SEO implementation has many facets. From optimizing some pages on your current website to building a brand new website from the ground up with SEO in mind; but what about a complete overhaul of your current site? Would it even be possible because of the constraints of the old CMS or platform your website is built on?

Once you’ve made the decision to get that new version of the site up and running, here are a few SEO implementation strategies to contemplate:

Plan the structure of the new site; Is it logically organized so search engines and site visitors can get to all of the important pages in a couple of clicks?

1. Decide on a “theme” and a well researched keyword for each of the new and old pages you would like to position as a target for search.
2. Re-write and optimize your metadata and content for the new keyphrases.
3. Be very certain that the new site’s design is SEO friendly; is all navigation crawlable?
4. Regenerate a new XML Sitemap to augment crawling and indexing of the site’s new and old pages.
5. Update external link references if any of the page names are changed.

The above considerations are extremely important for your optimized website redesign, but I think there are 3 other considerations that, above all, have the most impact; keeping the domain name the same (to preserve trust rankings with the search engines and to mitigate the need for redirects), ensuring the new site design is friendly for both the users and the search engines (is the site’s new interface something you and your users like; maybe utilize a third party usability study?) and properly redirecting the search engines and users to any new page names. All of this will ensure a smooth changeover from the older version of the site to the new one.

If you have ever worked with an SEO company, you know it is said over and over that content is king. Content is the food that feeds search engine crawlers. Having between 200-300 words, per page, of unique content is considered an SEO best practice. However, there is more to it than just the amount of words on a page. As with everything surrounding internet marketing, there should be a strategy for the content you write.

Incorporating quality content that is well researched with proportionate keyword density is a great way for your site to get recognized and ranked by search engines. Taking the next step to ensure your content is fresh and engaging will help lead to clickthroughs and conversions. Nevertheless, the foundational steps to optimizing content are paramount.  There are strategies that are more scientific, and then there are those, which are more artistic. Let’s discuss…

Writing quality content is extremely important. You want your content to read well and be free of any spelling or grammatical errors. Some questions you might what to consider when writing content for your pages are: Does it offer a reason for people to spend time reading? Does the content I am writing offer real value?

Good keyword research is also important when drafting your page’s message. You want to create content using keywords - “the search terms people are using to find your website.” Doing this, in effect, optimizes your page with content that actually “answers” a visitor’s query. From there, look to craft your message with language your industry would use.

Moving on, we come to keyword density – “the amount of keywords used in correlation to the total amount of words on any given page.” In this strategy, you want to be careful not to overdo the amount of keywords; rather, you want place them in strategic places, such as the h1 tag, and use the remaining text to compliment the keyword theme. A good keyword ratio for “best practices” keyword density is 2.45%.

Once you have completed the above steps, you will want to start incorporating your message into a flow using your own words. This would be having fresh and engaging content - the art of SEO. This strategy is what is going to give your visitors that extra motivation to “convert.” Likewise, it is going to distinguish your website in the eyes of the search engines. As this approach is more fluid, it is difficult to provide detailed insight. Rather, I can offer a few thoughts to consider when writing:

Be human when writing. Think about why people are visiting your website. Do not try to overdo, such as crafting a message that attempts to over sell a visitor. Also, refrain from copying what another site says. Simply share your message and include calls to action, such as “contact us today.” This should take care of the engaging portion. Being authentic in your writing style and that will take care of having fresh content.

All-in-all, content is king when it comes to SEO. Take your time when drafting the text for your pages. Allocate time for research before and during your writing, and be sure to get feedback from others around you. At the end of the day, the science is the science. It is pretty straight forward, but taking the science portion and making it read well, while engaging the audience to convert is the art of good optimization writing.

Navigational elements on your website can be created in many ways, but the only “true” SEO-friendly way to construct any links on your website is to use plain text links formatted with CSS – plain and simple! CSS formatting allows you to render plain, text links more appealing to the user.

However, if you are a web designer that can not envision creating links in this way and you have to use JavaScript, images or image maps, make sure you have these contingencies in place:

1) Ensure there is an Internal HTML sitemap on the site that provides alternate, text based navigation.

2) Link to important pages in your Footer Navigation:

3) Keep your XML Sitemap up-to-date to help the search engines spiders properly index pages on your site.

4) Use optimal text in your Alt tags. While certain images are “crawlable”, they are not necessarily “optimal”. Adding keyword rich text to Alt tags tells the search engines the theme of the linked page:

So, how crawlable is your website? If you are not the person who designed the site and are unsure, simply mouse over a link or button on a page and see if the URL for the link appears in the bottom of your browser window. If it does, there’s a good chance you have an SEO friendly, crawlable link. You can also view crawlable links in a “text only mode” for your site by typing in “cache:www.mywebsite.com” into Google and clicking on the link that says “Text-only version” in the dialogue box at the top of the page when it loads. If the link appears on this text only version of the webpage, you’re most likely in good shape.

To determine if the link is anchored with an image, merely right click the link and see if you have the option to “view image” or “save image as” etc in the pop-up menu.  If you use a browser such as Firefox, you will also be able to tell if the image has associated Alt text by looking at the “Associated Text” section under “View Image Info” in the pop-up menu:

For Internet Explorer, perform a search in the source code for the term “Alt” to locate any Alt tags associated with any images on the page: