stuartmckiernan.com.au

Google, Yahoo & Microsoft all have tools for monitoring the state of your website and the success of your SEO program.

It is worth registering with all 3 for the website tools alone but we will also use the accounts we create with these vendors for other SEO activites down the track. For now, let's create some accounts and look at what the tools provide...

Google:

1. Create a Gmail account here
2. Once created, click on the button that takes you to your account
3. If you're unfamiliar with gmail, you are now in the gmail window. On the left-hand menu you will notice an icon called Buzz - this is a social media application, that's halfway between twitter and blogging, that will gain traction soon - it's also one of the tools we'll be using later on to create content that links back to your website but let's move on.
4. Along the top left menu you should have an option for "Reader". Click on that and Google Reader will be added to your newly created google account.
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and navigate to "Google Home"
6. Once the Google Search page comes up, click on "Settings" in the Top Left corner and Choose "Google Account Settings" and you will be taken to your Google Account Home Page - Bookmark this page for future use.
7. Under "Profile" in the Top Right, There's an option to Create a Profile. Click on this and you have a few options. The most important at this stage is adding custom links to your profile. Here you can link to your website freely and easily.
8. In your short bio above custom links you can talk about your website and again place links back to it. Use these options. Fill in a few other items then hit Save Profile at the bottom of the page. If you haven't filled in enough info, you'll be asked to add more detail.
9. Click on "My Account" in the top right-hand corner and you'll be back at the main account page.  Below the profile section is a list of tools/applications associated with your account and this is where we'll add the ones we need.
10. Click on "Adwords". You'll need to login with your new gmail account so do this and then add your country/time-zone and currency information. Then complete the Adwords account creation process and go back to gmail to confirm your account if required. We're not always going to want to advertise with Adwords but it can be a useful tool for keyword & keyphrase research
11. Navigate to Google Webmaster Tools here.  Bookmark this page, then Login with your gmail account.
12. Click "Add a Site" in the middle of the page (Not "Adding A Site" in the left-hand menu).
13. Type in your Website address and click <continue> then choose "Upload an HTML file"  as your verification method, download the file attached to the page and upload it to the root of your website, come back to this page and click the <Verify> button. The reason we choose this option is because it's the easiest and won't add unnecessary code to your web pages or your dns settings.
14. Next, navigate to Feedburner here - Bookmark it and then navigate to Google Analytics here
15. Click on "Access Analytics", then "Sign-up", Add your website details, agree to the terms and then you will arrive on the tracking code page.
16. In Step 1, The default option is fine for now. Copy the code from Step 2 into notepad, Word, or your text editor and save for future reference. Click Save and Finish and you'l be redirected to the main google analytics page.
17. That's all for google for now - we'll look at each in depth soon.

Now let's create our Yahoo and Microsoft accounts (much quicker I promise..

Does Domain Name Age affect Google Page Ranking (PR)?

Note: This is a slight SEO tangent but worth knowing because it might save you money.

There are two aspects to the time surrounding a Domain:

• How long has it been registered
• How long will it be registered for

Domain Names in Australia are typically registered for 1-2yrs at a time and therefore after the initial 12mths, your name will have been registered for 1yr, and you will need to Re-register in 1yr.

It is debatable whether the length of time you have been registered for or the amount of time you have left will have a significant weighting on your PR. Some say Yes, some say No.

Matt Cutts from Google says it's reasonably low impact and to focus on quality content - I tend to agree however if you domain has been registered for a while, it is unlikely that you are a spammer and therefore you will get some Google PR kudos for being around.

Given that the age of your domain name has a minor, but real, impact on your PR, if you are not ready to put your business online, it is still a good idea to register the name asap and maintain the registration - that way your domain is older when you get around to entering cyberspace.

Content Management Systems (CMS's), are the best way to build and maintain a website.

If the main focus of your site is information, whether text, images or video, you may wish to lean towards a Wordpress site. This can be hosted on Wordpress itself or by downloading the Wordpress Content Management System from Wordpress.org and installing it on your server.

If on the other hand, you wish to sell a service or product I would recommend Joomla as your CMS. You can download the latest version here...

Whichever you go for, It is much easier to create, edit, and update your content and the information about your content (metadata), which search engines weigh up when they review, or index, your site.

Note. SEO Best Practices are independant of your chosen CMS and so the broad ideas I'll be explaining are applicable to every site - however there will be some Joomla-specific methods I will outline for those those owners/site managers who have developed their site on Joomla.

Joomla CMS has various plugins that allow your page addresses to be written in a human-friendly and search-engine friendly (SEF), manner - making a page that once was http://www.yoursite.com.au/index-3.html become http://www.yoursite.com.au/contact_us - a much easier format to realise what a page is about.

Choosing a Website Hosting provider is a mildly important part of your SEO strategy.

Your provider must be reliable and fast. Reliability means your website will be up and running when the search engines look at your site. It needs to be fast because Google recently announced that page loading has been introduced as a factor in your site's ranking. How much speed plays a part is unknown at this stage - not very much I'd say but why sacrifice even the smallest amount of ground if you don't have to.

Domain Names can play a part in your SEO strategy but are not critical to good optimisation.

If you are just starting a business and are in a position to create a business name or change your existing name, then you can (and might as well), complete some keyword research for you business and name your business appropriately. (We'll get to keyword research down the track).

As an example, Chontelle provides a massage therapy service to the Sydney CBD and Eastern Suburbs/Bondi Area yet her business name, Pure Wellbeing, doesn't describe what she actually does - so the rest of her website will need to. It would need to anyway but if folks are searching the web for 'Massage In Bondi', having the domain name massageinbondi.com.au would increase her chances of ranking highly in search engine results.

Apart from having a business and domain name, is a byline - a sentence that describes your business that you may use on business cards, and will use on your website. For Chontelle her Business Name + Byline might be something along the lines of: 

"Pure Wellbeing - Sydney & Bondi Massage Therapies"

We might use 'Sydney & Bondi Massage Therapies' as her byline but will make a decision once keyword research has been completed. 

Welcome to my DIY SEO blog.

I was lucky enough to recently be introduced to Chontelle at Pure Wellbeing (a Bondi Massage Therapy centre), who asked me to do some SEO work on her website. She'd done an excellent job of coding a site for her business but wanted to take it to the next level - generating leads - by ranking higher in search engine results. 

A little bit of research later and it was obvious that neither Chontelle's site nor her local competitor's sites had been optimised for Google/Yahoo/Bing so I thought it might be time to put together a DIY SEO Walkthrough for anyone who was interested in having a go themselves. 

The process is not difficult, just time-consuming so put some a little time into your online business each week by following this walkthrough and hopefully you will start to see results as well.

Cheers, stu

PS. There is no magic or guaranteed formula to get anyone in the number 1 position for any specific search term. There are however, steps you can take to increase your chances of appearing in the top spot and these are what we're about to explore. Even if you don't feel confident in taking on this work yourself, have a scan through it and familiarise yourself with the terminology and the process - you'll be in much better standing with the person you engage to do the work for you...