Where web designers focus on the creative effort of designing a website that is attractive and making your products a services appeal to buyers. The SEO persons focus is on what it takes to make a website appeal to the search algorithms and understand how to prevent loss of rank when an existing site is replaced.

Where does SEO fit in the design process?

Before you design, Audit.

A Website Audit will evaluate competitors’ sites and your site to determine what is and isn’t working. The Audit will explore the most important words in your industry and develop a strategy and structure to provide the best exposure for those terms to the search engines.

Prior to Launch, Tune.

A pre-launch optimization pass should be made to tune title tags, page titles, page names, and meta-descriptions. This will boost relevancy for your content, improving how your content appears in search results and improve your click through rate (CTR).

Incoming links to your pages should be evaluated and then redirects created that will focus those links on the most appropriate new pages. This will assure that any existing page rank isn’t lost on content that can no longer be found.

Analytics should be installed on the news site. Using the same tracking code as the previous site will make it easy to evaluate the effects of the changes and compare the old site to the new site, month over month and year over year.

When you Launch, Notify.

A new sitemap should be created to be sure search engines can find all your new content. Google should be notified if your domain name is changing and Google Webmaster tools settings made to configure any URL preferences, and set the primary county, if you are not marketing worldwide.

After Launch – Follow up, Maintain, and Tweak.

If you are using a content management system (CMS), it should be kept up date with the latest revisions to reduce the likelihood of being hacked. Google Analytics should be reviewed to measure the effectiveness of paid and organic marketing efforts. Content that converts may merit off-site marketing and content that doesn’t convert re-evaluated.

Google’s Webmaster Tools should be checked routinely to evaluate the effectiveness of the effort. Done correctly, missing page (404) errors should be minimal and errors should fall off dramatically as cached content is flushed from the page cache of the popular search engines.

This has long been a problem on large database driven sites where only a minor difference in the address (URL) of the content (perhaps only a session ID) makes it appear that the same information is on more than one page. However this is also a common problem on Blogs where a Category listing, Tag listing, or Archive listing can present the exact same content, but with differing addresses.

This looks at some ways that duplicate content can occur.

1) True Duplicates – Any page that is 100% identical to another page other than the page’s address (URL).
This could result from that session ID id issue I mentioned:

2) Near Duplicates – Pages that differs only slightly, perhaps only an image or sidebar is different.
This could occur from differing sorts of the same information (category, tag, archive, …):

3) Cross-domain Duplicates -Occurs when two websites share the same piece of content.
This could occur from just shear theft (someone scraping your content) or from syndicating articles:

While the SEO crowd has been preaching the pitfalls of duplicate content for sometime, the farmer or “panda” updates that occurred throughout 2011 have pushed the importance of keeping duplicate content off your site this to the forefront. Peter Meyers covers the topic in more detail here, along with some ways to address these problems.

…an easy road to go down, until those chickens come home to roost.

1. Jolting – When someone clicks an unidentified link to a PDF, there is a jolting effect on the user. It can create that moment of ‘oh crud, did I just click on SPAM, or is this ad popping up or ??.
2. Slow Load Times – If someone clicks into PDF content directly from a search result, they may experience extended download times and leave before reaching the
   content.
3. No Navigation – If someone clicks into PDF content directly from a search result, there is no navigation to the rest of your website. So if it the content of the PDF is generating traffic to your site, there are no links to Home, About us, or
   Contact pages.
4. No Tracking – You cannot install tracking codes in a PDF, so If someone clicks into PDF content directly from a search result, you have no way to identify how often it occurring or track the source of visits to PDF pages.

Best Practices:

• Never use a PDF as a primary sources of information on your website.
• If a PDF is needed, link and identify the PDF as a “print version” of the material so the user can anticipate the lag to download and display the document.
• Place PDF files in a /pdf folder, and include a disallow flag in your Robot.txt file to keep that content out of the search
  results.

So how do you create great copy?

The key to creating great content is to think in terms of solving a problem. Then describe the problem and the solution in generic terms. It’s fine to use industry phrases if those are the common terms a prospect would use to find your products and services, but unless your product names are as ubiquitous as Kleenex or Xerox, you need to avoid terms that are specific to your company.

The Sales Funnel (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action)

Keep the sales funnel in mind. If you write to improve your prospects understanding, they will be more aware of the size and scope of the problem. Their interest and desire to find a solution will grow and finally they will take to action to solve it.

The Search Funnel

The Search Funnel views the Sales Funnel from a keyword perspective. When a person starts looking for a solution to their problem, they start with very general terms and then get more specific with their searches as they learn more about terminology, brands and model numbers.

Perhaps you started with a broad search phrase like “rank better in Google”, and as you read through the results, you determined that what you needed was “search engine marketing” or SEO. Then maybe you searched further and determined you wanted a “link building” or a “pay per click” campaign. Keeping this in mind will help you write content to capture searches at each stage of the sales funnel.

Remember there are different types of buyers

When describing your products and services remember that people approach a problem from different perspectives. End users will want to know how your product or service will benefit them. How it will make things better, easier, faster. While technical buyers will want to understand how it works, the specifications and why that product or service is technically superior. And a financial buyer will want to know why your approach is the most cost effective solution. Addressing each of these mindsets in your copy will not only result in more content, but content that will capture a more searches, and close more business.

Last but not least, consider hiring a professional copywriter to create or polish your copy. A copywriter brings an outside perspective that is almost guaranteed to root out needless jargon and confusing terminology.

WordPress and SEO guru Joost de Valk has a great write-up on this topic. http://yoast.com/site-structure-seo

Google’s Matt Cutts discusses site architecture here: http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-012510.shtml

I encourage new clients or anyone wanting to improve their rank to start with a Website Audit. The audit examines the way people you use your site, the keywords and topic of the highest importance and makes recommendations for what an optimized site structure would be.

Ok there are dozens (hundreds?) of firms that promise results like this. The problem is that these sketchy “black hat” SEO tactics can work for a while. Truthfully, you may see great results from these shysters for six months or so until you trip an circuit breaker in the algorithm and your website disappears from the Search Results entirely.

Anyone making grand promises or quick results should be avoided. Going down this path is like gambling, the allure of a getting a quick and easy return can suck you in, but ultimately the results can be devastating.

The Google Webmaster Help thread is particularly entertaining, because one of these sketchy companies gets outed by Google’s spam master, Matt Cutts. Barry Swartz of Search Engine Roundtable covers the discussion here.

1. Optimize the Structure of Your Site (Information Architecture)
   Clearly communicate the organization of your site through navigation, breadcrumbs, and file path.
2. Organize Your Content
   Display whatever you are promoting by category and cross-link to related categories to support searches for category, location, country of origin, brand, etc.
3. Use Relevant Page Titles
   Use title tags and page names that match page titles and contain key search terms.
4. Create Meta Descriptions
   Meta descriptions are displayed in search results and search terms are emboldened in the listing. To promote your content, carefully word meta-descriptions to contain key phrases and entice the reader to click.
5. Organize Your Copy
   Every page on your site should be viewed as a potential entry point for your site. Summarizing the topic at the top of the page not only helps the searcher determine that they have come to the right place, but also help search engines understand the focus of the page and pushes key phrases to the top of the page.
6. Fatten Your Content
   Expand content to cover topics from different points of view. Discuss topics from the perspective of how it will benefit the user, how it will save money for the financial buyer, and list specifications for technical buyer. This will enable your content to rank for a broader range of phrases and appeal to more types of buyers.
7. Grow Your Incoming Links.
   Registering with Google Places is critical for local businesses, but adding your company to industry directories helps provide support for location, industry, and category related phrases. Grow relevant links to your site by participating in discussions on industry blogs and forums.
8. Create an Ad Campaign
   No site performs well for all search terms. Even a modest ad campaign can help you fill the gaps in your content and can be used identify additional phrases that drive business to your site.