By optimizing multiple pages within your website and then interlinking them, you provide a focused link structure that will increase search rankings.

If your website deals with several related, but yet different subjects, interlinking should be strongest within each topic area. The home page will link to a primary page for each topic and then there would be more intensive interlinking within each topic. This will serve to increase relevancy and rankings for each section of your site.

Links flow into web pages from external sites and from internal pages. This waterfalls from page to page within the website. Links will leave the site in the same way. This link flow can be random or be directed.

The link flow can be sculpted and directed using the nofollow attribute. This way PageRank flows to important pages using keyword link text and not to pages with low importance.

What should be considered as you develop your interlinking strategy? Home page menus should be structured to be text links and include your primary keywords. These text links can be in navigation links, breadcrumb links, category links or individual page links. Use these links to strategically optimize keyword density and improve search rankings.

Interlinking helps the search engine to spider your website, classify it and then evaluate it.

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Keyword rich text: The text content is what the search engines see and what your visitors read. Your website needs to satisfy these two separate audiences. Search engines judge your website by how you present and format your content. Visitors look at your marketing message. Content must be original, compelling and get your visitor to take action.

Your pages need to contain the keywords that are relevant to what your targeted visitors are searching for. These keyword phrases must be used in prominent ways. This includes page headlines, bold text, links, numbered lists, etc.

Architecture: The website structure and architecture controls the search engine’s access to the keyword rich content. This includes the navigation, page layout and even how the website is coded. The website must be structured for easy spidering and have a natural sales flow for visitors.

The pages should be named with the most important keyword phrases. The pages should be constructed in validated error free code. Navigation should be strengthened with interlinking of pages within the body text.

Link Development: Incoming links that are relevant, important and varied tell the search engines that your website is important. The search engines place great importance not only on the link text used, but on how relevant these websites are.

Linking should be from a variety of other sites including websites, blogs and social media. Linking should not just be to the home page, but to relevant pages deep within your site.

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Even more interesting is the trends happening in the US market share. Google continues to increase its market share in the US at the expense of rivals Yahoo! and Microsoft. In the last 3 years, Google has moved from a 36.5% market share (June 2005) to a 61.5% market share (June 2008). This is a 68% increase in market share. During this same period, Yahoo! fell from 30.4% to 20.9% share; Microsoft fell from 15.5% to a 9.2% share.

The total number of searches performed has risen sharply during the same time. There were 11.5 billion searches performed during June 2008 on the core search engines (US).

According to Neilsen Net Ratings (Nov 2007) there are 218,302,574 Internet users in the US. This is equal to 71.9% of the total US population. This also means that the average Internet user performed 53 searches on one of the core search engines during June 2008. This is up from 43 searches just 9 months earlier (Sep 2007).

Google is increasing both its market share and its number of total searches at a very consistent rate. The average number of searches per month made by the average Internet user is also steadily increasing. This means a sound web traffic strategy focused on Google is extremely important for every business that has a website today.

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So what is social media and why is it important to business marketing? Social media includes blogs, social networking, professional networking, photo sharing, video sharing and collaboration sites such as wikis. It includes Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and much more. Social media implies a two way interaction rather than one way monologues. It involves building relationships and conversations with your readers.

Why should businesses use social media?

1. Your customers are there: Many millions of people read blogs, participate in networking and listen to podcasts every day. This includes people from B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) sectors.
2. Your competition isn’t there: Most small and medium sized businesses are not using social media yet. This gives you a chance to get a jump on your competition. Many large organizations are beginning to market thru social media.
3. Cost effective: Most social media are free to use. Reach your targeted audience without having to lay down a single cent. The real investment is the time it takes to design your marketing message.
4. Website traffic: Marketing with social media can bring traffic and links to any website. Social media is not only popular with readers, but search engines give high importance to links from social media sites.
5. Extend your reach: Marketing thru social media introduces your company to new prospects. Traditional media and website marketing reaches a different audience than social media.

There are thousands of social media sites and options available to your company. What is exciting is that it is still very new and this gives your company the opportunity to be a leader in your market.

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1. Write for your readers: Make it interesting and valuable for your targeted reader. Provide them information, tips and advice that they are looking for and they will keep returning.
2. Headline: Catchy headlines hook your reader and get them to at least scan your post. Your post title should make people want to read it.
3. Get to the point: Blog readers are impatient and quickly move on. Skip the long intros and make your major point in the first paragraph.
4. Format for scanning: People scan instead of reading on the Internet. Pack your main points into headlines, sub headlines, bullets and numbered lists.
5. Less is more. Be concise and to the point. Blog readers are looking for information that is short and sweet. Keep postings to about 250 words.
6. Informal Writing: Write in an informal and conversational style. Write like you talk. Don’t be too technical or you will lose your readers.
7. Active Voice: The active voice is direct and much stronger. Examples: (passive) blogs written in short sentences are easier to read; (active) write blogs in short and easy to read sentences.
8. Write a draft. Then take a break. When you come back, you will have a fresh perspective and can quickly edit your blog into a final version.

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Even if your business does 100% of its business at a physical retail location, sales can be increased using a business website. According to Nielsen Online 80% of consumer electronic purchasers bought at a store whose website they visited first. 44% of pet food consumers researched info such as nutritional specs online.

1. Product listings: even if you don’t sell online, list product details so interested buyers can research and compare products. This way they arrive to your store ready to buy.
2. Contact info: post store hours, store location and an interactive map with driving directions.
3. FAQ area: include common questions that are asked by customers in person at your store location. This way your website can help answer the same questions 24/7.
4. Use Blogging and Social Media: By using blog marketing and other social media, you reach a whole new audience than your website alone will. Consider a Facebook page or encourage customers to review your business on social review sites like Yelp.com.
5. Traditional Media: When advertising in newspaper, radio, TV or direct mail, always include your website URL where interested consumers can learn more about what you offer.

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1. USP: State your unique selling proposition. This is what sets you apart from your competition. This could be free shipping, unique products or a lowest price guarantee.
2. Targeting: Target your visitor to bring in ready buyers. Certain keywords have a much higher conversion rate. This is especially important in pay per click (PPC).
3. Content: Use clear website copy that emphasizes the benefits of buying from you. Your visitor is in a hurry, show your product advantages in bullet points and even compare your product to your competitors. Include a clear call to action.
4. Build Trust: Everything about your website should be designed to build trust. It should be fast loading, well organized, have clear navigation, be user friendly and work in all major browsers.
5. Testimonials: Customer testimonials build instant credibility. Keep your testimonials in their original form including grammatical errors. Provide contact details for the people giving the testimonial.
6. Make it Easy: Make it easy for people to use, easy to find information and easy to find the buy now button. Think like your customer and make every step of the purchase easy.
7. Contact: If buyers have questions, can you be reached? This can be phone, email or online live support. A quick answer can keep buyers on track to purchase.
8. Returns Policy: Returns on web purchases is a major concern to most buyers. A clear and liberal returns policy calms these fears.
9. Assure and Secure: Assure your visitors that the personal information that they share is totally secure by posting a privacy policy. Use only a secure payment gateway.
10. Payment Options: Buyers like choices. Offer multiple payment methods like credit cards, Paypal and even pay by check options. Consider alternatives to the usual methods.

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SEO Redesign Process

1. Goals: Start with the business goals of your new website. This could be to generate leads, reach a targeted demographic, present a more professional image or to highlight a specific product or service.
2. Site Analysis: Analyze your website traffic statistics. Which keyword phrases are bringing visitors to which pages? What were the most visited pages? Which pages already have inbound links?
3. Keyword Analysis: Select phrases that have a good traffic volume and that accurately describe what you offer. Remember more specific keywords bring visitors who are closer to making a buying decision. 1-2 word phrases bring researchers and 3-5 word phrases bring ready buyers.
4. Architecture: Design your navigation scheme and page naming to maximize you’re your keyword phrases. Consider keeping the file structure and page names the same so that you don’t need to use redirects.
5. Content: Design messaging and calls to action for maximum visitor conversion. Search engines love content, especially optimized content. You should have 400-600 words of text on an optimized page.
6. Link Structure: Internal linking structure using keywords enables website visitors to find what they are really looking. It helps search engines to spider your site and places high importance on keywords used in link text.
7. Inbound Links: Maintain the content that is attracting inbound links or plan how you will be replacing those links. Consider notifying your current inbound links of the website changes.

SEO planning before and during the design process will make a tremendous difference on how many people find your new website and on your conversion rate.

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12 SEO steps you NEVER should do:

1. Keywords: DON’T “keyword stuff” your META tags, image alt tags, etc. Use only those keywords specific to that page, that image, etc.
2. META Tags: Don’t use the same Title on every page. The same applies to keywords and description tags. Don’t include keywords in your META tags that are not present in your content.
3. Site Structure: Don’t use extensive folders and subfolders in your site structure, spiders like relatively flat websites.
4. JavaScript Menus: Don’t use JavaScript menu systems. Search engine spiders can’t navigate these. If you use JavaScript menuing, have auxiliary HTML links for spiders.
5. Cloaking: Don’t employ cloaking or sneaky JavaScript redirects. Cloaking refers to presenting different content for users then for search engines.
6. Hidden Text: Don’t hide keywords on your page with lightly-colored or hidden text. Search engines detect this and quickly penalize or ban your website from their search results.
7. Good Content: Don’t fill your pages with content that is filled with keywords but lacks any really quality, meaning or message.
8. Duplicate Content: Don’t create multiple pages, sub domains and other websites using duplicate content. These will be quickly discounted or penalized by the search engines.
9. Auto Generated Content: Don’t use services that claim to supply content automatically for your website. This easy solution generally duplicates the same content onto sites all over the web.
10. Alt Tag Stuffing: Don’t add unnecessary or repetitive keywords into the Alt Tag (seen when you hover over an image with your curser). It is OK to use keywords that appropriately describe the image
11. Linking: Don’t participate in link schemes designed only to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. Linking must be highly relevant to your topic and be of benefit your visitors.
12. Quick Fix: Don’t seek an instant quick fix. SEO is a long-term process, not a method to trick the search engines.

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12 SEO Steps to Do:

1. Research: Do start with keyword research. Select phrases that are highly relevant to the services you provide. Specific phrases with 3-4 words are best if you want visitors that are ready to buy.
2. Structure: Do use keywords in your domain name, page names, folder names, etc.
3. Navigation: Do use keywords in your navigation links. Make your site easy to navigate for both search engines and for visitors.
4. META Tags: Do use keywords in the Title, Description and Keyword tags. Each page should have about 4 keyword phrases that are highly relevant to the content on that page.
5. Content: Do use keywords in your content. Use keywords 1-2 times in the top 25% of the text. Each page should have 400-600 words of text to satisfy the search engines.
6. Local: Do take advantage of local search opportunities by using city, state and community names in your body text and on your contact page.
7. Valid Code: Do validate your code and remove coding errors. These errors interfere with spiders crawling your site and they affect browser compatibility and usability.
8. XML Sitemap: Do install an XML sitemap (formerly called a Google Sitemap).
9. Links: Do get links back to your website from highly relevant blogs, authority sites, directories and other websites that are part of your industry.
10. Blog: Do start a blog either as part of your website or on a separate domain. Link to relevant pages on your website using your keyword phrases. Comment and participate on other blogs.
11. Web Analytics: Do use web analytics to monitor progress. Watch not only your overall visitor count, but which keyword phrases are bringing visitors and from which search engines.
12. Patience: Do learn patience. Search engine optimization is a long term commitment.

Part 2 is coming in the next blog posting. It will focus on what you should never do in your website optimization.

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