Web Site Optimization

From Zero to a Hero in 10 Days-Case Study
by Nicolette Beard

The initial business goal of my client's Web site was to attract more traffic which would, in turn, generate more leads. But the initial problem was misidentified: The biggest problem was that the site couldn't begin to attract visitors when the search engines couldn't find it. Because of a Flash intro, their site was not being properly crawled and indexed. Plus it hadn't been updated in two years!

When redesigning a Web site, I cannot guarantee results in less than 3-6 months because their are too many variables to consider. Much to my delight, a recent redesign resulted in Page One rankings for their two primary services: commercial air conditioning contractors and industrial refrigeration in Houston and the much coveted #1 ranking on Google just 10 days since the re-launch.

How did this Web site go from being invisible to achieving high rankings in such a short time?

First, we identified the glaring SEO no-no's:

1. The opening page was in Flash.
2. The navigation links were images.
3. Page titles were identical and used only the company name.
4. No page descriptions identified unique content or featured a benefit statement.
5. None of the pages took advantage of <h1> tags.
6. The Home Page had scant copy.

We revamped the site significantly in order to improve all of the above. We optimized the site navigation to be both search-engine and user-friendly. We wrote keyword rich page titles, precise descriptions, headlines containing primary keywords, modified the file names, and, most importantly, we wrote 300+ words of original Home Page content sprinkling our main keywords and keyword phrases throughout.

One advantage this Web site enjoyed was a number of incoming links and a lengthy domain history.

Applying technical SEO to Web site optimization will only take a Web site so far. Getting top rankings and staying there is the challenge.

The life-long goal of a Webmaster should be to develop a process to attract links with your keywords in the anchor text. Highlighted text like this, chillers Houston, is an example of anchor text. It's also a clever way for me to help out my client ;-).

How this is done is only limited by your curiosity in ferreting out compatible Web sites and your commitment to providing quality, relevant content over time.

While the mechanics of Web site optimization are fairly straightforward, most sites still do not employ basic tactics; tactics that prove to work.