You'll begin to see how easy it is and doesn't take a lot of time to accomplish. Most of it can be done in your spare time. A hour or so a day is all it takes until complete. You'll learn that SEO and maintenance does not need to be done on a daily basis once completed. You'll learn that SEO will take both time & patience. You'll ask yourself the same question we asked ourselves, why would some one pay a ridiculous monthly or yearly fee for something that's not done continuously and they can do themselves? Of course of if you feel you don't have the time or would rather we did it for you that will not be a problem. We charge a one time fee not a continuous monthly or yearly fee. With this in mind, let's get started...
So you've made the move and got a website with all the bells and whistles including SEO (Search Engine Optimization. You're paying anywhere from several hundred dollars to over thousand dollars per month for SEO optimization. The developer tells you that SEO is an ongoing process hence the high price. He may even tell you that the price includes "website maintenance." After a while you're told your business is at the top of the Google search engine. You're told to do a Google search for your business name and who-la! There's your business at the top!
They did their job, right? You're business is exactly where they said it would be. Unfortunately, you fell for the oldest trick in the book. Think about what you did for a moment. What did you type in the search box? What did you expect to see? Google utilizes a GoogleBot that crawls the Internet and finds new websites and indexes them on their search engine. Search engines such as Google make no guarantee your site will even be found unless Basic SEO steps are taken. Once the site is found and indexed it is then listed on the search engine albeit it may not be at or near the top. SEO optimization takes care of that.
Let's get back to the search you did for your business. If the basic SEO was done properly and given ample time to work, after a while, you type the exact name of your business in a Google search box of course it will be at or very near the top. The only way, at this point, that it won't be at the top is if there's another business with that exact name and there website content is more SEO efficient than yours. The problem is users looking for a business like yours don't know the exact name of yours. They will, instead, use keywords and Keyword phrases (also known as Long Tail Keywords) to search for the business. That's where the real SEO optimization comes into play. The Basic SEO elements should be a part of every web page from the start.
The trick is to place keywords, keyword phrases, and meta tag descriptions that a potential customer will use when searching for a business like yours. That along with other key SEO elements is what gets sites ranked at the top of searches. The search engine algorithms read, evaluate, and rank keywords to deliver the most relevant results. It determines the user's intent by analyzing the keywords. When it comes to search engines there are three types of searcher intent: Informational, Transactional, Navigational. These are self explanatory. We will be getting more into keywords a bit later.
First, we'll dive into the website itself. Years ago website development was a tedious task and took weeks to complete. With today's technology and AI, web design has evolved into a relatively quick and easy task. Templates, code generating tools and java script has significantly cut the time frame. Most small sites with no or little product displays can now be completed in, some cases, a day. Sometimes, depending on the size of the site, within hours.
However, even if the developer uses templates, changes must still be made according to the design needed. Obviously, using templates is quicker than starting from scratch. But there's no denying that developers deserve to be paid for their time. Some will charge hourly rates, some will charge according to the size of the site. Some will include extras like several banners but, of course, there are fees for additional banners, etc.
- When should website be redesigned? -
The website should be fully redesigned at least every 2-3 years to keep with SEO standards, technology changes and design trends.
That aside, if you're just starting out in business and are in the market for a website and don't know anything about web design you can be easily taken in. Get the word out that you need a website and suddenly everyone's a web developer. The offers are endless and it's enough to get your head spinning; $199 for this package, $300 for that package, $199 per month for SEO optimization, $99 per year for hosting, the list goes no and on. If you've done research you probably noticed that the prices mentioned are low compared to the some of the prices actually being charged. Then they'll charge other monthly charges for "extras" like hosting services. Are you really getting your money's worth? We'll start with domain & hosting fees...
The domain name is the most important step of a website. It is the address or URL at which your site resides on the Internet. Your site would be homeless without it so to speak. The name is usually the name of your business. If your business name is Jim's cookies then your URL should be jimscookies.com. So when logged onto the hosting companies website you would do a search for jimscookies.com. This will tell you whether that name is indeed available. If not, you will have to choose a different name that is available. You can try jimscookies.net or .bus.
Registering a domain name is quick and easy and, unless you pick what are known as Generic Term Names like beer.com or wine.com, domain names are very inexpensive with shared hosting. Generic Term Names are just that. They are generics for brand names. For example, Beer is a generic for beer brands such as Molson, Coors, etc. These names can be high in demand so there's usually a higher fee for registering, renewing and for hosting service as well.
Most likely your business name won't include a Generic Term Name so you won't need to worry about these high fees. There are also what are known as Premium Domain Extensions. .com is a domain extension. It is a TLD (Top Level Domain). These are inexpensive but a premium extension such as .bus, .fashion, .tip, .design, .online, .store, etc. can be very expensive. Some of these cost about $500,000.00 to acquire and yearly renewal is about $60.00 or more. Registering a domain name using the simple .com extension with shared hosting is one of the least expensive steps of obtaining a website. The cost is usually paid yearly not monthly and is around $16.00, if using shared hosting, depending on which Hosting Company you choose. The hosting is a monthly fee and can be as low as $3.00 per month. The Hosting Company will do both register the name and host it if you choose.
Both the registry and the hosting can be done through a Hosting Company such as Entirely Digital, Name.com, Hostinger, or NameCheap just to name a few. You can do a search of your own for a complete list. Once on their site you'll be able to search for the domain name you wish to use and will have the option of registering it as well as purchase hosting for it. If the web design company you wish to use charges hundreds of dollars per month or year for domain names simply tell them you will acquire it on your own. A legitimate, respectful developer will always tell you up front that you can do that.
The bottom line is do your own homework before making a decission. Check into well known hosting companies like Entirelydigital.com, NameCheap.com, Hostinger.com, or Name.com. Entirely Digital offers both shared hosting and registry for under $100 per year combined. Getting your own domain name and hosting is quick and easy. The sites listed here will walk you through the process in minutes. You will, however, want to add SSL. If you're not sure what that is we'll be discussing it below in SEO Optimization.
There are 5 main types of hosting; Shared, VPS, Dedicated, Cloud, and Managed Word Press. These are colocation servers that are rented out to those who need them. If you don't have your own servers you will need this service. Shared hosting is just that. Your site shares storage with other sites on the same server. This is the most cost worthy choice if you're just starting out and will not have a large site. For more information about the types of hosting and which you should use please click here to read our page about registering and setting up hosting service.
Be leary of extra monthly or yearly fees charged by web developers for domain hosting. It is better for you to get your own hosting service through a well known osting company such as the ones mentioned above. The cost to register a domain name is $16.00 per year through Entirely Digital and the others mentioned should have similar pricing. For shared hosting the cost is $5.49 per month. Entirely Digital is located in Canada so if you're in another country like the USA there's a small International fee that's under a dollar.
The problem is some hosting companies will allow the purchase of as many domains as you want. Allowing a web designer to handle the hosting for you opens the door for them to boost the fee higher than what the hosting company is actually charging. We've found web developers, usually outside the USA, that are handling the hosting service and charging unsuspecting clients an outrageous fee for this service. They will purchase the name then tell you they have their own hosting servers when, in reality, they do not.
This rip-off is easy to spot, however, because the developer will tell you that you cannot have access to the server account. It's for security reasons they will say, because other sites are using their server as well as yours. This is a dead giveaway! No bona fide hosting company will tell you that you cannot have access to your account. In fact, when you setup the service you will setup log in information that only you will have access to. You will also notice all the free perks that come with the hosting servce like busines email setup and site editing software that we will get into later.
There's another reason you should acquire your own hosting company, Most hosting companies have reselling options. Web developers can resell the company's hosting service and make it appear that they are the owners. The developer sells the hosting service as his own brand giving the illusion that he owns the servers. The developer has a master account enabling him to brand his own name using the supplied interface making the true hosting company invisible to clients. This allows the developer to charge any price he wants because the interface will only show his pricing not the prices of the parent company.
Hosting companies like GoDaddy offer reselling options for $89.88 per year and you can resell to unlimited customers. So, a dishonest developer will pay $89.88 per year and charge unsuspecting customers a much higher fee again telling the client that they have their own servers when, in reality, they do not. Some will tell you that the price includes site maintanence & Tech support. We'll be getting into site maintnence later and as for tech support, that comes standard with every hosting account.
As we mention on our page on how to register a domain & setup hosting service, it is possible to use your computer as a server. However, you have to really know what you're doing and your PC must have enough bandwidth, CPU & RAM to accommodate many websites. If your PC malfunctions, sleeps, or shuts down so do the websites. Servers that are used for this purpose can cost as much as $7,000.00 or more for the Data Center edition.
Here's a quick way to checkout who is the actual hosting company for a website. Log onto Whois.com and click on "Whois" in the top navigation bar. On a cell phone click the mobile navigation which is the three horizontal bars at the top right then click on "Whois". This should take you to the Whois Domain Lookup page. Type the web address in the search bar and the result will be the hosting information for that account. Look under the Registrar Information. There you will see the server companies information. You will most likely see their email address for abuse and the abuse phone number. So the question is if a developer tells you they have their own servers but Whois says they're using a server company like one of the ones above, why isn't their site on their server?
Take the time to search for hosting companies and be careful of these outrageous fees. A well known company like the ones listed above is usually your best bet. They are well known for their service and true pricing. The bottom line is domain name registration is renewed yearly and shouldn't cost more than about $20 per year for a .com name with shared hosting. Hosting on a shared server should be under $10 per month and can be as low as $3.00. Do your homework! Watch out for web developers who will tell you your site is on a dedicated server when in reality it is on a shared hosting platform. Get your own hosting company and avoid giving your hard earned money away.
One more thing about shared hosting, as mentioned above using shared hosting can effect load speed thereby causing a drop in SEO rankings. Therefore, if you want your site to be found at or near the top of searches it is best to go with VPS or dedicated servers right from the start. There will be substantial jump in price especially for dedicated because unlike shared hosting you have your own machine and are responsible for the full price.
To learn more about domain hosting and if shared hosting is for you please visit our page on setting up domain service
here.
"Get our SEO services and you will not only rank on the first page of Google but you will have 80,000 visitors per month and 15 new customers daily!"
Did that catch your attention? Of course it did. It would catch anyone's attention that already has a website or is in the market for one. You want your site found and you want results. However, the above "sales pitch" is just that and will not happen to say the least. This cannot be stressed enough, SEO optimization takes time no matter what someone tells you. It doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen in days. It doesn't happen in a week. It doesn't happen in a month. It takes months to get results.
It takes 3-6 months to see measurable results and can take up to a year depending on how competitive your industry is. At first you will start to see momentum then results with clear indicators of progress along the way. However, if a competitor is using the same target keywords and his site content is better optimized his site will rank above yours. Websites must be updated regularly but just how often is "regularly"?
Here's the kicker, if you have a developer do the extra work of SEO for a monthly or yearly fee, ask yourself if you're really getting your money's worth. With today's technology little work needs to be done on the part of the developer when it comes to SEO. If your site was created using Wordpress or Shopify they can institute a plugin known as Yoast. This plugin actually performs most of the SEO optimizations for the developer.
Yoast is a tool that helps optimize sites for search engines like Google. It is like having your own digital guide and gives feedback and tells what action to take to remedy any issues. It tells how well headings, text, and paragraphs were utilized by inputting target keywords and much more. The basic version of Yoast is free. For the premium version it costs $118.00 per year and the AI+ version is about $358.80 Per year. Now you can see why developers are charging at least twice that amount some a much higher fee. If your site was indeed created using Wordpress or Shopify you can get Yoast for yourself. After you've read through this and learn about SEO you will be able to use Yoast to your advantage.
SEO optimization is the most important aspect of any website so we're going to spend some time on this subject. It is incorporated into a site for one main reason.. to get noticed on the web and turn clicks into sales. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a feature every website needs. 93% of today's websites are found through Internet Searches. It is the very reason every business needs a website in today's world of competition. The competition is fierce and everyone is vying for the top of the search engine. You want your site to be found because if it's not you're losing business.
You not only want your site to be found but you also want click troughs that end with a sale. Yes, SEO is an ongoing service. Key elements need to be updated to let search engines know your site is active and relevant. But just how often should changes be made and is it worth the monthly fee or can one do this themselves? You can decide that for yourself after you've read this. There's a lot of explanation here and you may not have the time to read through it all in one sitting but believe me when I say it's well worth the time so let's get into it.
As already mentioned, getting to the top of searches takes time but once there your site will receive approximately 28% to 40% of all clicks. Second place gets 15%-18% and the third gets 10%-11%. So, over 50%-68% of total clicks go to the top 3 combined. So you can see that the lower your site ranks the less chances of getting click throughs. With that in mind, even though we talked a bit about this above, let's start by learning a bit about how search engines work...
Major search engines such as Yahoo, Bing and others have what are known as Index Crawlers. Google uses what is known as a Googlebot. These crawlers discover and index websites automatically by navigating the Internet usually through links. They scan HTML, images, keywords and more and make it searchable by storing the info. in the search engine's index. This in no way guarantees your site will be found or even listed on the search engine. That's where SEO optimization comes into play. Part of Basic SEO is done by adding meta tag descriptions on the page that gives search engines information needed to index your business on the search page as well as using ALT tags for images.
Tens of millions of new web pages are processed every day by search engines like Google. Google themselves maintain a web index containing hundreds of billions of documents. They are, by far, the leading search engine. Links and sitemaps are just two elements that help sites to be discovered and we'll be covering them below. Wanna know if any of your pages have been found? Type the following directly into a search bar: site:yourdomain.com. Replace yourdomain.com with your website URL.
Again, these are just basic SEO elements that should be incorporated into the page at the time of creation otherwise the site is useless. It's just an online document with images and wording. These simple search engine elements are needed but will not guarantee your site will be found at the top of searches unless, as mentioned above, you type in the exact name of your business. In fact, there is only one sure way to get to the top of any search engine quickly like Google and that is to pay for ads such as Google ads. These are Pay Per Click ads that give you the power to set the amount you wish to spend and, depending on the amount spent, will list you near or at the top of searches. You bid on keywords and pay only when a user clicks on your ad. For more information log onto ads.google.com.
Google ads can get very costly but there are other ways, however, that can get your site ranked high on search engines and possibly at the top of the page. But keep in mind, and we can't stress this enough, SEO optimization takes time. It does not happen overnight. It does not happen in a week but can take several months. Patience is a must. It does not matter how many times you make changes to keywords, phrases or perform site maintenance. It will not speed up the time it takes search engine crawlers to find and index your site although there are tricks to hasten the process. In fact, as also mentioned earler, making too many hasty changes too soon will decrease SEO rankings.
The most dangerous change is the URL itself. Changing it without a 301 redirect can cause a site to lose all ranking authority. The same goes for heading tags, keywords, and layout changes. Why would you want to remove or change keywords that are already working? Don't let anyone tell you that by not updating often you're just getting the same "traffic." Isn't that for you to decide? A 301 re-direct is a DNS server side HTTP code that automatically sends users to the new URL. This can be done through your domain hosting service. It also can be done on the client-side of the website by adding a Redirect in the Head section but browsers don't treat it as a good move and is not a good condition for SEO.
We should note that when we talk about ranking at or near the top of a search we're not talking about searching for your exact business name by typing it in the Google search bar. If you opened a Google Business account your site will appear at the top of a search if you type the exact name of your business usually within a month or two or even sooner if it was done correctly. This shouldn't surprise you at all. If you're new to SEO you will most likely have to make changes to your site as Google spits back mistakes it found on your site. For example, you may get an email telling you that your site was not indexed due to a duplicate Canonical Tags. This is a common mistake. It simply means that Google found duplicate tags on two or more pages. This is a simple fix. Make sure every page has it's own Canonical Tag pointing to that page's full URL. We will be getting into Canonical tags later.
As mentioned before but is well worth going over again, in the real world a user will not type your exact business name when searching for a business like yours. They will type keywords and keyword phrases. If Bobby is looking for a place to buy shoes he's not gonna type "Karen's Shoe House" or "karensshoehouse.com" unless he already knows about them and wants to buy directly from them. Until your business becomes known the chances of someone typing your exact URL or business name is zero to none. With that in mind, let's get into the elements that make SEO optimization tick and how you can do it yourself. Next we're gonna go over all the pertinant elements of SEO and site maintenance as well as how and when to make changes. There's a lot to take in and you may have to go over it several times but soon you'll relize just how easy it is to do yourself.
- When should Google business profile and Google ads be updated? -
Your Google Business Profile should be reviewed for updates at least once a month. Check if changes are needed for your business hours, images & videos, offers & events and reviews should be minitored and responded to within 24-48 hours. Google ads should be avaluated every 1-2 weeks. Ad keywords should be reviewed 1-3 times per week for acounts accumulating high business.
First, before you can upload your site, you'll need to verify your site ownership. Follow these steps to upload to Google. Log onto Google Search Console and sign in with your Google account. Click on Add Property then enter your website's full URL. Choose a verification method to prove ownership. Click on Sitemaps on the left side of the search console dashboard and enter your sitemap URL. If you're not sure what a sitemap is we'll be getting into that shortly. We should warn you to make sure the developer has not already uploaded your site to search engines
before you upload it. Uploading a site more than once can trigger duplicate content issues and effect SEO ranking.
IndexNow.org is a great way to submit your URL to search engines like Bing. To submit your URL directly to Bing & Yahoo! Log onto Bing Webmaster Tools here. Don't forget to submit to others like DuckDuckGo as well.
- How often should site be resubmitted to search engines? -
You only need to submit your site one time because once submitted search engine crawlers will automatically revisit your site to update their listings. However, you should resubmit your site after doing any of the following: Publishing new content, structural changes, or after repairing any technical errors.
- How often should Q&A pages be updated? -
Q&A pages should be reviewed and updated monthly. Include new questions that were asked and be sure to keep answers to a maximum of 2-3 short paragraphs.
- How often should sites load speed be checked? -
All the pages should be checked at least once a month. They should be checked immediately after making any changes. Google PageSpeed Insights is a great place to get page speed insights. There you can download the results in PDF.
To do this log onto your website from a computer or if your on a PC now you can do it on this page. Click the Minimize Screen button (button with overlapping squares at the top right of screen). Place the mouse courser at the far right side of screen until the courser changes to a double arrow. Slowly move inward while holding the left mouse button down. The elements on the screen should flow like liquid as you move the screen size in or outward. Notice how the elements on the screen flow like liquid as you change the screen size.
Notice that as the screen gets to a certain size some elements actually disappear. This is done purposely to keep elements like images & text from interfering or bleeding into each other on smaller screens. So when viewed on a mobile device the user may not see some elements but will see them on a larger screen like a PC. Pretty cool, huh? You should check your site's different screen sizes on a PC once it's completed and if something doesn't look right contact your developer. You payed for the site so it should be the way you want it.
- How often should sites be checked for screen compatability? -
Websites should be checked monthly to make sure it continuously flows with any screen size and should be checked immediately after any changes were made. Navigations, fonts, and buttons should be checked annually to make sure they meet any new browsing standards. Google Search Console and Google PagSpeed Insights are great tools to use. They will test for errors and load times especially for mobile and give recommendations.
Link quantity should be limited, however, because too many links will tend to impede search engines in identifying important content. Broken links will cause a drop in search engine rankings so regularly check for and fix broken links (404 errors). Links can usually be found near the top of the page in the <Header> section and in the <Footer> section which is at the bottom of the page. Home, About us, Contact us are clickable links. When clicked they will take you to that particular page or to the anchor on a single-page site. Links can be easily spotted by viewing the source page of any website.
You may be thinking how is this done? Easy! Go into any website and right click anywhere on the page (don't do it on ours because we have disabled the right click). In the window that pops up click on View Page Source. If you're not familiar with HTML you now have your first look at it. You will notice certain tags on the page like <HTML>, <Header>, <Title>, and <Body>. These are known as the web page shell. All the pertinent information is within those tags. The tag with the back slash (/) signifies the closing tag. A tag with a link will look something like this:
<a href="jimscookies.com/contact.html">Contact Us<a/>.
Notice the two <a> tags. The first is the opening tag and the second with the back slash is the closing tag. Inside the first tag (a href) is the actual URL where you will be taken when the link is clicked. Between those tags is the clickable text: Contact Us. Today's website links can be a bit more complex with the new HTML Language (HTML5) & Java Script but you get the general idea.
There's a quick way to find the HTML code for a link. On the web page highlight the clickable text using the left mouse button. Now right click anywhere on the page and click on View Selection Source. There you should see the HTML code for that link. If you want to change that link highlight the HTML code then copy to clipboard (CTRL+C in Windows). Log onto your hosting service. We are using Entirely Digital so we are using their interface to edit. Your hosting service may work similar. Once logged on click on your site then click on Log Into cPanel then click on File Manager. Click on Public_HTML and you should see all your pages (files). Highlight the file that contains the link you want to change and click on Edit at the top of page.
You should now see the HTML source code at the left. You should see a search bar at the top of the page. If not there should be a search icon. Click that to open the search bar. Paste the highlighted code from the clipboard into the search bar. The HTML source code for that link should now be highlighted in the HTML source at the left. You are now ready to make the change. If you want to change the clickable text from "Contact Us" to "Contact Jim" change that text. Then save the work. When you open that page the clickable text for that link will now read "Contact Jim" instead of "Contact Us". Pretty simple, right? Clickable links should not need to be changed unless the URL of the page changes. You may, however, want to change the clickable text part but even that doesn't need to be changed too often. If it describes the link well no change is needed.
If you're not sure how to use the editor from your hosting provider you can dowload the page in question and use a text editor on your Computer. Let's say you wnat to change the Contact Us link to Contact Jim's Cookies. In Windows right click on the file after you've downloaded it and click on Edit in notepad. You should now see the HTML source code for that page. Click on Edit then in the window that pops up ckick on Find. You should now see a Search Bar. Type Contact Us and it will show all the areas with that phrase. Change Contact Us (clickable text between the <a> tags) to Contact Jim. Now Contact Jim will be the new clickable text for that particular link. You may see two links for Contact Us, one will probably be in the <head> section and one in the <footer> section. Don't forget to upload and check the new link text.
- How often should internal links be checked? -
Every 3-6 months you should do a check on links to make sure they are still working properly and take you to the proper destination. However, if you frequently publish content they should be checked monthly. Use the Links report in Google Search Console.
<meta name="description" content="jim's cookies are the best in the west. Our secret recipe has won several baking awards">
The meta name tag describes the element. In this case it's the description. The content tag is what gets used by the search engines and contains the description of the business. If Jim's cookies is shown in a search, the content of that meta tag may be shown as a snippet. 28%-30% of the time Google may create a custom snippet from the description if it deems necessary. So, the content should be descriptive and under 160 characters to increase being used.
If you wish to make a change to this tag or any element within the page it's quite easy to do. As we already mentioned, most hosting companies have CMS (Content Management System) built-in with their services that allows you to edit your pages without downloading it. We use Entirely Digital for our hosting needs but they all should have a similar editing device. Here's how it's done:
Log in and go to your files like we just did above. While servers can be reconfigured to serve any file name as the default home page, The file labeled index is the industry standard. This file usually has the HTML extension but may have a different one depending on your site. It can also be one of these: PHP, XHTML, SHTML, DHTML, ASP, JSP, or XML.
You may see some yellow folders as well with the site files. These folders also contain site files. We want to change the meta description tag on the home page so we want the index page. Click on it to highlight it then click on Edit. The HTML source page should now be open. Notice the numbered lines on the left side. Those will come in very handy. The meta tag we want to change should be easy to find because they are always near the top of the page. To change the description, simply change the phrase between the quotes after the content tag. Be sure not to delete the quotes and don't forget to save the changes. Since the description tag contains keywords it should be checked evey 3-6 months. We'll be getting into how to do that next in the section on keywords.
- How often should meta descriptions be changed? -
Generally speaking, meta descriptions should be audited every 3-6 months or if a page undergoes a significant update or you notice a drop in SEO rankings. Google may rewrite meta descriptions 60&-80% of the time so that the users exact intent is matched. If you notice your description is being changed by Google, it may be a sign that it's time to update the text. Keep your descriptions between 140-160 characters. Tell the user what they will find on the page and why they should click through. And most importantly, add a Call To Action. Example: Learn more about us.
<meta name="keywords" content="cookies, best cookies, best cookies in Los Angeles, best tasting cookies, value priced cookies">
You will see keywords in use when we discuss Title Tag below. Do you remember what you noticed on our home page when you first logged on? In the About Us section you probably noticed at the top it read like this: "Get a website and an education!" That is a keyword phrase and is what search engines look for. For an even better result, that phrase is also in a heading tag which gives it the larger darker headline type font. You'll be learning about <heading> tags and how they help with SEO below. If your site does have keywords in a meta tag and you want to change some or all of them it is done the same way as we did it with the decscription tag above. Meta tag keywords will also be found near the top of the page. Again, don't wate your time on these.
Instead of in the <head> section, keywords should be incorporated into the <body> section between heading tags (h1, h2, h3, etc.) as well as in the <Title> tag which is in the <head> section. Think of keywords or phrases users searching for your business will most likely use in a search engine. For instance, if your company is Bill's Construction Company use a phrase like "Top Rated Construction Company." For local SEO, a phrase like "Top Rated Construction Company in Allentown." Of course the name of your city will be in place of Allentown. With the <heading> tag it would look like this:
<h1>Top Rated Construction Company in Allentown<h1>
Notice the heading tag (h1). This tag can be found in the CSS file. They define HTML headings. Heading tags are supported by all browsers except Opera which is mainly used for gaming. Only one heading tag per page should be implemented. Too many heading tags confuses bots by making it hard to identify important topics. Only the most relevant title should be in a heading tag. This is a must for SEO rankings.
So how does one find the right keywords to use for their business? Well, what better way is there to get relevant keywords then from the search engine that analyzes the most keywords on a daily basis? Log onto ads.google.com. Click the "Sat rt now" button. On the left side click on "Tools." In the window that opens click on "Planning" then "Keyword Planner." Click on "Discover new keywords." In the window that pops up you will type the products or services you provide. Click "Get results." You will see a complete list of relevant keywords that match your business, products, or services.
- How often should keywords be changed? -
Site SEO performance should be checked in 3-6 months to review and refresh keywords. Use Google Search Console to find out which pages are not converting well and update the keywords. Audit all keywords across your site yearly to ensure they are still relevant. If a sudden drop is noticed in SEO ranking, keywords should be updated immediately. Remember where keywords are found? In the meta description (head section), title tag (head section), and heading tags (h1, h2, etc.) (body section).
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
This tag tells search engines to include the page in search results and follow the links on the page. Noindex and nofollow tells the search engine not to include the page and not to follow the links. The robots meta tag is a faster way to get search engines such as Google to index your site. It also is a way of telling the search engine which pages to follow and which ones you don't want listed on the search engine. The nofollow element is also used for non-relative links that you don't want followed.
An example of a non relevant link is the one we used above for Google ads. That link goes to another site and not to one of the pages that's part of our site. If the search engine would follow that link it would become confused and that would cause a drop in SEO ranking. So, to accommodate for that we tell the robot not to follow that link in the HTML code like this:
ads.google.com
There may be pages that are a part of your site but you don't want them found and indexed by search engines. For example, a thank you page that users are taken to after they submit a form. This page does not need to be found in searches so the robot tag takes care of that. You would simply code the robot tag in the <head> section of that page to noindex, nofollow. Now that page will not be indexed or found in searches. The robot tag should not need to be changed once set.
- How often should robot tags be changed? -
This page should only be changed depending on whether or not you want the page indexed or followed or not. This goes for links as well. They're either relevant or not relevant.
<link rel="canonical" href="http://jimscookies.com/contact">
If you change a pages URL address remember to change the address in the Canonical tag for that page as well. Check the <head> section of your site for this tag on every page. Let your developer know if one is missing. The new URL will also need to be changed in the sitemap which we will be getting into later.
- How often should canonical tags be changed? -
Once set, the canonical tag should not need to be changed unless the URL changes for that page. The canonical tag should be added to the new page with the URL pointing to that pages exact URL Address.
<title>Best cookies in CA - Jim's cookies</title>
This is where keywords come into play once again. Notice the keywords used in the title: "Best cookies in CA." Keywords can be single words or phrases. In fact, a crucial SEO strategy is using phrases also known as Long-Tail Keywords. They target specific user intent making them more effective than single words and increases conversion rates. The title may be changed by Google so it's more relevant to a users search query. The way to avoid titles from being cut off with an ellipsis (...) is to keep them between 50-60 characters or less.
Besides appearing in searches, the title also appears on the browser tab. This is the tab at the very top left of the page just above the URL window. It also appears as the default title when sharing a link on social media.
The Title tag should be easy to find and change as it is in the <Head> section as well. Remember, if the title is performing well in searches leave it as is. Make a check every 3-6 months and change if necessary.
- How often should title tags be changed? -
Though there is no set schedule for changing title tags, they can be checked according to performance or when the page's topic, product, or service changes. To ensure keywords are in line with the latest search trends, high-traffic pages should be reviewed more often. Maybe every 3-4 months.
Now that we covered the head section let's get to the heart of the page. This is the main section of the page and is the elements between the <Body> tags. This is the engine of the site. It is where the design of the site comes into play. It is what the viewer sees when the page is opened. There are aspects of the body that need attention for SEO purposes. If a site was done correctly with SEO in mind you should see the tags we're about to discuss within the <Body> section of the page source. But first we'll talk about the HTML code next.
- How often should HTML structure be checked? -
Generally, the HTML structure should audited every 2-3 years. However, it should also be checked as standards change or changes are made to the page like adding new features. Modern HTML is prioritized by search engines like Google. Updating tags allows crawlers to better understand the content within the page. For example, instead of using <div> tags use &l;article>, <nav>, and <header> tags where necessary. Let's say your page contains an article you wrote. The article should be between the <article> tags.
<img src="images/jimscookies.jpg" alt="A great chocolate cookie">
The ALT tag simply describes the image. The image being jimscookies.jpg. The img source tag tells you the name of the image. In this case the name of the image is jimscookies.jpg. It also tells you where the image can be found on the server. In this case it is located in a folder named images. The keyword phrase in the ALT tag describes the image. As you can see, you can get cute when using these types of descriptions. Use well rounded descriptions. Don't say things like a picture of Jim's cookies. This may seem like a small detail but it does play a roll when it comes to SEO Optimization. So don't take it lightly. Besides SEO ranking, ALT tags play another roll. If the image fails to load on the page for whatever reason, the ALT text will be in it's place. However, if this should be the case you'll want to fix the image. Not doing so will result in search engines considering it to be a broken image and will effect rankings.
Because CSS is unforgiving, images should be changed with great caution. However, the descriptive phrase within the ALT tag can be changed without worry. Just remember to keep it between 50-60 characters or less. Changing the image itself is not hard to do. But how do you locate the image tag through all the HTML code. Here's how. Open the page of interest in your browser. Locate the image you wish to change and right click on it. Click on "Copy Image Link". You can either use your hosting services CMS as we did above or a text editor. If using the hosting service and you are in the edit section with the HTML source click on the search icon. Paste the Image link in the search bar and click on Search. The image tag should now be highlighted in the HTML code at the left.
If your host provider does not allow editing or you're not sure how to us it you can edit the code using a text editor or notepad. Simply download the page in question and save it in Documents. Right click on it and click on Edit In Notepad/Text Editor. You should now see the HTML code. At the top click on Edit then click on Find. Paste the Image Link and click the search button or icon. The code should highlighted and ready to change. Change the image name to the new image. For example, if the name of the new image is chocolate.jpg, you would change jimscookies.jpg to chocolate.jpg.
Now that you made the necessary change you'll need to upload the new image to the server. Log into your hosting service like we did above. You want to upload the new image in the same directory as the image you're replacing. Images are usually located in a folder labeled "images". Open the folder and you should see the all the images for your site. You should see the image you want to replace there. Click on "Upload". Click "Select File." Locate the file and upload it. Again, don't forget to change the name of the old image to the name of the new image in the HTML code. If everything was done correctly you should see the new image when you open the page. Note: The image folder may be located inside another folder and you may have to check each folder there to find it.
A strong word of caution. We've talked about CSS and you know how particular it is. So if changing the image make sure you use an image that is the same dimensions as the original. To find out the size of an image save it to your documents. Then right click on it and click on Properties then click Details. You should see the image dimensions. If the new image you wish to use is not the same size and you don't have an image program to resize it you can use iCloud to resize it.
- How often should ALT tags be changed? -
This tag should not need to be changed unless the image was replaced or the image content changes. If the ALT tag is describing the image properly why change it?
<style>
h9 {
display: inline
font-size: 16px
font-weight: 600
line-height: 2px
}
</style>
The h9 heading Style is then used inside the <Body> section and the text between the opening and closing tags will display the result. It will look like this:
<h9>This text is using the h9 heading Tag</h9>
Headings simply allow for one tag in the HTML code instead of several making the code much smaller and cleaner. This may seem like a small detail but when it comes to SEO every little bit helps. Remember, long, messy code makes for search engine headaches! Note: if you are using a web developer to create your site make sure you ask for all the files. When you paid for the development of your site that includes all the files. One of the files should be a CSS file. That file has the style sheet within that contains the codes that makes the site dance so to speak. You will most likely find a style code like the one above for the different heading tags. If you wish to change the text itself within the heading tags that should not be a problem.
However, if you want to change the text style you will need to change that in the CSS file. We will get into that another day. But just to give you a quick lesson, take a look at the Style code above. Display: inline formats the element to flow within the current line of text. Font-size is the size of the text. Font-weight is the boldness of the text. The higher the number the bolder the text. Line-height tells the text how much space to place between the next lines.
- How often should heading tags be changed? -
A web page should contain only one heading tag. These tags should not need change unless the content is outdated or search trends change.
- How often should infographics be updated? -
It depends on the business topics that you are illustrating. Statistics and market conditions will generally determine when updates are needed.
- How often should semantic tags be changed? -
Semantic tags do not need to be changed unless they are flagged for poor accessibility or are being misinterpreted by search engines. Google PageSpeed Insights will give you a breakdown if any problems are found.
- How often should call to action be updated? -
If your conversion rates are low it may be time to audit the call to action. Take a look at the wording or offer and change accordingly.
- How often should contact forms be updated? -
Every 3-6 months contact forms should be checked for spam protection and conversion rates. However, field tests should be performed more often. Every 6-12 months remove any fields that are no longer required or add additional fields that are needed.
- How often should contact information be updated? -
This is self explanatory. Whenever important contact info. changes like address, phone number, etc. it should immediately be changed on the website.
- How often should my site be checked on Google Search Console? -
For performance trends you should check your site monthly. However, if you're continuously publishing new content, add a new site, or are experiencing indexing issues you should use Google Search Console once a week. Optimize existing pages by analyzing which search queries are driving traffic. Google will also email you if there are any issues that require immediate attention.
- How often should keywords be changed? -
We coverd this in the keywords section above. To review, scroll back up to keywords.
- How often should Google reviews be checked? -
The answer is obvious. Reviews should be checked every day and a prompt response is crucial whether the review is good or poor. The best way to improve local search rankings is to respond promptly to all reviews. It not only helps convert prospective customers but also signals to Google that your business is active.
A few other sites worth checking into are Semrush Traffic Checker, Similarweb, and SpyFu.
All the tag elements sown above are essential to any website. They all play a roll in SEO rankings and can be easily maintained by you through the hosting company's CMS (Content Management System) or using notepad. Like the page source you may have viewed earlier that showed the HTML, CMS will show that and allow you to make changes without downloading the page. Once you've done this a few times you will realize just how easy it is. Remember that although it doesn't take long for Search Engines to find your site it does take some time to get ranked. Usually 3-6 months.
So don't jump too quickly to make sudden changes. If your site is not ranking within that time frame, changes may need to be made. Obviously, if you make changes to images you'll most likely want to change the ALT tag as well. Remember to focus on underperformed content. However, if you're a company that offers new products or services that change often or you notice a 30% drop in traffic for specific pages then obviously an immediate update is needed. Once your site is ranked, check it every 3-6 months and make the necessary changes if needed. Now let's take a look at what are known as off page SEO optimizations.
Log onto any website then take a look at the URL window at the top left of the screen. If you see something like this: https://www.spidergraphicdesigns.com That means the site has SSL and is a locked, secured site. A site that does not have SSL will look like this: http://www.spidergraphicdesigns.com. Notice that the difference is the letter S in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Search engines favor SSL and will rank sites using it higher than ones who do not. SSL can be purchased at the time you purchase your domain name and will cost about $30 more per year.
- How often should SSL be checked? -
You will notice the https as part of the URL address everytime you log onto your site and will see the padlock. This tells you your site is secure.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://www.mypage.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2026-05-10</lastmod>
<changefreq>daily</changefreq>
<priority>1.0</priority>
</url>
<url>
<loc>https://www.mysecondpage.com</loc>
<lastmod>2026-04-01</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
<priority>0.8</priority>
</url>
</urlset>
Each separate page URL of the site must be listed as shown above. Anchors however, should not be listed in the sitemapAnchored links are links that when clicked will take you to an area within the same page instead of a different page. When finished save the file as sitemap.xml and upload to the root file of the site. Notice that the ranking for the home page's <priority> is set to 1.0 and the second page is set to 0.8. The home or landing page should always have a higher number then the others.
- How often should the sitemap be changed? -
Each time you make any changes on a page you need to change the date inside the <lastmod> tag. This will tell search engines that a change was made and that page needs to be re-indexed. If you add a page or change an existing URL the new URL needs to added to the sitemap. The sitemap above has a <changefreq> tag. That tells search engines that that particular page is changed monthly and, therefore, the search engine will re-crawl that page every month.
- How often should social bookmarkings be updated? -
This does not require any updates. Start a schedule when publishing and space them to about 3-4 times a week to avoid spam triggers. Consistent bookmarking helps your brand get discovered quicker by search engines.
A dateline which includes the city, state, and the release date.
The introduction or lead paragraph is the most important section. It should contain the "who, what, when, where, and why" in no more than two sentences.
The body contains direct quotes from executives and the boilerplate's a short "about us" paragraph.
Next is the media contact. This is the name, email, and phone number of the person handling press inquiries.
And last is the call to action. This is simply a link to the website.
Your release can be submitted directly to local news rooms or journalists in the industry or you can use distribution services that will do it for you like PR Newswire or PressRelease.com.
- How often should I give a press release? -
While Press releases help SEO in an indirect way they are not essential. Most small businesses do without this and it really doesn't play a roll in rankings. However, extremely large companies and ecommerce with thousands of products find this helpful.
- How often should I write a blog? -
When it comes to SEO, a blog with helpful content written 1-2 times a week accelerates traffic growth. Keep in mind that updating older blogs is just as crucial as publishing new ones according to Orbit Media.
Backlinks are not to be taken lightly. Meaning you want relevant links from large well known companies. For example, if you own a dog grooming company you don't want backlinks from another unknown dog grooming company. You want a well known company like Petco for example. You simply find out who is linking to them and reach out to those same sources. Getting links from such sources will not only rank your site higher in searches but will also result in more customers who log onto the company's site linking back to yours through the backlink.
One way to get backlinks is through a free service known as ahrefs free backlink checker. Check them out here. You simply type the URL of one of your competitors sites and the result will show you a list of sites with backlinks. Go into those sites and get the email address then send out an email to them politely asking them to backlink to your site. In return, tell them you will do the same for them. Chances are since they've already backlinked to other sites they will have no problem backlinking to yours as well. Be courteous when contacting them. Let them know that you would like to link to their site and in return you would appreciate it if they would do the same for your site. Tell them why you believe a link to your site would be beneficial to their business. If the email address is not shown use the form or better yet a personal phone call.
Other sites like SemRush or Ubersuggest also generate backlinks. Keep in mind that their services are not free. Semrush charges a monthly fee of $199.95 for this service. However, you do get 10 free requests before you have to start paying so use them wisely. Ubersuggest has plans starting at $49 per month. Here's how to find backlinks using Semrush. For this purpose we'll use pet grooming. Log onto semrush.com. In the left window click on SEO then in the window that opens click on Backlinks. Now click the Backlinks tab at the top. In the type in box that opens type a competitors website. Since we're working with pet grooming we want to look for well known companies so type in PetCo.com. You will see clickable links on the left for websites that have backlinks
You don't need to get a bunch of backlinks overnight. A few high quality, relevant links per month will suffice. Another proven way to get relevant backlinks is by reviewing the tools you already use if any. Offer to write testimonials for software or products you currently use for your business. Many companies will include a backlink to your site on the reviews page for that product.
- How often should backlinks be updated? -
Backlinks should be checked every 2-6 months for broken links because businesses change, web pages change, URL's change. You also want to remove any sites with spam. These things occur at times and need to be checked. Remember that you cannot have too many backlinks so keep getting new ones daily.
The <title> tag, found in the <head> section, should include the locality of your business. Example:
<title>Emergency Electrician in Myrtle Beach, SC | John's Electric</title>
The meta description tag, also found in the <head> section, should have your main keywords and a clear call-to-action. Remember to keep the length between 15-160 characters. It should look something like this:
<meta name="description" content="Award winning Electrician available in Los Angeles 24/7. For fast service and a free estimate contact John's Electrical." />
The same should be done for the Open Graph tags. Schema Markup should also be used for Local SEO. We'll be getting into that next.
- How often should local SEO be updated? -
Local SEO should be updated following the same protocol as World Wide SEO.
Schema markup plays a roll in displaying product prices, inventory, and reviews directly in the search. For local businesses it highlights your business address, phone, and business hours. It identifies the publisher as well as the Aurthur and date of blogs and adds answers to Q&A's directly below your search result link. This is all beneficiary for SEO rankings. The most highly recommended format used is JSON-LD. It is simply a block of code placed in the <head> or <body> section of the page.
To generate the code needed go to Shema.org. Lets say you have a restaraunt. Click on Schemas at the top of page. Scroll down to Place, LocalBusiness, Restaurant ... and click on it. You will see a lot of info. that we won't get into here. Just scroll down the page near the bottom and you will see Examples. Under Example 1 click on JSON-LD. Copy & paste that code into the <head> or <body> section of the web page, make the necessary changes to the script like the business address, business hours, phone number, etc. You will easily spot these in the script. You will notice other examples that you can use if you wish. That's it! It's that easy!
- How often should schema markup be updated? -
The only time this should need updating is if there were changes made to the element it represents. For example, if the business hours change you'll want to change the schema markup's business hours.
No one can guarantee your site will be found at the top of any search engine no matter how much you pay them unless there is no other business like yours and in today's world it's almost impossible. So, do those high monthly fees charged by so called SEO experts really help? As already mentioned, SEO Optimization takes time. It does not happen overnight. Whether you pay someone $99 per month or someone else $700 per month for SEO Optimization, it will not rank your site any faster than if you simply took the necessary steps yourself. It's much easier than you think and the only cost to rank at the top is to pay for ads such as Google Ads or using third party sites to acquire backlinks. You control the cost of the ads. Keep in mind that the more you pay per click the more your site will display so it can get a bit pricey. We've mentioned the other ways to improve your ranking and doing it yourself won't cost you a single penny.
Did you know that word of mouth recommendations outperforms any other type of advertising? People are more likely to follow up after hearing recommendations from friends and family. Online reviews is a great way to accomplish word of mouth so don't forget about this important feature. Your website should be included in all your adds and business cards.
AI will soon play a huge roll in SEO. AI (Artificial Intelligence) will change the way people navigate the Internet and can impact the sites ranking on search engines. Tactics used in AI will display search results on platforms such as Google, Gemini, and Perplexity and will make the site visible in AI chat responses. AIO is incorporated into the website language, like HTML. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) will also paly a huge roll in AI search engines. GEO will play a part in optimizing brand content to be shown in responses from AI search engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
We've gone over all the facts about SEO. Remember, your site will not be found at or even near the top of any search engine over night. It takes time and patience. Put in the work shown here and it will payoff in the long run. Give your site time to be found, indexed, and listed. Once listed, wait 3-6 months then you can decide whether changes are needed to rank better. Remember to be patient and not make too many hasty changes at once or too often. The choice is now yours. Pay someone monthly or yearly fees to have it done for you or do it yourself. You've taken a lot in here. But don't worry. We'll walk you through it step-by-step.
So, do larger sites fair better whe it comes to SEO Optimization? Yes & no. More pages do mean more opportunities to rank due to different keywords but if the pages have low-value content it may be viewed as spam by Google. Remember that cuttered, bloated pages take longer to load. Every page should simply provide unique, valuable information.
Search engine bots eventually find updates through normal crawling. For that reason it is not necessary to submit changed pages unless you want Google to find the updates immediately. This is usually done for critical updates such as new prices or fresh content. To do this log onto Google Search Console, At the top of the page paste the URL of the updated page into the URL Inspection search bar. Click on Request Indexing.
Site maintenance and SEO go hand-in-hand. When updating SEO you are doing site maintanence. Most hosting companies have built-in CMS (Content Management System). CMS allows you to make any changes needed to your site. You can change images, paragraphs, add to paragraphs, etc. A word of caution though, most sites today use CSS and it is very demanding. If you change the wrong thing on a page or make too big of a change it can make the entire page look different. In fact, it can make the page seem to not appear at all. So, if replacing an image make certain that the new image is the same size as the previous. The developer that did your site should have given you the files. If not, get them from them. Their your files, you paid for them. That way if you should change something that changed the page or accidentally deleted something you can always upload the original file.
As we mentioned earlier, most of today's hosting companies have an editor that allows you to change HTML codes as needed. The meta tags we described in the SEO Optimization Prices section can be easily changed using this feature or downloading the file and using a text editor. While they shouldn't have to be changed very often (should be checked every 3-6 months), they should be changed in keeping with site changes. For example, if you change an image you may want to also change the ALT tag to better describe the new image. In the same way, you may want to change the title to keep up with the product or products. When doing this make sure not remove the double quotes. Doing so will render the element useless in searches. You already know not to make changes more often then needed.
As mentioned above in SEO optimization changes should be not made hastily. However, at times you may want to change things like the color or size of text, the boldness of text, or the type of font. This is easier said then done. Today's websites use an outside style file known as CSS (Cascading Style Sheet). This file contains the language used to describe text and other objects on the HTML page. So, to change the text you would have to access the CSS file. Finding the name of the file is easy. It is called to the page from the <head> section and will look something like this:
<link href="assets/css/myfile.css" rel="stylesheet">
That tells you that the file named myfile.css is linked to the page so it can be called and used. It also tells us where the file is located. In this case we need to open the assets folder then open the css folder on the hosting server. You will then see the css file labeled myfile.css. In this file is where you'll find the selector that describes the text in question. We will get into css files and how to find and change elements inside the selectors another day. For now, if you're not familiar with css don't try to change anything.
Site maintenance simply means keeping the site with the times. Checking the
The bottom line is this, If your not savvy or don't know anything about designing websites you will need a developer to do it for you. Pay for the design but not for the extra ridiculous fees. You now know how to acquire a domain and hosting without the middle man. We walk you through maintaining the site as well as SEO optimization. Once you learn, you'll realize just how easy it really is.
Remember that you can have the best looking site in the world but it won't do you any good if it's not found by pertinent prospects. Use the right tools and know who want to market to. Define your ideal customer. Remember the old adage:
"If you're marketing to everybody you're marketing to nobody."
If your head is spinning right now from all you took in don't worry. We'll walk you through the process step-by-step and you'll be a pro in no time! Get started today.
Call or text us at: 484-538-8958, email us at: info@spidergraphicdesigns.com or use the handy form.
