find a balance between
the two, a decent amount of searches while still allowing for adequate
search results ranking to gain search engine traffic. If you can't
be ranked within the first two to three pages of results, you might
as well forget search engine traffic as a means to get traffic to
the page. The higher the page ranks in results, the better chance
for traffic from the listing. That is what search engine optimization
is all about. Implementing practices that combined will increase
your rankings, and finding the right mixes that accomplishes the
goal.
Breaking Down The Basic Pegasus Sound System Site Rough Layout
Remember, at this stage we are still in the speculation and research
portion of the web site design scheme. We are thinking about the
layout and pages needed, while researching the keywords and keyword
phrases that will get the best results for our client. We have established
a rough site layout and identified the pages we feel the client
will need. We've further generically named them, and keep them in
mind during our research. While doing our research, we are also
gathering notes on potential link swaps while we are looking at
the Google listings for each keyword and keyword phrase. None of
this has anything to do with page layout or copywrite. That is another
stage to come later. This is strictly research. It's a type of identify
and discover process. Identify the basic site layout and discover
what keywords and keyword phrases can be applied to leverage results
for our potential client. It is also important to keep the file
structure layout for the site in mind too. This will also be used
as a means to optimize the site and improve search results ranking.
Index.htm The Main Site Page
This is the first page that most visitors to the domain will see.
With the design approach SCGP uses, that page could really be any
page within the pegasus sound systems domain, all depending on what
the visitor was searching for, and where they followed the link
from. We will still think of this as the main entry page. It must
tie all of the other pages together, and provide a starting point
that a visitor can return to for navigational purposes. It should
grab the visitor's attention and make your best pitches to get the
visitor's interest. It should also attempt to role up all the most
important keywords and keyword phrases to tie your most important
sub sites together. You should pick the most important two to three
keywords or keyword phrases for this page, and then optimize it
for them.
Wedding-reception-entertainment-pa-dj.htm
This page will be optimized for the wedding entertainment keyword
phrase. As you see, it also includes the pa delimiter to help further
define and target the potential visitor. Reception was also added
because it was the next one on the search researches that yielded
a decent amount of searches. Wedding reception entertainment ranked
just under wedding entertainment with 534 searches. By combining
the two, we increase the chances of ranking for either of the searches.
We will optimize this page for that keyword phrase, submit it, and
then see how it ranks. We'll redo things in the event we do not
get the desired results, but will do our best to attempt to achieve
high rankings for our client on the first shot.
We'll keep adding more to this tutoril as design steps are completed.
Remember, this is an ongoing case study of our design services for
a current client. As you read this, you will continue to gain site
design prospective from a professional deign company. You will then
be able to apply these principles to build your own site, or create
processes for your own design company. Check the site design case
study index page for updates as they become available.
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Related E-Book Downloads
By James R. Sanders
February 11, 2004
If you have any suggestions to add to this article,
or have ideas for articles you would like to read, please feel free to contact
us and let us know. You can also feel free to contact us about questions you
might have when it comes to practical webmaster or website design issues in
today's online market. We welcome constructive criticism and want to know what
our visitors think of our site and services. You can either contact
us here, or click the contact link at the bottom of the page. Thanks in
advance, and we look forward to hearing from you.
About the Author
James R. Sanders is the owner of Sanders
Consultation Group Plus. He has been a webmaster and website designer since
1997. He has also been involved in self employment ventures since 1992. He is
presently a contributing author of NewbieHangout,
and has been published through WebProNews
and 4Rankings.com.
His writing is targeted to webmasters, would be webmasters, website designers,
would be website designers, self employed, or those researching information
looking for solutions to questions associated with design, business operations,
and promotion today. His goal is to provide practical information based upon
his years of experience to help webmasters, website designers, and self employed
people achieve their goals in today's competitive global market. You can subscribe
to his free newsletters at SCGP
- Newsletter and become a member of the SCGP Portal. If you like SCGP content
and would like to use it on your site, then check out our content
agreement and terms of use. Use our articles on your site without the hassles
of writing your own content. Get back to the things you could use your time
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