Web page optimization can be daunting for the beginner so we’ve put together five easy steps to optimizing a page for search engines.

1. Identify your goal. (This is always the first step in anything, but we’re going to mention it anyway). Remember that ranking number one is great but at the end of the day, the ultimate goal is acquiring customers, so choose the keyword carefully - which leads us to the next step.

2. Research the keyword target and make sure the keyword is right for you.

* Does anybody ever search for that keyword? It doesn’t do any good to rank number one if nobody ever looks for it.

* Is that the word people would use to find my product or service?

* How competitive is the keyword? Who is your competition?

For example, an exact match search for “blue widgets” reveals that about 22,000 other sites are relevant for that phrase while “big blue widgets” displays only about 40. It will be much easier to get the number one spot for big blue widgets. If a keyword is too competitive, consider choosing a longer phrase containing the keyword. Ranking on page 1 for a lower traffic key phrase will bring more traffic than ranking on page 5 for a high traffic keyword.

3. Choose a page to target that key phrase. Which page you choose will depend on a couple of factors:

* Page Content - the more precisely matched the page content is to the keyword target, the more likely that a visitor will click on your link in the search results and buy something once they are there.
* Competitiveness of the keyword - If the keyword is highly competitive, you may need the ranking power of your homepage.

Whatever page you choose, make sure it contains clear information on how to get the product. Ranking well for the keyword doesn’t do any good if the target page doesn’t convert them into a customer.  (Did I say that already? Remember it. It’s important.)

4. Check out your competition for the keyword.

* What’s their current keyword density?
* Does the keyword appear in all of the important places, title tag, description tag, keywords tag, headline, etc. on the competitor’s page?
* How many backlinks do they have to their page and what kind of anchor text appears on those backlinks?

5. Optimize your page for the keyword.

* Put the keyword on the page in all the important places.
* Target a keyword density at or slightly above (or below) that of other top ranking sites.
* Get inbound links to the page – ideally with the keyword in the anchor text.

Alert readers will have noticed that all the steps listed here are really just extensions of the first step – identify your goal. Identifying your goal is definitely the most important step in web page optimization. The second most important step isn’t really a step but it’s still crucial. Monitor your progress and not only for how your page ranks in search engine results pages.

Compare the ranking in search engine results pages before and after and then compare the difference in traffic before and after your listing appeared.

* Make sure you give search engines enough time to crawl and index your pages. It can take up to a couple of weeks after they have crawled your page for changes to produce results.

Compare customer conversions from the page before and after.

* Are your new visitors sticking around to become your customer or are they coming to your pages and just “bouncing away”?

Fierce competition and shifting search engine algorithms make web page optimization an ongoing process. If the results aren’t what you hoped, then maybe this wasn’t the best keyword for you or maybe the page needs a little more tweaking for keyword density or backlinks. You can always benefit from another good backlink. Maybe the page is fine for search engines, but needs to be optimized for visitors. Identifying goals, taking a step-by-step approach, monitoring your progress and never giving up are the keys to success in web page optimization.

In an ideal world, personalized search would be the rule and the only button that anybody would need on Google’s home page would be this one:

Any time you entered a search term (if that was even necessary in the ideal world); Google would magically read your mind and produce the exact result you want. Sadly, this world is far in the future and even if it were possible now, how often do we ourselves really know what we want? Personalized search results may be the answer to a better search experience. 

Search engine efforts to personalize search have been fraught with difficulties. Of course, as just noted, it’s very difficult to guess what someone wants. To try to improve their guesses, Google has been collecting information about users’ search histories and when they input a search query, they rank those queries based on the past behavior of the searcher. They do this by tracking your Web History when you sign in for their services. However, it’s fairly easy to disable this – just sign out - and this has always frustrated Google’s efforts to consistently collect this valuable information. A fairly reliable and robust set of data from a variety of searches would be necessary to make really informed guesses about what a user wants. Furthermore, Google (along with other search engines) has been under fire from Privacy advocates for using this data to tailor their advertising to user preferences.

Now, Google and the other search engines appear to be taking a new tack in their efforts to further personalize search and encourage us to let them keep our data. Recently, Google has been adding a link in the top right corner of a personalized search result:

By adding a warning to the personalized search results, Google lets users know that their results are filtered and gives them the opportunity to see the results without personalization by clicking on the More details link.

Google’s announcement also made it clear that they do not restrict search personalization to users that have volunteered their information by signing in for the service. They are using cookies to track a user’s behavior in addition to the IP address of the user. While this may be good news for users, it does make things a little tougher for search engine optimization because search engine rankings are obviously much more relative than we thought. Ranking number one without personalization does not necessarily mean ranking number one with it. What does this mean for search engine optimization? While we cannot control what results will appear in any one personalized result, we do have some measure of control over whether or not a user will click on the result if offered it. By creating good title tags that closely match the intended search query and entice the user to click through to the page with matching description tag text that further convinces them that your page is what they are looking for, you can increase the chances that your pages appear in any one user’s web history and therefore increase the chances that your pages continue to appear in their search results.

By giving users the ability to peer inside the search engine and get a glimpse of where the result comes from, Google also opens up opportunities for website owners to further enhance the personalized search results for their more dedicated followers. If more searchers are willing to opt for personalization services, it will become more important to take advantage of opportunities like Subscribed Links or Yahoo’s Search Monkey to make your links even more attractive to those users. This week, Yahoo added the enhanced results for Yelp, LinkedIn and Yahoo local search to their default search results:

Ultimately, what will get visitors to your site is proper promotion whether through search engines or other methods, including increasingly popular social media sites like http://www.facebook.com/ and making sure that you have good quality and relevant content for your visitors when they get there. Personalized search is here and the only thing to do is get ready.

Making sure that your site is optimized for your geographical location and the locations where your business operates is just one aspect of optimizing for local search results. Another good way to build local relevance for your site is by encouraging links from other trusted and relevant websites operated by businesses and organizations in your area. This establishes keyword relevance for your site, for the name of your region and, if these sites are hosted in your area as well, establishes that your website is well-linked physically to that region.

One good way to find sites that could give your site some local relevance is to search for “your location” and “business” in Google, Yahoo and MSN as well as any other popular search engines and see what comes up. A search for “Boca Raton business” found these listings:

 
Any one of these sites would be a great link to have for a Boca Raton Business. Once you have located some potential sources of valuable links, go to the site and see if there is any place on the site that might offer an opportunity to get a link.

Another good search term to use for geo-targeted link building would be “Your Area Directory” – in the case of Boca Raton – “Boca Raton Directory”. If there are any local business directories, it would be a good idea for my Boca Raton business to be listed. Just make sure that any directory pages that come up are truly local as some larger directories may have a section devoted to your area. By choosing carefully, good sources for local links can be found.

Of course, not all links are necessarily going to be valuable for increasing search engine rankings. Some top ranking local business sites will provide links to local businesses, but the links may not be direct or they may have a rel=”nofollow” attribute on them advising search engines not to count them, as in the case of the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce site. When evaluating if a site is a good source for a link, consider the potential for traffic before considering search engines. If the site has a good potential for providing your site with direct traffic, then getting your site listed is a good idea – even if search engines do not value the site. If they do count, then it’s all the better.