Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

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some good improvement in performance. This is why a site assessment is important: to

identify areas in which your site is deficient, but also to set realistic expectations for

results.

Take a look at the Site Assessment Worksheet you downloaded from

yourseoplan

.com

. This worksheet provides a quick and easy way to get a handle on your site’s cur-

rent optimization level. Next, indicate yes or no for the following statements about

each of your landing pages:

This page has a unique HTML page title.

The HTML page title contains my target keywords.

This page contains 200 or more words of HTML text.

HTML text on this page contains my exact target keywords.

This page can be reached from the home page of the site by following HTML

text links (not pull-downs, login screens, or pop-up windows).

The HTML text links from other pages on my site to this page contain my target

keywords.

We kept the worksheet short and sweet, but these quick answers provide a basic

estimate of your current optimization level. And don’t forget: Lower optimization just

means more room to grow!

With your basic site assessment complete, you have a good picture of the current

status of your website: current conversions, site ranks on the major search engines,

inbound links, and your current site optimization level. This baseline assessment will

serve you throughout your SEO campaign.

Week 3: Competition

Over the last couple of weeks, you’ve started to bulk up parts of your brain that are

newly devoted to SEO. This week, we’re going to use those portions of your brain to

do something that you’ve been dying to do: snoop on your competitors. Here’s how

you’ve already gotten your feet wet in competitive analysis:

You got a glimpse of your competitors’ keyword preferences when you were

selecting your own.

You became acquainted with the top 30 players for all of your keywords during

your rank check.

Now:

Go to your Site Assessment Worksheet and fill in Y or N for each of your landing pages.

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