Mark Jackson, CEO of VIZION Interactive
- Research which words matter to your TARGET audience, talk to them
- Find out how often those words are searched, use WordTracker, Keyword Discovery
- Do a competitive analysis (Know who you are)
- Don't target the most competitive keywords
Avoid images or javaScripts, and allow space for content. Use images reasonably and include "alt" and "title" tags. Static URL are preferred, so avoid ?,=,& in URL strings. Use opportunities for internal linking. Add a blog
Lyndsay Walker, WesJet/Lyndseo
- Avoid Flash - use HTML, JavaScript, StyleSheets (CSS)
- Images vs.Text - pull off images you don't need
- Use your stats - take a look what browsers your audience is using, where are they going from your site
- Design for browsers - test and design everything in Firefox (tweak for Internet Explorer)
- Landing pages are the key - focus on ranking of landing pages
Must have: Title tag (unique on every page), description tag, header tags, strong code-to-content ratio, external JavaScript and CSS, DIVs vs Tables.
Paul Bruemmer, Red Door Interactive
Organic site structure
1. Server configuration: Include robots.txt, redirect codes, 404 error pages, internal broken links, canonical duplicate content, dedicated IP address, Alias URLs
2. Website Architecture: Pay attention to your inclusion ratio, directory structure and naming conventions, internal linking structure, dynamic and persistent URLs, site map, and have a privacy statement
3. Content Generation: Take a look at your competition. Offer video, images, user generated content, press releases, industry news, white papers, blog posts, product reviews, statistics, tutorials. Promote your content (blogs, forums,..)
