Deliberately Methodical

Note: For those of you who understand cars but not that much about websites and SEO, this post is for you. For those that do understand SEO to an extent, there are some resources at the bottom for you.

Take a look at this car:

Initial reactions/assumptions:

• Clean
• Maintained
• Well taken care of

Now look at this car:

Yes, it’s the same car. There’s no interior or engine… The car starts and drives, but it sputters around and isn’t really put together all that well.

Here’s my point — you can have a car that looks amazing with a brand new paint job and all the right fixin’s, but if the guts aren’t up to par, you’re going to be driving down the highway at 40 MPH.

Now think of the internet as a highway – the information super highway – and your website is the car racing down it.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your site is or how many features it has or how many modules you have installed. If the guts don’t do what they’re supposed to, you’re going to be stuck in 2^nd gear.

Think of an add-on/feature/module/widget as an aftermarket part on a car. You can have dozens of them and they all do neat tricks and intrigue passer-byers. But add enough of them and your webiste starts looking like this:

You’ve got your massive spoiler, widebody modification, and Z rated tires to help you achieve the optimimum aerodynamic downforce and stability at 200+ MPH.

But under the hood you have a standard 4 cylinder SOHC engine with a dirty air filter, knocking valves, and standard oil leaking from from the engine gaskets. How fast is that going to get you?

It is crucial that the website guts are up to par with the rest of the modifications. It is only the simultaneous optimization of these elements that will ensure optimum performance.

How the guts of your site affect SEO

Any car enthusiast will tell you to fix everything that is wrong with the car before you start modifying it. All the add-ons in the world will not make the guts perform any better.

Most people don’t understand much about cars and only see the exterior. They don’t know what to look for when they pop the hood. But when someone that knows what they’re doing (mechanics, dealers, etc.) look at a car, there are distinctive characteristics that they know to look for that will tell them more about a car in 10 seconds than if an inexperienced individual were look over it for 10 minutes.

Search engines are mechanics. While everyone else only sees the shiny exterior, search engine spiders will get their hands dirty by pulling apart your website piece by piece. Search engine algorithms are evolving daily and technology has become advanced enough that search engines can dissect a site at speeds and levels lightyears beyond humans.

What this means is that your site has to be architecturally sound before you start spending money on all the additional widgets and features. The database interaction and code architecture must be stable and functioning at optimal performance. There can be no broken links or images. The servers where you host your site should be up to date with the latest technology and the fastest and redudant throughput connections.

Initial SEO Steps – Tools and Resources

Here’s a quick overview and what I recommend as being the very first steps of SEO – web development optimization and the free tools that correspond to each:

Please Note: as with any automated tool, there may be errors in each of the below resources, but remember that these are only guidelines to help steer you in the right direction. Take the results of these tools with a grain of salt and be sure to consult with a professional.

• No errors in HTML validation
  • http://validator.w3.org/
• No errors in CSS validation
  • http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
• 301 redirects set up
  • Either www or no-www, pick one, otherwise search engines might see it as different sites/duplicate content
  • http://www.isitebuild.com/301-redirect.htm
• Page file size no more than 150 KB=153,600 bytes (before images, CSS and other attachments)
  • http://webpositionadvisor.com/tools/page_size_cheker.php
• No more than 100 unique links per page & no broken links
  • http://validator.w3.org/checklink
• No more than 4 levels deep in URL
  • Bad Example: http://www.sample.com/topic/subtopic/local/sublocal/danny/car/
  • Good Example:http://www.sample.com/topic/danny/car/
• Robots.txt set up
  • http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=40360
• No duplicate content
  • http://www.copyscape.com/
• HTTP headers
  • http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers.asp

These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what SEO is all about. After the above page architecture and foundation has been established, think of SEO like this — you now have a Ferrari of a website, but it’s sitting in your driveway – who’s going to see your beautiful car?

The rest of SEO takes your ferrari out of your driveway:

And puts it front of the people that actually care to see it (your target audience):

Let me know if you have any questions and good luck with your site!