Let me expand on the metaphor. Your new girlfriend is your business website, and you can’t wait to start introducing her to everyone - you’re in love. But first, to know whether this relationship is going to make it, you have to get the father’s approval. The father, Google in this metaphor, is an moody, overprotective, ex-Navy Seal who has strict rules and doesn’t want to share them with you. But, without his blessing you’re eventually dead (his blessing being search engine visibility.)

Ok, now that we’ve established the metaphor, how do you impress the dad, get the girl, and live happily ever after? First, learn as many of the rules as you can. Other people have tried, some successful while other failed - so information on what Google likes and doesn’t like is out there. It’s not always clear what information is legit, but with trial and error you can eventually get there. While you are learning the rules, make sure to learn what NOT to do. Especially with Google, what NOT to do is critically important. Like Navy Seal dad, Google will punish you for getting things wrong. Getting black-listed by Google will not help your business.

Once you know what the rules are, be ABSOLUTELY SURE you are playing by them. This isn’t an option, and you have to retool your website - do it. Good search engine visibility is the foundation of your online marketing efforts and if you don’t have good visibility from the beginning, you will have to work harder and spend more than your competitors - and even then it might not help.

Where do you start?
1. URLs and subdomains. Here’s my little trick to see if the URL is Google friendly - if you can easily tell someone over the phone, you are probably ok.
2. Links. Is the navigation for your site buried in javascript (basically invisible to Google?) Do you have a site map, breadcrumb links, and other text and images on your site linking back to you? You should.
3. Tags. Provide meta-tags, image-tags, tag-clouds, proper heading tags…
4. Flash or Ajax. Minimize use on public facing pages. Period.

Starting here will get you to the second date, but to really have a future you have to go above and beyond these basics. Getting Google to favor you is a science, but it’s attainable if you start here and prepare for a long courtship.

Tags: effective_search_engine_optimization, Search Engine Visibility, search_engine_visibility

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 9:31 am and is filed under Search Engine Visibility. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.