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SEO Your Existing Website

SEO Your Existing Website

2008-09-22

In all of this “technology for property management” information the underlying theme is to more efficiently use what you already have. Most every company has a website. You can use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get more visitors to it. This can result in more awareness of your brand and properties.

Before spending a dime, consider the following free steps. Your current webmaster should be able to do these for you. If not, contact CAPM and we’ll help you.

  • Meta Tags. In the <head> section of each webpage, make sure that you have the following tags.
    • <meta name=”description” content=”…”> tag gives you about 25 words to describe that page. Include your company name, phone number, and 5-word summary first. Sometimes only the first sentence is displayed on search results.
    • <meta name=”keywords” content=”…”> tag is where to put words and phrases, separated by commas, that pertain to that page. Use only relevant keywords so that search engines do not think you are doing keyword stuffing.
  • Readable text. Pay close attention to the first 200 words of readable text in each webpage. Search engines try to figure out what is most germane to human readers. Since most people only skim the top of the first page they arrive at, this is the most important text.
  • Text menus. Flashy Flash and JavaScript menus may be neat to look at but they do not provide information to search engines about what they represent.
  • Alternate text. Every image should include an alt attribute. Search Engines will read this to understand what the image is and will consider this when rating your page. Use the alt attribute on every image, even those use to hold space; <img src=”spacer.gif” alt=”CAPM LLC is the nexus of technology and property management”>.
  • Footer text. Put more than copyright claims in the footer of each webpage. Add text links to pertinent areas of your website. A great example is available at spaceLister.com.
  • Clean URLs. Search engines make sense of a site using its URL and spider only a few variables in it. Both http://capmllc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88 and http://capmllc.com/knowledge/technology/seo-your-existing-website.html will get you to what you are reading right now, but the latter makes more sense.
  • Wikipedia. Go ahead and write a page about your company. Make it more informative than advertorial. Link it to other Wikipedia pages and alter other pages to link to your entry. SpaceLister.com’s entry on Wikipedia makes them appear established though they are a fledgling company.
  • Blog. Chances are that you found this webpage through a search engine or through OAMS blog, which you also probably found through a search engine.
  • Links. Link to websites relevant to you and your product. Have relevant links from those destinations back to you.
  • SiteMap. Create a SiteMap to present your website to search engines. Type in http://capmllc.com/sitemap.xml to see what CAPM’s looks like. Go to Google Webmaster Tools to submit it to Google.
  • Google Analtics. Go to Google Analytics to add tracking code to each webpage. You will see how people come to them and can tweak the above suggestions to improve your presence.

There are dozens more free tricks, but this should get you started.
Contact CAPM if you want any more ideas.

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