Instant Review factors of a Website with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Importance

There are millions of websites world wide and the number is increasing day by day with millions. Website reviewing process was started in last decade of previous century. As a marketing and SEO consultant, I have listed a few factors and steps those are being carried out for consulted and getting excellent performance according to our clients.

Instant Review factors of a Website with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Importance

Sadaf Sadiqiue: our only son 2+ Years practicing SEO for web review

Website Review Step 1: On-page factors

1. Search Engine Optimization: "SEO" is the optimization of content within the website, not marketing outside the website. Normally, it is called on-page seo.

2. Google PageRank: PageRank is Google's view of the importance of the page.  Generally, the higher the PageRank the higher the page will show in Search Engine Results.

3. validator.w3.org:  This indicates whether the site meets current Html standards.  Meeting the standards has a positive influence on the SEO of the site.

4. websitegrader: Receive an overall grade 0-100

5. Page Title: It is the #1 keyword area of the page.  The Page Title should be unique for each page, and be keyword rich for the content on that page.

6. Meta Description: Google will cut off anything more than 155(roughly) characters. Try to limit its length to 25-30 words. Also try to use no more than two sentences.  Every page should have a unique Meta Description

7. Perma-links: Perma-links are keywords in the URL of the page.  Keywords in the URL is very important in the SEO of each page.

8. H1, H2, H3 Tags: It is the #2 keyword area of the page.  There should only be one H1 tag on each page.  Try to organize the content of your page by using Heading Titles. To give an idea of how important Heading titles are, think of an H1 Heading Title as being 20 times more important than paragraph text. Think of H2 as being 15 times for important than paragraph text.

9. "Alt" text on image: This is needed to meet Web Standards and for good SEO.  Hover your mouse over images.  If you don't see a small text box displayed, the image does not have Alt text. As "they" say, a picture is worth a 1,000 words, so chose your Alt Text words carefully, and make sure they support the keywords being used to optimize the page.

10. Wiki-izing: When you have a keyword phrase on one page that can be linked to another page.  This improves the SEO for the page you are linking to.  It is important the page you link to is optimized for that phrase that linked to it.

11. Social Networking Icons: This is great for SEO and lets visitors see comments from people other than the owner of the website.

12. Videos Inclusion: Google likes to refer traffic to "Content Rich" pages.  Embedded videos help the page to become Content Rich.  We recommend videos from YouTube.com or Vimeo.com.  Make sure to put keyword phrases in the title or meta description of you videos.

13. Outgoing Links: Too many outgoing links on your website will lower your Google PageRank

14. Flash Websites: 100% flash websites traditionally have extremely poor SEO.  Their content cannot be indexed by Search Engines.  Avoid 100% flash websites, and navigation made from flash.

15. META Keywords: There is no need to add META Keywords to your website.  Google stopped using META Keywords years ago.  Please read this article,  http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html

16. RSS feed subscription: It is better to place RSS subscription button with validate syndication.

Website Review Step-2: Design with SEO

A. Homepage layout Management review: 

Make sure only important information is on the homepage.  This is an index page to content within the site, so don't try to educate visitors, just quickly get them to their area of interested. Keep design simple, not cluttered.  The more content you need to display the less  graphical design you need on the page.

1. Use of homepage slideshow: Takes advantage of multiple messages in a very short period of time.

2. Use of images: Good for visitors and SEO.  Try to use images on all pages of the site.

3. Use of videos: Very good for the SEO of the website.  It's OK to use other peoples videos from youtube.com or vimeo.com, as long as you stand behind the message of the video.  Your website visitor is more interested in learning what you stand for .vs you having to be the person in the video.

B. Content Management Review:

1. Homepage call to action: You must tell your visitors what you want them to do, if you expect them to take action.

2. Secondary page call to action: 

3. Simple Navigation: Keeping all menus at the top of the page is the easiest for visitors to navigate. Try to use sub-menus that stay visible when you are in that section of the site.  If you have a need for many menus, you can use drop down menus.

4. Html website: Html websites are more difficult to maintain because you must go to your Webmaster to post content.  A good Content Management System "CMS" like www.site-ninja.com, allows you to easily add and optimize content. 

5. Crumb Menus: usually under the top level menu.  Used to show the visitor where they are in the site; (i.e. Home --> Services --> Service #1).  Crumb menus should be hyper-linked. Putting keywords in menus helps with SEO.

6. Landing Pages: Every Product and Service should have its own page, which is optimized.

7. Testimonials: Testimonials let your visitors hear other people promote you.  It is very important in the visitors decision to buy from you.  Text Testimonials are good.  Audio Testimonial are even better.

8. Blog: For good SEO results, you should have a blog within the domain of your website.  Product and Service pages are generally static.  It's the blog where search engines look for new content.

9. Opt In Emails: Find ways to collect Emails from your visitors.  Offer them something if they will Opt Into your Email list.  Make sure they know they can Opt Out at anytime.  If the visitor sees you are an authority in an area that benefits them, they will be interested in receiving occasional Emails from you.

10. Futurenowinc: Simple utility to see if you talk about yourself more than you customers

11. Abuse words grader: Utility to see if you abuse certain words

12. Content Rich pages: Google considers a page Content Rich if it has 300 words or more.

13. Footer Content: Google likes to see the following in the footer of all pages of your website, a) Terms b) Privacy c) Sitemap

Website review step-3: Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

SEM is the activity done outside the website, to promote the content within the site, and drive traffic to the site.

1. Introduction review:
The noun, review, means a report on something with the possibility of the writer's opinion (or opinion of a group). If you are to review a website, always know that you are reviewing the website and not the business of the website, although the nature of the business should be mentioned. In this article I explain the paragraphs that are necessary to write when reviewing a website. It is good to know if the website has a database or not. So, it is good for a website to be reviewed by a website designer. Website designer: make sure you do not use terms that are too technical in your review. The review of a website can also be done by an Internet enthusiast. The review is read by the ordinary person.

2. Introduce review:
The introductory paragraph should talk about the purpose of the website. You can always get information for this at the home page of the website. It should be more or less as long as the introduction of this article.

3. Agreement review:
Any decent website has terms of use. You read the terms of use from the website. In this paragraph in your review, you write the pertinent features of the use of the website or the company (organization). All of this should be one or two paragraphs.

4. Presentation of the Web Pages:
Here you say how the web pages present themselves (i.e. styling). You can talk about the layout in non-technical terms. For a good website the layout of all the pages are the same or similar. If there are any illustrative images or videos, you may mention them. You can talk about the overall color. To have a list of colors and their names contact me at, umain30@umain30.com . You can talk about the position of the titles in the pages - not page by page, generalize. Are the titles at the top-middle, top-left, top-right, bold or small? You can say a bit more about the home page here. You can talk about the content of the main pages here. The copyright information and when the site was last modified or published goes into this paragraph, as well. Note: this paragraph can be very subjective. Whatever is the case, you have to talk about the presentation (looks) of the pages in non-technical terms, in this paragraph.

5. Hyperlinks review:
They say the Internet would not exist if it were not for hyperlinks. You talk here about the important hyperlinks - their uses and where they are positioned in the pages - you generalize, you can pay more attention to the home page.

6. How to use the Website:
Use of the site involves the use of hyperlinks and forms. The use of the hyperlinks should have been mentioned in the above paragraph. So in this paragraph you talk about the use of the important Forms, and possibly what links to click to get to the forms. If you know the kind of feedback the user will get from a form you say it - you do not have to talk about confirmation (message sent) feedback unless it is absent. If you know whether it is automatic or manual feedback, you say it. For this paragraph it is good to know whether the site has a database or not. You say what kind of feedback is got from the database; is it stored data or an employee has to reply to a login page or by email. If you know if the reply will come as a web page you say it. If you know if the reply will come as email you say it. If you know when a feedback will come you say it. For this paragraph and the rest of the paragraphs of the review, you can get the information from the site (and nature of site and business) without logging in or contacting a personnel of the site. The aim of a website review is usually to promote a site. However, nothing stops you from writing a review criticizing the site (criticisms will not be assimilated well by the site owner, but nothing stops you from doing so independently).

7. Any Special Feature:
This paragraph is optional. In this paragraph, you talk about any special feature offered by the site. If the site has anything different from other sites, in terms of how the site runs its business or how the site is used, how the site is presented or any special service or good offered, you say it here as a special feature. Some people will prefer to place this paragraph just after the introduction of the review especially if they are reviewing for the Internet. Internet readers usually do not want to read much and many at times they do not read to the bottom of a post or article.

8. Business Success of the Site:
This paragraph is optional. You will hardly be able to know whether the site is doing good business, unless somehow the site owner gives you an account. You will hardly be able to know if the site is a scammer site, unless you are one of their accomplices. However, if you know if they are doing good business, say so here and say how they are doing it; in this case you should be sure of what you are saying. If you know the number of workers they have, you say it here. As I said, this paragraph is optional. However, if the site is the first of its kind and/or if the business is the first of its kind, you say so in this paragraph or in the "Any Special Feature" paragraph above. In this paragraph you say whether the site has competitors in the country of the site and/or all over the world - you can get this information just by searching the Internet. A small site is considered to have at least 1000 visitors a day; however, you may not be able to know this for the site. So, good business starts from 1000 visitors a day. It is not all the visitors who purchase or consume. In my opinion today, it is about one quarter of the visitors who purchase or consume. So, if you are promoting a site, you have to be very tactful with what you say on visitors. If you are not sure, do not say anything on visitors.

Final views from Author:
In the conclusion you talk a bit about all the paragraphs - say one sentence each for each paragraph without copying any sentence from the paragraphs. You may omit some sentences here, if you think they are not important. If you know anything about the site's future, you say so here. The conclusion must have a hyperlink to the website's home page. If the site is a very big site, then you will have to repeat much or all of the above for any sub-site of the site. In reviewing a site, you typically have one paragraph for each point. You can have more paragraphs for each point if you find that necessary; however, one per point is typical. The headings for the paragraphs in the review can be the ones above or similar. You can never be sure if all what you get from a site is true. You can never be sure for how long the site will exist or when the pages and terms of usage will be modified. So it is good to type an agreement or disclaimer at the end of the review like, "This review has been written to the best of my knowledge at the time of writing." The heading should be Agreement or Disclaimer depending on what exactly you write. Remember, in a review you can also type your opinion in paragraphs.