SMACK HAPPY BLOG

Spreading the Word, Part 1: SEO

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| Nicole Hanusek | ,

A friend of mine recently asked for some advice about how to make your site known, particularly if you've just launched. How to get your site into Google search results and in general what to do for search engine optimization.

Spreading the word, part 1: seo 1A friend of mine recently asked for some advice about how to make your site known, particularly if you’ve just launched. How to get your site into Google search results and in general what to do for search engine optimization. I’m going to divide my answer into two blog posts, the first about SEO tips and resources, and the second about reaching out and spreading the word manually.

Think About Keywords

Google provides a useful keyword generator. Use the tool to make sure the right keywords are highlighted throughout your site. Here’s a step-by-step guide on using the tool.

Link Exchange

This is probably the most important (and sometimes most difficult) thing you can do. Look for other web sites that are related to your site and try to exchange links. Or, if they have a blog or forum leave a relevant comment and make sure you link to your site. You can’t just add some gibberish though, leave a thoughtful or helpful comment. Try to answer a question, which will help build your reputation as an expert in your field.

SEO Services

Use a service that evaluates your site and makes recommendations. Here are a few to check out:

Be wary of services that claim to give you links all over the place and claim to guarantee placement in the top of Google searches. Research such services before using them, as they can damage your web site’s image.

Create a Sitemap

Connect to Google Webmasters and create a sitemap.xml file to ensure that all your content is indexed in Google. The tool also offers other useful features, like Site Configuration (crawler access, sitelinks, change of address) and Diagnostics (malware, crawler errors, crawl stats).

Getting Into Google News

First of all, you need to be a news source if you want to appear regularly. Here’s a good article about how to get listed in on a regular basis. If you just want to appear as a news snippet, you might want to write a press release (I’ll talk about that more in Part 2).

More SEO Resources

Lunarpages has put together this great list of SEO links, they include guides, tools and more articles.

Nicole Hanusek

Nicole Hanusek

Nikki Stormborn of the House Smack Happy, First of her Name, the Custom Coded, Queen of the Designs and the First Website, Nichole of the Great List of Typos, Breaker of Rules, and Mother of Puppies.

I've been designing and coding websites since 1998. Yep, that's before the Internet was popular! I currently live in San Francisco, but I started out in Cleveland, OH. In college my major was illustration and one day I was working in the computer lab and my colleague was looking for jobs in our industry. I thought to myself, "I should probably do that too!" So I sent my resume to every place that offered graphic design positions in my area. I interviewed at a web consulting company, and the owner asked me why I wanted the job. I didn't even know what the job was! He hired me anyway, and on the first day, the Art Director handed me a thick book and said, "here, learn HTML." And so I did, and here we are. I'm hooked.

What I like most about building websites is that I get to be creative visually and solve problems. Growing up, I was a huge fan of math and science, so the coding part of the job scratches that logic and trouble-shooting itch. I get to partake in the artsy side and analytical side - the best of both worlds!

My goal is to help make everyone's life easier. By building easy-to-use websites, I can help my clients, as well as their clients.