Ok, hopefully you got my terrible reference to the movie, Field of Dreams but what I’m trying to say is consult an SEO individual before you even consider a site build either from scratch or redesign. I’m sure many SEO experts think this is basic SEO 101 thinking but many companies or individuals do not.

The basic reasoning behind working with programmers, designers and SEO’ers is this. We assist them is determining how searchers are going to find their masterpiece of a site. More times than not, internet marketing agencies get in a stopped dead in their tracks when they work with web developmen/design companies because it’s always an ego thing. They think that flash is pretty and database driven sites are the new black (or pink? whatever) and don’t take search engine into account. Don’t get me wrong, those individuals are very gifted and creative. But the main purpose of any website is to be found in a search engine.

My first post, Basic SEO gives the foundation to start optimizing but this should be done at the same time as the site build and it is imperative that communication stay constant between the client (you) the web dev/design company and the SEO company. I’ll give on example. Recently, a client, a large home developer, which build million dollar homes had an old site that was built in Coldfusion (a database platform) and they needed something new and flash-y (see what I’m getting at). Before our engagement with them, they had a huge design firm build their site. It really did look nice with music, crisp clear images of the county side, blah, blah. So seeing it was so flash-y, all of the files were in one image, so if you went to yoursite.com and clicked on the about us tab, it would still go to yoursite.com. Ok, so I like a challenge but this was a no go. The reason why? If your unfamiliar with flash, you cannot modify anything because it is an image. If you mouse over a flash file and right click, you don’t see any selections, all you see if an about adobe flash player selection. If you mouse over a regular image, you can view the properties etc.

So back to my story about my dilemma. If there were separate pages created, such as yoursite.com/aboutus.html that was a basic html page that had flash in it, we could do a workaround and add text links so the page can be crawled, but with one image we were at a loss. After a few days of pondering, we explained this to the client. In the meantime, we figured we would take screenshots of the images, create images and overlay the text content next to it. We had a good developer so we banged it out in a few hours. Needless to say they weren’t pleased and got in touch with the design firm to either get it fixed, re-done, or a refund. I don’t know exactly what transpired but they severed ties with the design firm who then took back ALL of their flash files and left them with nothing. (hopefully they got a refund). They were left in the dark so they went back to the Coldfusion site. Why didn’t they use our .html site? haha, that’s the kicker because the design company that created the flash site owned all the images we took screen capture of. See my previous post on Read your contract before you sign a site build/redesign. The SEO has been put on hold pending the home developer figuring things out but hopefully this story is a lesson learned. More to come once I hear something…

Link building is key during an SEO campaign and can either hurt or help. I have to admit I am  a novice and continue to learn new techniques everyday. One place I get good info from Search Engine Land . The link building guru, Eric Ward is a supposed God when it comes to link building campaigns. Now I know that I am no authority on link building but it doesn’t seem that involved, just a great deal of time and thought.

The basic objective of a link building campaign is to get quality links from sites that have credibility and of course, a good Page Rank but how do you go about getting these?

Well, I was dealing with a campaign recently where we needed some type of inbound linking strategy. Myself and two others came together to formulate a plan but none of us had any background in linking. Our first course of action was to evaluate the clients competition and see what sites they had links present. I created a spreadsheet with of course, URL, PageRank and if it was relevant to the client’s products. After that, we crafted a few email templates for the link request. Oh, I forgot to mention, we couldn’t do a reciporcal AND the link had to be free! My initial thought was what incentive do these people have to place a free link from a site they have no affiliation with and no link love back?

So we tried it out anyway and reached out by email or their site contact form. I believe the email had a salesish title with something like “Provided added-value to your viewers by linking to blah, blah, blah” Now to me, that sound like one of the many emails I get everyday for a little blue pill. We also had a tab on the spreadsheet to keep track of attempts to reach them and if they responded. A week went by with about 3 attempts each and nothing. We then regrouped and thought of other ways to get links. I looked into publishers and found Text Link Ads. They sent me a proposal and most of the site had a Page Rank no more than 4 and not 1 had anything to do with the client’s products. Oh, and the cost? almost $700 per month!!! Yeah, we shot that down pretty quick. I suggested to skip the sales approach and come right out and ask for advertising. What’s the worst that can happen? They say either no flat out or request money.

I spent a day coming up with a few drafts with the subject flat out saying, “Interested in advertising opportunities on blah blah blah.com.” Guess what I got 5 responses within 4 hours, (all wanting money of course, but it was at least a start). We needed to get some type of result quick becuase the monthly client meeting was in a few days.

A few days ago, I mentioned the only link building I have done in the past is basic directory submissions. Now I know many SEO’s say directory submission don’t hold that much value anymore but we were at a loss. I did a great deal of digging and found a service that does the submissions for you, called Lazy URL. I contacted them to see what the deal is and they seem like a legit place. They have different tiers of packages but give you a listing of the directories they submit to and you create the login to check them. Now from working on directory submissions in the past, it can be a tedious process so this fee may outweigh the time involved for you to do it manually. They also have a list of the directories they submit to for free if you want to do it on your own it’s right here.

We’re still working on it so I’ll keep you posted.

I caught an awesome special last night on the Discovery Channel called Download: The true history of the internet. I guess it started at the beginning of March and have 3 or 4 in the series. This one focuses on the beginning and ultimate rise of Google and the beginnings of search. Throughout the whole episode, it made me think how a little about how the early birds got into the internet at its infancy and really built great products and business since then. (I just wish I had got into it a little earlier!).

It profiled the old dinosaur Excite and how they set the stage for Google to chance the entire industry and the internet as a whole. Just think if this evolution never happened!! I wouldn’t have a job and you would never find my blog.

Anyways I digress and encourage you to check it out. The schedule can be found here . Oh, and they mention Sergey Brin and Larry Paige’s now infamous Phd dissertation on Google while attending Stanford. I read it after the program and thought it was pretty interesting. I encourage you to read that too. You can check it out here.

Getting other sites to link to yours is not enough to see long-term search engine rankings. Your target audience should be able to find the information as quickly and efficiently as possible once they arrive at your site, no matter what page they land on but this is not always that, case as many pages can naturally rank for more than one keyword. So what is the fix? There is no one definite answer but good usability suggests they get to every page within 3 to 5 clicks. If not, you just lost a potential customer.

Search engines, mainly Google, are able to measure whether end users are returning to search results after clicking on a natural listings or staying on a website which is considered a pages click-through popularity.

Other measurements they take into account are:

• Number of time searchers click on links to your site
• how long they stay on site (This can be see in Google Analytics)
• How often searchers return to your site (repeat customers, so to speak!)

If your potential audience repeatedly clicks links from the search results to your site and stays for a decent amount of time (more than a few seconds) your site popularity increases, but only in the slightest bit as this is one small factor that determines PageRank and if the opposite occurs your Rank decreases which means the other guy trying to rank for the same terms can trump you in rankings.

In this case, optimization efforts are more targeted to the end user rather than the search engines to increase rankings.

A major factor Google uses in determining PageRank is inbound linking but what about internal linking? Internal linking is basically links from one page to the other in your site, primarily used for easy navigation and effective web usability.

While this practice can dramatically improve page views and conversions, does Google look at a site and say “hey, this site can also improve the user experience by effectively helping an end user find everything they are looking for?” If so, the algorithms can look at the anchor text and page names to determine if they are relevant and also base what number or “density” of internal links are present on a page.

One way to institute internal linking is to simply use the famous, “To learn more click here…” Many site use this but primarily to save on space and give a brief overview or “teaser” on their homepage which is where a great deal of natural searchers land.

I haven’t seen anything relating to internal link density and Google using it as a factor but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do and use it as a minor influence. I’m not condoning putting links here , there , and everywhere because that can get real annoying when trying to get through one of your articles or product descriptions.

I recommend using them sparingly and whenever appropriate.