Editors Note: The following "Good Overall Optimization is Key" article is an original search engine optimization article by the Net Performance Group. It is intended to give new webmasters a different view of the website optimization process. We hope you enjoyed this article and find the information useful. If you would like to republish it just leave the following author tag intact

Good overall Optimization is Key

Good overall optimization, the right keyword phrases and quality content play the key roles in the success of any web design project. Link Popularity and Google PageRank are almost secondary for the overall success of a website.

Here is an example. I recently took advantage of a free service offered by a competing SEO firm. It was for a Free Keyword Analysis. Sounds like a great deal, we charge $129 for the service and it’s almost a give-away. I wanted to see what they were offering for free so I inserted the URL of one of our clients, fkpfishing in the form, added my personal e-mail address and hit enter.

When I received the e-mail results a couple days later (quick by any standard) I was told that the site's link popularity is very low and that it is not optimized for the keyword “float tube” as well as it should be. They also informed me that the site's Google PageRank is only 5/10.

Link popularity of course refers to the amount of links that are around the web that point back to your site. I was told “there are only 192 sites that link to yours, according to Google's database” and they searched for “float tube” and it did not bring any top 10 results on Google search or Yahoo Search. Actually it is #16 on Google.

First off I know a top 10 listing is every ones goal The major search engines drive over 85% of traffic to web sites, and only 7% of search engine users go past the first page of results, so properly optimizing a site for a top ten ranking on the search engines for your keyword phrase is essential to a business' online success.

Now the reason I bring this up first is to point out how easy it is to make a mistake. While I appreciate the effort put in by this firm, wasted as it was, they didn't do there job, free or otherwise. When you offer “keyword analysis” The first thing you should do is check the “keywords” meta tag on the assigned site to see what the site owner perceives to be important. You should also take at least a few minutes to look over the site and see what it offers the viewers and who the target audience is.

Had they done so it would have been obvious that the keyword phrase "float tube fishing" was the optimum target and they would have found top 10 ratings on both search sites. (#6 and #2 respectively) In fact the second key word phrase in the meta tags "floattube fishing" (one of the most common misspelled fishing term on the internet) also comes in as #2 on Google and #1 on Yahoo. This misspelling was a mistake made by a typo a few years ago but fortunately it is a spelling error made by 1000’s of fishermen on a regular basis and our client has been able to capitalize on it.

The overall optimization of the entire FKP Fishing website for those two keyword phrases was the #1 goal of the project. Editors note; unfortuntly this site is no longer up, it would be fun to see what it rated now.

Secondly, while we try very hard to get a high PageRank by Google for our clients it is only part of the Net Performance Equation of Success. Remember, Google is the only search engine that puts so high a value on page rank. Yahoo uses page content. That is why we believe Content is King! Google may someday change its algorithms and drop page rank or lessen its impact on the equation but content will always be included in the formula. Quality content can do more for a sites success than 10,000 Mickey Mouse links and a PageRank of 7/10. If a viewer does not stay on your site long enough to look at more than 2 or 3 pages your navigation is bad or your content is not what it should be and your site is in trouble. Search engines may direct them to your site but your page layout and content will keep them there longer and bring them back!

Overall optimization is what we call the Net Performance "Equation of Success". The four part equation is simple. Good website design + good title and meta tags + quality content + "old Fashion" hand search engine submission = more repeat visitors. Which in turn will bring the good link partners looking for you and ultimately result in a successful overall search engine ranking.

In conclusion, while luck may have played a small part in the keyword placement for the website used in this example, search rankings, good overall optimization and quality content played the key roles in the success of the project.

Note: A year later I corrected what I perceived as a mistake in FKP’s keywords and got back on track with the correct spelling and have achieved good results. But, the misspelled "word phrase" continued to bring a good 25% of that sites search traffic until it was taken down in late 2007.

Michael Klasno is an Assisted SEO Marketing Specialist for Net Performance Group. For more articles by this author please visit: http://www.netperformancegroup.com/Articles/articles.htm