SEO: Initial Planning part 1

I would first like to mention that well thought out initial planning is the most critical aspect of the website project. Don't just tell your web developer you want something to look like this, or that, or a little bit of this and a lot of that. The initial planning must cover purpose of the site, the audience targeted, ease of use and navigation, and search engine friendliness. I might have left a few things out but the point is to plan carefully. It's very easy to get it wrong and most people do.

So on to the initial planning...

Step One: Picking a Domain Name

Be sure to pick a domain name with keywords in mind as the Search Engines do read them. For example, if you have a business that deals with Broadway then be sure to have Broadway in the domain name such as http://mybroadwaydreams.com.

Sometimes the site you want might be taken but another trick is to add a dash between the keywords as the search engines read a dash as a work separator. Google also interprets periods and slashes as word separators. So go ahead and make a list of possibilities but avoid underscores and always get the .com version for branding purposes. People are accustom to .com and heaven forbid you have .net or .org and your audience is going to someone else's site... Free marketing for them huh..

Step 2: Picking Your Template

Now I have a bias towards joomla which is a content management system "CMS" and the reason I recommend these templates are so clients on their own can add or extract content as needed without paying us to do it. Oh, and joomla has some awesome templates with great features and plugins. Regardless of the template used or recommended, remember to ask if it will be search engine friendly and have the developer show you a few to select from. Also don't be fooled by the simplicity of the word template. People think they can just jump into joomla and create a Picasso... Wrong, Wrong, Wrong...

Quick snake oil story.... I retained a so called joomla guru and we will call him Dan Tears. After paying him upfront for a bit of work he disapeared which happens more than you could imagine. Well I did some digging and found his small business site at www.kewldevelopment.com. After looking closely I noticied the poor design layouts, misspellings, on and on.... This guy has been in the biz for years and still can't make a joomla site function properly. Although joomla is a CMS it's not as simple to create something that has ease of use/navigation, image, SEO, content flow, and marketing concepts in mind. Anyway, these mistakes happen even to the best of us. Lesson learned.

Side thought... don't get caught up in the Customized hype! I have seen people selling customized sites and bashing templates... Well understand that every template is customized and it is ridiculous to reinvent something that is out there.... There are millions of templates to work from so pick one that suits your audience (not you).

If you are in search of some nifty templates check out rocket themes and yoothemes. Both have great features and plenty of plugins.

Ok so to wrap up part 1 of the Initial Planning stage of your website be sure to get a properly suited domain name the search engines will recognize/relate to your purpose and pick a template that suits your audience.

Benjamin Kerpe

SEO: Web Designer Conflicts

Although I, Benjamin Kerpe, would be what you call a creative director of a web development company, I must be fair and say that you should not rely on your Web Developer to manage your SEO project. Neglecting this advice can cost you thousands of dollars and there is a lot of snake-oil out there in the web development world.

Many companies advertise Search Engine Optimization and some claim to get you on the first page. What many people don't understand is that nobody knows how Google, Yahoo, MSN, ect work their algorithms. We can only base our work around proven methods and stay away from black-hat methods that can and will get your site removed permanently. I will discuss these methods in future postings.

So back to the conflicts of interest in the web world...

What many need to understand are two critical points when contracting web development and design services:

• Web Developers feel they need to say they understand how search engines operate, because all of their competitors are saying it too.

• Many Web Developers think they are SEO gurus, but either don't keep up with the latest research or think they can get away with just adding some meta tags and submit the site to the search engines.

What I can truthfully tell you is that effective Search Engine Optimization takes a lot of work and quite a bit of research. Nobody knows your business better and working together with your Web Developer will help, but you will need an understanding of the basics to be an effective team...

My purpose is to open the world of SEO up for people who want to better their website recognition and learn something along the way.

Benjamin Kerpe

Search Engine Optimization: Getting Started

Before I begin diving into keywords, meta-tags, website content, rankings, and the more technical stuff I'd like to start at the very beginning.

Note: Whether you are a SEO guru or a novice, it never hurts to focus on the basics of what makes for a good website. Once we can come to terms on what research supports is a good website, we can then move on to getting it recognized.

Point 1. Keep it simple and avoid the "cool" hype. Just look at google or craigslist and you can see simplicity at its best. The internet is a fast moving interactive medium and its users are quite impatient. Users want to easily access the information they are searching for and it should be your primary focus to give em what they want.

The cool flash may look great for you but your visitors aren't concerned about that as much as they are concerned about finding what they want. Flash and javascript kill speed and the search engines choke on these features. The only people who benefit are your flash developers and maybe your preception of your image. Ultimatley there are no benefits at all using flash introductions that take 10 seconds to load.

Note: Flash can be used within the properly structured website if image is key for you but don't forget that Search Engines love content more than anything.

Benjamin Kerpe