Search Engine Optimization

earch Engines with General Information and
Search Engine Optimization for Your Site

(Contact us to optimize your site).

Basic SEO Tips based on Google’s SEO Starter Guide and other tips.

Top Dozen Optimization Tips for Sites . . .

<head><meta> Title Meta Tags: assign unique and descriptive page titles.
<head><meta> Description Meta Tags: place unique, yet descriptive, page summaries.
<head><meta> Keyword Meta Tags: list significant words that accurately reflect page content.
Improve URL Structure: with well organized, word named; sub-directories, pages, images and videos.
Consolidate Images, Consolidate Videos: into a single directory for each with well named sub-directories.
Properly Name & Tag Images: with descriptive; word names, “alt” tags and “title” tags.
Simple Navigation: with an easy to follow hierarchy.
Use Descriptive Word Names & Title Tags in Hyper-links: to function as keywords and descriptions.
Use <h1> & <h2> Heading Tags: to emphasize keyword rich titles & sub-titles in outline-like form.
Create a 301 Redirect File: (like .htacess) to guide visitors and crawlers of page & image changes.

More Optimization Tips . . .

Use a robots.txt File or nofollow <head><meta> Tags: to restrict crawling where it is not needed.
Create Sitemap: (like xml-sitemap.com) to post on your site and to submit to search engines.
<head> be sure you have a proper Doctype:, check at: Recommended Doctype Declarations.
Create Useful 404 Not Found: page to guide visitors.
Search Google Ad Words Keyword Tool to select popular keywords and phrases for your site.
View Site in a Text Browser (like Lynx or use Delorie.com) to see how most spiders see your site.
Link-Backs to your Site: Ask others to post a link to your site on their blogs and websites.

WordPress Optimization . . .

Broken Link Plugins simple plugins (like ‘Link Checker’) will scan the site and report and broken links.
Optimize Categories. Just as a Post can be optimized, a Post Category can be optimized with keywords, meta description and more.
Yoast SEO plugin (free version)
- Dashboard
  - Problems / Improvements identifies problems and suggests improvements.
  - Company or Person defines your site to search engines as either a business or a person.
  - Webmaster Tools enter Webmaster Tools IDs from Alexa, Google, Bing & Yandex).
  - Search Console lists Not Found hits and offers redirect input to fix them.
- Social
  (which informs Google about your social profiles after you enter URLs for; Facebook, Twitter, Instragram, LinkedIn, MySpace, Pinterest, YouTube and Google+).
- Content Analysis
  on a per Page/Post basis defines SEO quality for:
  - Keywords their presence and how they are used.
  - Word Count in body copy to see if minimum is met.
  - Images their presence and ‘alt’ attributes
  - URL slugs analyzed to see if web address element needs to be shortened.
  - Meta Descriptions check for proper length.
  - ‘Stop Words’ checks for words like ‘of’, ‘or’, ‘the’ in slugs and keywords that can hurt SEO.
  - Links their presence.
  - Title check for proper character count.
  - Primary Category can be set for multi-Category Posts.
  - Sub Headings check for them (such as H2) in copy.
Yoast SEO plugin (paid version)
offers all of the above plus extension for tactical enhancements:
- Yoast SEO Premium
  - Multiple Focus Keywords allows up to five Keyword to a Page and optimize so it ranks for synonyms as well.
  - Content Analysis to see if a Page for: minimum word count, and image, proper length URL and if it contains stop words, title length.
  - Focus Keyword (which identifies the page) is checked for: early positioning, count, keyword density, use in meta description, use in URL, comparison to the competition when used in the meta description, and, if it was used on other pages.
  - Readability is analyzed for ‘Flesh reading ease:’ easily understood, sentence length, use of transition words in sentence structure, repetition of word in opening of consecutive sentences, paragraph length, sentence length, and, use of passive voice vs. active voice.
  - SEO Support from the Yoast team when needed.
- Video SEO
  - Videos in Google Search lets videos appear in Google Videos search results lets videos be found by search engines like Google.
  - Videos on Social enhances the experience of sharing posts with videos on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
  - Responsive makes videos responsive on to all users on Desktop, Smart Phones and Tablets.
  - Video Sitemap creates a separate sitemap (XML listing of all videos) to be read by search engines.
- News SEO:
  If (and only if) your site has recent news articles that are appropriate submission for Google News, then this is a good way to help prepare your site for submission.
  - News Sitemap a separate sitemap is created for those Posts that were given the optional tick in the checkbox that adds them as an ‘Editor’s Pick.’
  - News RSS Feed an additional RSS feeds is created for Posts that have selected as an ‘Editor’s Pick.’
  - Default Genre allows you to set a default genre for your Posts (from a drop-down list of choices).
  - Default Keywords allows you to set default keywords for automatic inclusion into news Posts (and provides a link to Google’s list suggested keywords).
  - Inclusion / Exclusion lets you choose whether the New Feed will be from Posts, Pages or both and it allows to you exclude and category or categories.
- Local SEO:
  Allows you to rank better locally and in Google Maps.
  - Define Your Location: allows you to enter your address and zip code for search engines – even your latitude and longitude, and, allows for multiple locations and a store locator with defined range.
  - URL and e-Mail allows you to sent a return website address and an e-mail address for maps.
  - Opening Hours allows you to display what days and time you are open in map results.
  - Custom Marker create your custom marker for maps.
  - And more…

Google Search Console and Analytics

- Google Webmasters Tools
  Many tool are available here such as:

Google Search Console

- - Search Appearance
    - Structured Data identifies errors in page formatting (as opposed to content).
    - Data Highlighter to analyze page code on segments or entirely.
    - HTML Improvements identifies problems with: Meta Descriptions, Title Tags and more.
  - Search Traffic
    - Search Analysis identifies search terms entered by users who clicked through to site
    - Links to Your Site shows sites which contains links back to a site
    - Mobile Usability and more.
  - Google Index includes – Content Keywords (their significance and where on the site they appear) and more.
  - Crawl:
    - Crawl Errors report bad links that result in ‘Not Found’ pages on your site, and, they can provide links to what web pages contains the bad links. The web pages that contains bad links can come from internal linking on your website or from an external links on another websites. Bad internal links on your site you can fix. When you encounter a bad link from another website, you can either report the bad link to the website owners and ask them to change it to the correct path name, or, you add a (301) redirect to a ‘Not Found’ address on your site so that it will automatically lead to a real page. With that, a bad link will no longer produce a ‘Not Found’ result, it will successfully lead to a page of your choice.
    - Sitemaps (identifies all sitemaps and reports errors).
    - Security Issues (identifies and security issues with site content).

Google Analytics

- - Audience / Overview: includes within any chosen date range for – Sessions (total number of visits), Users (number of visitors that have at least one session), Pageviews: total number of pages viewed.
  - Audience / Demographics: includes (traffic per age groups and gender).
  - Audience / Geo: (number/percentage of users by language).
  - Audience / Behavior: include – New vs. Return, Frequency & Recency and Engagement (sessions & page views).
  - Audience / Mobile: number/percentage of users on Desktop, Mobile and Tablet.
  - Audience / Users Flow: analyze users by (Country or City, Social, Advertising and more) to track their navigation through (Starting Pages, 1st Interaction, 2nd Interaction and 3rd Interaction).
  - Acquisition: number/percentage of users by Organic Search, Referral, Direct and Social.
  - Behavior: includes – Pageviews (total number of pages viewed), Unique Pageviews (number of pages viewed at least once), Averge Time on Page, Bounce Rate (percentage of visitors from entrance page without interacting with site), % Exit (is (number of exits / pageviews) which equals how often users exit from the page they visit).

API keys for Google Maps

- API key for Google Maps is required to show Google Maps and make use of the Store Locator.
- API key for geocoding is required to calculate the latitude and longitude of an address.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Webmaster Tools
- Reports & Data / SEO Reports:
  gives specific code identification to correct errors and improve optimization.
- Diagnostics & Tools / SEO Analyzer
  page by page code analysis for errors and optimization.
- Security:
  scans site for Malware, Phishing and Track Certificates.

Maps

Online Maps allow company information which help people find you and your SEO, such as: Bing, Google, Here, MapQuest, Yahoo & more.
Embed a Map with a listing of your business on your website, include a link back to your map listing.

Social

Facebook create a ‘Page’ (not a ‘Profile’) for your Business, add your profile information and add a custom banner.
FourSquare log in to create an account and add your profile information.
Google+ create an Google account and add a custom banner.
YouTube.com create this as an add on to your existing Google account and add a custom banner.
Twitter create an account and add a custom banner.

Telephone Directories

If you have a landline at a mailing address for your business, you can go online and edit or create listings for your company to add company & contact information on listings, such as:

Online Directories

Many are the Online Directories where you can create a free account, log in, and add company and contact information, such as:

Search for Existing Listing to Your Business:
You May Already Have Listings! Many online business directories and phone directories crawl the web to locate and list company information for you in order to fill their listings content. You can search for and perhaps discover existing listings to your business through the search engines by simply enter the search command, link: [your company]
Edit Your Existing Listings. Many of these online directories allow you to create a free account with them to log in and edit your company and contact information, add a logo and add a link to your website. Find these listings, log in, claim your listing and edit your information. This is great SEO because of link-backs to you (which still count), it gives you greater credibility and legitimate popularity and it increases the possibility of more click-throughs. As you register to edit directories, some will ask you to Verify Your Listing…
Verify Your Listings with a Land Line Phone. Some business and phone directories will ask you to verify your registration with you sign up for an account that allows you to edit your listing. They do this by calling the telephone number that they have listed for your business. They call will be an automated message the gives you a verification code for you to enter into your online registration on the directory. Enter code, get verified, edit your directory listing.
Create New Listings: You will discover many directories that list businesses, just not yours, but they allow you to create an account and add your business. Doing so is helpful and the more the better.
Some Examples of Various Online Directories: American Towns, City Search, Go Local 247, Hot Frog, Manta, Mercantile Circle, Penn Live (PA), URL Metrics, Web Wiki, Where to Go App, Yahoo Local, YaSabe, Yelp, Zoom Info.

Chamber of Commerce

If you are listed with the Chamber of Commerce, then you can search for any online listing they may have for you, to which you can link, and create and account an online account with them to add or edit company information and web link):

ChamberOfCommerce.com

Online Link and Code Validators Identify Code Errors and Broken Links

Submit Your Site to Search Engines (for Free & for Fee)

Submit Your Site to Multiple Search Engines. See list at: FreeWebSubmission.com/ !
(Google, Bing, Yandex, Open Directory, ScrubTheWeb, EntireWeb, SimilarSites, ASR, ExactSeek, Viesearch, A1WebDirectory, SPD, Sites Web Directory, SimilarSiteSearch, SecretSELabs, SoMuch, SWD, Amfibi, GigaBlast, Ananar, 24/7 Web Directory, Anoox, Gain Web, 1WebsDirectory, Info Tiger)
How to Submit to Some Search Engines listed below (redundantly) with additional information….

ENGINE	KEYWORDS & GENERAL INFORMATION	SPAM!	FREE
	Google.com	Console Help	Submit
	Yahoo.com search responses are now powered by Bing and Yahoo drives other engines like Go.com, AltaVista,	Keyword repetition, meta refresh tags, invisible text, mirror pages.	Submit Submit
	Bing.com (formerly Live.com) Submit sitemap: http://www.bing.com/ping?sitemap=[your sitemap web address]		Submit
FWS	FreeWebSubmission.com Submit your site to multiple search engines at one time.		Submit
ENGINE	KEYWORDS & GENERAL INFORMATION	SPAM!	FREE