Yes, EVERY Page Needs to Be Optimized

Yes, EVERY Page Needs to Be Optimized:

For smaller site owners, this isn’t a terrifying prospect. While the entire optimization process (keyword research, rewriting content, creating Meta tags and descriptions, etc) can take a while from start to finish, a website that only has 50-100 pages isn’t going to have to spend the next month implementing changes. That may not be the case for much larger sites and their owners. For a site with 1,000+ pages (most likely an e-commerce site), on-site optimization is going to take much longer and will have to be implemented over time.

Here are a few tips for making sure that every page gets optimized:

1. Check out what pages Google has indexed You can either use the site operator search (site:YourURL.com) right in the Google search or (for more accurate results) check out your Google Webmaster Tools account. You want to get it from the horse’s mouth and find out exactly what pages of your site Google has indexed*. Every and all pages indexed by Google need to be properly optimized!

*This is also a good time to make sure that your site has been properly indexed by Google. Did you add any new pages recently that aren’t showing up in your reports? Your might need to resubmit a new XML sitemap.

2. Create a spreadsheet Using an XML sitemap tool (I recommend http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/), you should create a text file of all the pages on your website. It will put your website into a Notepad document, which you can then transfer to an Excel document with each URL in its own line. As you go through your site you can check off each URL when you finish optimizing it. This will help ensure you don’t accidentally skip or miss any pages.

3. Weigh time vs. return This is for the actual optimization process. When it comes to deciding which pages you are going to optimize first, it’s important to weigh time versus return and identify which pages of your site are the most valuable to your company. For instance, an e-commerce site would need to identify which product pages generate the most revenue for the company. These pages have the highest conversion rate or might be some of the more products on your site. These are the pages you want to optimize first and get live as soon as possible. Then you can roll the rest of your site out in batches.

It’s important to remember when optimizing your site that you don’t just focus on the product pages or homepage. Many companies often forget about their Contact Us page or About Us page and so forth. While these pages may not get the traffic that other pages on your site gets, they are a great place to go after branded keywords.