Last month I covered why content is important to your SEO rankings. This month’s article will cover what you can do behind the scenes to make sure the HTML code on each web site page is optimized for search engines. Updating HTML code can be done using a web editor program such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver, but it can also be done by hand using Notepad.

There are literally dozens of techniques that SEO consultants employ to optimize each variable that makes up a single web page. For example, at the bare minimum, you need to pay attention to researching and creating effective page titles, researching and creating effective file names, writing effective description meta tags, properly using heading tags and alt tags for each hyperlink and image file. This goes for every link, every picture, graphic, image, and for every single web page. As you can see, it is no small task to optimize a web site – even a small one!

While each variable plays a small part in the overall optimization – think of it as a recipe with each variable being a single ingredient – and all ingredients being important to the recipe, I want to cover three items: page titles, file names, and the description meta tag. Here is a graphic showing the search results for my own “VA for coaches” page that I optimized for the search engines (actually comes up #2 in Google for the search term “virtual assistant for coaches”).

Page titles

Page titles are the hyperlinked words that show in the search engine results (item 1) and also display at the top of the browser page. They are not only vital but greatly influence page ranking in the search results, so it’s important that the page title is rich in keywords. You add the title of the page in between the “title” tags in the HTML code at or near the top of the page.

Example:
<title>this is the page title</title>

Make sure every page has a different title. If you feel that you cannot pin down one title for a page because it has too many sections of information, then it would be best to create more pages and categorize accordingly. For example, if you sell widgets in different colors and you put them all on one page and name the title of the page “widgets,” this isn’t going to do much to help in your page ranking because your page will be competing with thousands of others that contain the same word.

Instead, create one page just to showcase your red widgets and title the page “Red widgets.” Think about it … when someone is doing a Google search, they will most likely be as descriptive as possible so as to narrow down the search results. Another rule of thumb is to keep the title to a maximum of 60 characters.

File names

Choose file names (item 2) that correlate with your page titles. These should also be keyword-rich as they do have a positive impact on search results. When choosing file names, use all lower-case letters and do NOT use spaces. I have read that using hyphens instead of underscores is preferred and nowadays having no hyphens or underscores in the file name is acceptable as well – the search engines should treat them as the same.
 
One item I do want to stress is that I do not want you to run out and change all your file names because if a page is bookmarked or indexed in a directory somewhere and you change it, then it could not only hurt your rankings, but you may lose customers who can’t find your site because of a broken link. So consider changing the file name if the page is not yet indexed in the search engines or if the page has poor search results placement AFTER you’ve already changed the other items. If you are getting good search results placement, then of course do not change your file names.

Description meta tag

A good description tag will get you noticed! This is the blurb that is displayed right under the title tag in the search results page (item 3). It is what people skim over when viewing the search results. Too many times people will search on a term that has multiple meanings and the page titles may help a little, but it’s the description that will get their attention and let the person know that your is the site they are looking for! Its placement is right up there at the top of the source code, usually right under the title tag and looks like this:

<meta name=”description” content=”Virtual assistant and internet marketing services for today’s coaches: life and career coaches, self-help coaches, executive coaches, speaking coaches, and more.” >

Don’t forget to add key words and key phrases here as well. : )

Quick Start Assignment

Take just one of your web pages and optimize it for search engines. First, do some little research for keywords to use for the titles and descriptions. It’s important to use words that your target audience is actually searching, not what you THINK they are searching for. For example, if you think people are searching on the key phrase “certified life coach” – do some research because perhaps they are searching on different terms such as  “midlife transition coach,” “coach to guide me through a divorce,” “adhd coach” etc.

Check the title tag, do you have the keywords near the front where they carry the most value? Is the title too long? Is it an effective title? Is this page title the same as all your other page titles? Do your page titles have your business name right in front? If so, make some edits.

Next, write an effective description for the page. Lastly, only change the file names if there are spaces in the title, if it is not yet indexed by the search engines, or if it has poor placement in the search results.

Of course there is so much more to do in order to properly optimize your pages, but start with just ONE page and do this for each new page you add for the next few weeks.

I mentioned this last month and I feel I should mention it again – I took a free SEO online course and it was excellent! There is a time investment involved; the course requires active participation, and it lasts for a few weeks, but I would still urge you to attend. I literally learned everything I know about SEO by attending these classes and by completing each of the exercises. Find out more at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SEO_Techniques/

Have an SEO question? Feel free to post a comment … I’ll answer your question and feature you in my ezine!

Mistake #2 – Not aligning my business to my goals

In the beginning, I fell on my background in real estate as my niche. I became a NAR Real Estate Professional Assistant, I got my Certified Real Estate Support Specialist desination from IVAA, and I perfected and optimized each web page to speak directly to real estate professionals. But I was not happy and I wasn’t sure exactly why. Sure, I was getting phone calls in the evenings and weekends, and due to the real estate market conditions, my clients were under a lot of pressure, thus the many tasks I was having to do on short notice. And worse, I even lowered my rate to get a client. Bad call!

I thought it was the nature of running a small business. I had heard it over and over again – and I wasn’t the only one. Basically, I had to what I had to do to get clients and keep them. That is, until I looked at my business plan’s objectives and goals and had an epiphany – I wasn’t running my business to be in alignment with my goals.

An example is that one of my goals was to “play” more on the weekends; it was important that I get to spend time with my family and not be tied to the computer all weekend long. My clients, being real estate professionals with expectations that assistants worked extended hours, also expected me to work on the weekends. Let’s face it, if your competitor is working hours that you will not, then it’s all the much harder. I cannot play on the weekends if I am fielding phone calls and answering emails.

Lesson Learned: put a lot of thought into what market you are targeting and make sure it fits your work and lifestyle. (Needless to say, I changed my niche soon afterwards.)

This month marks my third-year anniversary being in business as a virtual assistant. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve learned about running a small business. There are many things I did right and SO many things I did wrong. I’ll start this week off with my first lesson learned:

Mistake #1 - Not having a plan or setting goals

The first six months after opening my business, I was working 7 days a week and found myself at the computer at 3 a.m. more times than I could count. I was trying to find clients, figure out how to market, optimize my website, setting up my blog, it seemed as though I didn’t have enough hours in the day. On top of that, I was not making any money. My problem was that I didn’t have a business plan, marketing plan, or any clear goals.

Think about your goals. Do you have set marketing, business, or financial goals? Do you have a plan as to how you will reach your goals? The trick is that I had to set clearly defined goals or it did not work. Just saying “I want to make more money” doesn’t cut it because it’s relative; if I made $10 more this month than I did last month, then I will have achieved my goal but did I really accomplish anything? I now have clear goals but had to re-structure my business in order to reach those goals.

Lesson Learned: write out clearly defined goals in the areas of finances, marketing, personal, and what you want your business to look like. To start out, I challenge you to set one big goal for the next 90 days, write down the steps to complete it, and note your achievements along the way.

If you need help creating a business plan, sign up for Amy Grossman’s One-Page Business Plan workgroup.

There’s no point in putting out a great newsletter if you don’t have a list of people to send it to. Building your list is an ongoing process, and here are a few ways to get started:

1. Provide a free gift, such as an e-course, a special report, an e-book, or a tip sheet. Nowadays people aren’t going to hand over their email without getting something else valuable in return. You or your virtual assistant can set up your autoresponder or shopping cart program to deliver this gift once a visitor has submitted their name and email. 
2. Make sure you have a sign-up box on each page of your website; you never know which page people will land on. Also, make sure the sign-up box is “above the fold” so that visitors don’t have to scroll all around to find it.
3. Create a separate landing page at your website that’s dedicated to your newsletter or free gift. Include a description, testimonials, a sample issue or archives and of course your sign-up box. See my e-course offering page as an example:  http://www.emarketingtoolboxessentials.com/

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