Search Engine Optimization & Marketing
Our goal is to be transparent about our methods and keep SEO from feeling like a shady industry dominated by snake oil selling conmen. Websites we create have the best SEO practices baked right into the code, however it’s important to create the content with search engines in mind. It helps to know the ins and outs of how search engines work. Google has put together a Search Optimization Starter Kit (PDF) which we’ve found extremely useful in educating website owners about the basics of SEO.
In our opinion the most important 5 items for SEO are:
Update and create new content often
Customize Page Titles, Tags & Descriptions for each page
Post regular updates to social media accounts to broaden reach
Automated XML Sitemap
Automated Pingbacks and Trackbacks
Beyond basic site optimization, accounts on these sites should be standard:
Google Webmaster Tools: https://google.com/webmasters/tools
Google Analytics: http://google.com/analytics
Bing Toolbox: http://bing.com/toolbox/webmasters
DMOZ Open Directory Project: http://dmoz.org
Alexa Listing: http://alexa.com/siteowners
YellowBot local listing: http://yellowbot.com
Optional tools we use as necessary:
Mint web site analytics: http://haveamint.com
Google Adwords: http://adwords.google.com
Google Base (for selling products): http://base.google.com
Microsoft adCenter: https://adcenter.microsoft.com
Pingdom loading speed test: http://tools.pingdom.com
Valid XHTML http://validator.w3.org or HTML Lint http://lint.brihten.com
Feedburner for RSS optimization http://feedburner.google.com
PRWeb for press releases: http://prweb.com
SEO Checking Tools:
Google Insights: http://google.com/insights/search
Google Sets: http://labs.google.com/sets/
Yahoo Site Explorer: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysites
Linkscape: http://seomoz.org/linkscape
Blekko: http://blekko.com/ws/creativeslice.com+/sitepages
PageRank Recovery Tool: http://www.virante.com/seo-tools/pagerank-recovery-tool
Social Media Optimization
Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/pages/create.php and name it after 25 fans http://facebook.com/username/
Connect posts to Twitter account: http://twitter.com
Blogging sites should submit posts to Digg http://digg.com and Reddit http://reddit.com
Retail business should register on:
Google Local: http://google.com/local/add
Bing Local Listing Center: https://ssl.bing.com/listings/ListingCenter.aspx
Yahoo Local: http://listings.local.yahoo.com
Yelp https://yelp.com/signup
Foursquare http://foursquare.com
Gowalla http://gowalla.com
HotFrog http://hotfrog.com
Kudzu http://kudzu.com
Best Yellow http://bestyellow.com/addurl.html
Localeze http://localeze.com
InsiderPages http://insiderpages.com
