Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means the steps taken to increase the visibility of your website in search engine findings.

Neekdesign creates a unique set of keywords and phrases throughout your site that apply to your products and services. The results are more qualified hits to your site, more customers and more sales.

Home pages as well as sub pages of a website can show up in search results for a keyword or phrase. Keywords and descriptions appear in the META tags for a web page and inform a search engine what words best describe the content on that page. These do not appear on the web page itself.

Rules of basic optimization
Google doesn't rank by keywords
Writing meta tags

Follow these rules of basic optimization:

Use the words you want to be found under in your <title> tags
In your homepage text, use core keywords that summarize your site
Link to as many of your subpages from the homepage as possible - the deeper the page, the less relevant the search engine considers it to be, and some engines will not spider more than a few levels deep
When linking within your site, link the keywords that are pointing to the pages (linking the words "click here" tells the search engine that these are important keywords!)
Include as many pages of quality content as possible to increase your hit chances
* Avoid the use of graphics as navigational tools (search spiders can't read graphics!)
Use a good, reliable web hosting service

* Neekdesign utilizes Cascading Stylesheets for fonts and layout rather than relying on graphics for navigation. Search crawlers cannot decipher graphics (and most Flash applications) - these crawlers are automated to index all of your website's code. If your collateral system uses specific fonts for print, these may not be available across all browsers and platforms.

top

Google doesn't rank by keywords

...but rather by how many sites link to yours! You can increase your site's position in search findings by marketing yourself to other websites and having them link to yours.

Targeted marketing is the most important thing you can do to rank highly in search results. This includes targeted email campaigns, print and online advertising, search engine feeds, pay per click campaigns, paid inclusion, click per action campaigns, additional paid product feeds and constantly giving out your website URL.

SEO companies

If you're looking to have another company streamline your business for search engine optimization, be careful if the company doesn't clearly explain what they intend to do. See Google's warnings on such companies:

"Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or 'throwaway' domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google's index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to Ôhelp' you."

We do everything possible to optimize your website, and we have found SEOs do more harm than good. Many of them create dummy link pages on your web server and extraneous code in your web pages that many search crawlers will ignore.

Once another company has tampered with your website code, we can no longer vouch for your code's validation nor can we maintain the site properly. We do not work with SEO companies for this reason.

top

Writing meta tags

Keywords

Each search engine utilizes keywords differently. Some search engines compare a web page's keywords with the content on that page (keyword density); if they do not match the content, the search engine will not consider the keywords relevant. Other search engines will consider a web page's keywords as actual content on the page, thereby expanding the list of search terms under which the page may rank. Some search engines disregard keywords altogether and rely on your written content. More search engines accept keywords than not, and customizing keywords for each page of your web site is highly recommended.

Keep in mind there is no guarantee that your site will rank highly in search engine results using any of the keywords you provide. Common words are the most difficult for sites to rank highly on in search engine results. Include a few, but do not expect your site to rank highly on them. Remember to:

Tailor keywords to mirror the content of your pages
Limit your list of keywords to 1000 characters, including commas and spaces, and put them roughly in order of importance, starting with the most relevant first
Refrain from repeating any word or any form of a word unless unavoidable, and even then no more than 5 times
Make your company name the first item in the list

Descriptions

In search engine results, a page description will often accompany each listing. Some engines generate this description from the content on the page, but some will use what you provide. Remember to:

Limit yourself to 200 characters including spaces
Include the name of your company preferably as the first word(s) of your description or within the first sentence
Include the most important keywords for your company
Include the most important keywords for a web page
It is not necessary to have complete sentences; leave out any extraneous wording

top