Rock + Feather Graphic Design

It’s the end of a dark wet winter here in San Francisco. Now that it ’s finally spring for most of us, it’s time to take a look at some signs of rebirth in industries far and wide, namely the website redesign. Last month Kelly explored our work creating Merchant Construction’s revamped identity and a stellar website is a great application of a new identity system.

In a period of economic downturn such as this one, an excellent way to get the most bang for your advertising buck is making good use of your website. One way to make your website the best it can be for your business is SEO.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, the art and science of creating content for your website that is easily scanned by search engines like Google or Yahoo. The exact algorithms these sites use to search and rank are obviously trade secrets, but there are widely accepted methods for optimizing your site for search.

Every time you search Google for a term, it ranks all of the searchable sites and returns to you what they believe is the most relevant to your query. Enter in “how to make a million dollars” and see what comes up. On second thought, don’t. If your business is about green building, or you’re a local merchant of organic produce, you want Google to be able to put you towards the top of the list when someone searches for “organic apples San Francisco.” Good SEO for your site helps push your site towards the top of the results list.

What are some simple ways to ensure your site is given a fair shake in the search engine ranking game?

The basics start here:

• How long have you owned your parking spot? The longer your site has existed, the better it’ll be ranked. Have you owned www.amazingbeetfarm.com for 15 years? This will up your ranking, so pick a good URL and stick with it.
• Are you using keywords in your links, headlines and body copy? Keywords are words and phrases searched by users at sites like Yahoo, Google and Aol.com. If you use descriptive words in your links and body copy, your site will be easier to cache by these search engines. An example of non-descriptive linking: “To find out more about our free estimates click here.  The link, “click here,” doesn’t describe anything about your site. A better choice: “Our free car repair estimates get you back on the road quickly.”
• Pretend you are running a newspaper. The content “above the fold” or visible in the top half of the average screen size is more important than content “below the fold.” Just like in the newspaper trade, the heavy hitting stories that you want people to know about first should be at the top of the page. This “above the fold” content is given more weight in search engines.
• Choose your words wisely. Wanting to be highly ranked is great, but getting a high rank in a generic search term is really hard. For example, a local realtor wants to be the first agency to come up in a search for “San Francisco homes.”  There must be thousands of other sites that want the same thing. A better goal might be a specific neighborhood  and price point in San Francisco homes, like “Potrero Hill homes under $700,000.” Using this phrase a few times on your pages, especially in headlines and links, can help your page ranking.

These suggestions just scratch the surface of SEO strategies. If you are looking to create a website that is optimized for today’s search engine technology, we would to love to speak with you.