Off page optimization

Add your website into major local search engines.

This will help a lot in terms of driving traffic to your site, as local people are likely to be more interested with your business. So first do a little research about which sites are the most commonly used search engines in your location. If you can't find any specific popular site that people use, you have to use some brand search engines, like Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc. They all have some similar sections with which you can submit your business, address, phone number and so on.

Add your website into industry specific directories.

Try to search for your relevant business directory and industry directory. For example, I would search “Singapore online business directory” and “SEO company directory” for this website. Make sure to record the directories you added your site to and the usernames and passwords you use. Don’t use the same user name and password although it’s easier to remember and maintain, because it’s not safe. Internet security is always a factor that many people worry about when they do SEO.

Build more links from any possible relevant websites.

Links can be from your partners, your customers, even your competitors. Analysis what links that your competitors have got, you can use the list of link sources you generated from Yahoo Site Explorer. Later try to acquire links from those online resources that they introduced to you. Remember always use the keywords in the anchor text of that link. Do something offline to find link resources. Links online suggests your public relationship somehow. You can also make use of social network. Facebook, LinkedIn are the explorers of this area.

Create and maintain your sitemaps

Create a sitemap page and remember to update it when you have new content added. To create a sitemap page is easy to do but to create a XML sitemap may need some technical support. After creating the xml sitemap, logon to Google Webmaster and submit it. Of course you need to be verified first before you can login.


This article is the continue part three of Checklist for Doing SEO. You may also want to read part two of this topic: On Page Optimization.

On page optimization - (Checklist for Doing SEO Part Two)

This article is the continue part two of Checklist for Doing SEO
Make use of online traffic analysis tool.
Sign up the webmaster tools like Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, and Live Search Webmaster Center. These tools will give you sufficient information about your site which could help you to do a good SEO job. Let Google Analytics gather some traffic data as a bench mark before you start your SEO work. Don't forget about history. It can point out the right direction to you.
Evaluate the visual design of your client's site.
If the site is too scary for people to browse, do SEO for it will become a waste of time. A good designer will bring you into the door of success.
Check compatibility of site between different browsers and operating systems.
Visit your client's site using different web browser. The most popular browsers are as follow: Internet Explorer (IE) version 6.0, IE 7.0, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and the Google Chrome. And the operating system that a visitor may use is normally either Windows or Macintosh. Although Linux become more popular than before, there's still few people use it.
Add a robots.txt in your domain root folder.
It allows you to specify exactly which pages search engines can crawl and it makes search engines easier to index your site because they always download the file before navigating through pages of your site. Having a robots.txt makes your website search engine friendly because it's like saying hello to those crawlers.
Have one copy of brief introduction of website in hand.
This is for the link building directory submissions.
Analyze the HTML code and optimize all of the SEO related Meta tags.
The following Meta tags are very important:

1. Title tags
2. Meta keywords tags
3. Meta description tags
4. H1 tags

Optimize URL architecture.
Link your pages with each other is very important. Don't leave any single page hanging alone.
Optimize your images
On relevant images include keywords in alt tags in their file names.
Navigation analysis
Add navigation links at the bottom of every page if your main navigation links are in flash or none-friendly JavaScript navigation menu. This will help the spiders crawl from one page to another and complete the indexing of the whole site more fluently.

Checklist for Doing SEO - (Part One)

Before you do any SEO, you need to research some factors and find out the part need to be changed. Many people believe the following checklist gives the most important steps in the SEO process.

• Go through the basic knowledge of web development.
  
• Write down your target. Ask yourself: Why are you doing SEO? Why do you want people to find your site?
  
• Brainstorm and write down possible search queries that people may interested with your site. Ask yourself: What words might people type into the search engines to look information that your website can provide? For example, I came up with “Story of Zeus”, "greek mythology" for a website talking about stories.
  
• Research your chosen keywords. Sign up for Google Adwords and learn how to use the provided “keyword tool” and “ad text ideas” generator. Learn how to use Wordtracker (paid) and some other SEO Tools (free).
• Using what you got from keyword research, record what you believe to be the best keywords for SEO.
• Analyze the current Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for your keywords. Gather information about: Who is ranking high in SEO result? What are their advantage and disadvantage? Investigate and get to know your competition.
• Create a list of your competition. This is also to set your target. You will be more clear to know what you should once you have set your competitors.
• Use some link analysis tool like Yahoo Site Explorer to find the sources of your competitor's links.
• Search for your site in search engines to figure out whether it's been indexed. Use the site command on Google, Live and Yahoo “site:www.yoursite.com” If your client's site is not indexed, you need to figure out what is preventing the search engines from crawling it. Google's Webmaster tool can be a good helper for this step.

On page optimization will be the part two of this topic.