Designing a website and then writing content for it can be hard work. Most web content writers take search engine optimization into careful consideration when they write their content. They will utilize keywords, install critical links, and use alt and title tags to promote the phrases that will drive productive traffic to their site. But after doing all of this, how do you know if your efforts are successful?

The answer: Google Analytics. This free software can revolutionize how you look at your website. It is simple to set up and has countless tools to find accurate statistics on web traffic, visitors, clickthrough rates,  and find out where your visitors are coming from. One of the first steps in utilizing Google Analytics is to review the Traffic Sources page. This page will tell you the percentage of visitors that are referred to your website from search engines, direct traffic (actually type in your website to their browser), and other websites. Furthermore, it will provide information on these referring websites so you can decide how you can better utilize them.

Another advanced tool of Google Analytics is their Goal Conversion tool. “Goal conversions are the primary metric for measuring how well your site fulfills business objectives. A goal is a website page which a visitor reaches once they have made a purchase or completed another desired action, such as a registration or download.” Utilizing this goal tool, you can see the conversion rate of your traffic; which tells you whether you are really successful or not. For example, as a web design firm, one of our goals is to have visitors go to our site and review our previous work. However, as a business, this does us no good if they do not contact us. One of the goals I have set up is to analyze the percentage of unique visitors that come to my website that complete our contact form. Google Analytics provides me with these statistics, which is a great way for me to see if visitors are getting to the page I want them to.

These are just a few of the fabulous tools that Google Analytics provides. Best of all…they continue to add and improve on it! Outlook Studios provides a free Google Analytics setup with every website we design because we believe that if you don’t analyze your website, you’ll never know whether you are being successful in search engine optimization.

Our mini series has come to an end. Today I will conclude our 4 Factors that can help with your website optimization. One thing that every web developer runs into is the fact that there is always a broken link on your website somewhere. If you think you have fixed them all there is always one that surprises you during your development process. Is it annoying? Yes. Is it something that can be avoided? Of course, but we do fall for the trap on broken links.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a website with a lot of pages or a website with just a few pages. Having broken links does not help you with your web optimization. It’s one of the most simplistic lessons that any web developer can learn. If there are broken links out there and you don’t find it search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing will find it and it will not help you in getting your website searched accordingly.

Just remember that broken links are a part of web development when getting the pages connected on a website. Many of us can’t avoid it even if you’ve done this for many years. The main thing to remember is to always check your work as much as possible; broken links can be fixed quickly and using tools that can assist you with that is a great way to find the tools. One tool I would recommend is using Google’s Webmaster Tool. This is a great tool to help with broken links and many web developers have used this with their projects. Solutions are out there and the webmaster tool is a good source to have bookmarked on your website.

Continuing with our 4 Factors for good web optimization we didn’t know what topics to showcase next, but we ultimately decided that this was one major factor that needed to be discussed. Relative links are a key factor in getting your website with a good page rank. When it comes to getting recognition for your website getting involved in many different facets is key.

A few examples that Outlook Studios has been able to impose is setting up a twitter account. Getting a facebook page set-up and even getting involved in a few local markets. All of these are relative links that have one way or another a relative link to our website. A few different things that can also factor is getting involved in articles and other peoples blogs that are in relation to what you are working on. It’s a great way of making your website seen and even getting your name out there as well.

Relative links have a much larger effect in getting your site seen and recognized by Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The page rank factor has become more relevant and one of the reasons why that is relative links. Get people to notice your website along with getting them to notice you.

We just finished talking about one of the 4 factors for your website: keywords. Today we are going to be discussing web accessibility. The focus of this topic is for the person visiting your website. One rule I’ve heard before is “if your visitor can’t find what they’re looking for in less than 3 clicks they’ll never return to your website”. This is big because there is always going to be new visitors on your website and you want those visitors to come back again and again.

When it comes to accessibility it is key that you look at your website and check if its easy to navigate. The quicker the client can get to what they are looking for the better their experience is going to be. Getting someone to return to your website is always key and having an opportunity to do that on a first impression is HUGE! One good tip is to have someone in your home or have a friend outside your business check out your website and navigate through it. Getting feedback on your website is going to take you a long way from a successful site.

Don’t be afraid to make your website accessible remember that yes a lot of people visit websites  on a regular basis but there are those who haven’t or don’t use it as regularly as you and me. Become an invisible hand and walk them through the site with their mouse.  The goal is always to have the visitor return to your site.

There are many factors that go into optimizing your website. Some of the most important things that you will need to know will be discussed here today. This is going to be a 4 part article so bare with me. It will all make since when everything is put together at the end of the 5 articles. Please note that all of these factors are in no particular order.

Factor 1: Keywords

Choosing the right keywords is an important step in your web optimization process. If you choose the wrong keywords, you won’t succeed in getting your website found by the search engines.

A few Factors to help optimize your keywords:

• Optimize each page of your website with different keywords or phrases. The reason you do this is because each page that you have on your website talks about something different, your information is not repeated.
• Start with very targeted keywords that make a key phrase, for example “find local parks in Baltimore“. Make sure that the targeted keywords fit with the information you want people to find
• Once you start receiving a top page ranking for your searches simplify your keywords: “parks in Baltimore“.

In general, targeted keywords have a much higher factor than just using a general keywords, i.e. you will get more visitors with “find local parks in Baltimore” than with “parks”.

Also think about the type of visitor that you are looking to attract with a keyword. Are these people interested in getting the information you are providing?