MN SEO Search Engine Optimization

Organic search engine optimization & placement

MN Search Engine OptimizationMinnesota Search Engine Optimization

There are literally hundreds of considerations when it comes to search engine optimization and the standards are constantly in flux. Because search engine optimization is our business, we make it top-priority to stay at the front of the pack when it comes to the latest techniques and etiquette. We include SEO in every website we develop and in major redesigns and we offer it on a stand alone basis as well. PXL Technologies provides search engine optimization services to all of North America, however, the vast majority of our customers are from Minnesota, specifically the Twin Cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul and surrounding areas.

I. Keyword Research and Selection

Keyword selection is a very critical consideration when conducting search engine optimization and it happens to be the first step. We work with our clients to find keywords and phrases that are a perfect blend of relevance and demand, utilizing powerful tools that tell us how many times any given keyword was queried in the past 30 days and what similar terms were queried. Based upon our research, we will advise upon a group of ideal keywords to work with.

II. Search Engine Optimization (On Page SEO)

This is where the vast majority our time is spent as there are dozens, if not hundreds of considerations. Below is our very abbreviated procedure:

  1. Based upon page content and keyword density, we assign specific keywords to each page. We rarely assign the entire group to any specific page for multiple reasons.
  2. Now that we have the objective for each page, we rename it (usually) to something more SEO friendly. Using the website design industry as an example, we would change a name such as websiteurl/services to websiteurl/website-design-services. We always make sure the page name corresponds to the keywords.
  3. Each page must be evaluated for keyword density, which is the percentage of times the targeted keywords are presented within the textual content of the page. It’s important to land within a certain percentage range, if you have the keyword presented too often, it’s interpreted as spam, not often enough and the page will be seen as irrelevant. We ensure that the keyword density is optimized and that there is enough written content.
  4. Once the keyword density is optimized, we assign meta data for the search engines to evaluate. The three primary meta details to include are the page title, page description and keywords. All of the meta data must correspond directly to the page content, reflecting exactly what the page is about.
  5. Images and text links play a large role in search engine optimization as well, we go through and assign “alt attributes” to each link and image, often times renaming images to keywords (keywords.jpg for example).

III. Outbound Links & Backlinks

Both inbound (backlinks) and outbound links have an enormous impact on your search engine ranking. Search engines see value in your content if other websites are linking to it, the more respected the website linking to yours is, the better. The same goes for outbound links, it’s important to link to respected websites only, although there are ways to link out without taking credit, or endorsing the site you are linking to, the term/code is called rel=nofollow. Based upon your own unique requirements, we will advise on a plan for inbound and outbound linking.

IV. Sitemap & Robot Files + Submission

There are two critical files which need to be produced for search engine optimization, they are the sitemap and robots files. The sitemap is a .xml file we produce, which lists all your website pages. The sitemap lists priority and frequency for which we request the website to be crawled by search engines. The robots file is used to exclude certain pages from the search engines, these are pages we don’t want indexed for one reason or another. Once everything is in place, we submit the Sitemap, and the website itself, to all the major search engines.

V. Many Other SEO Considerations

Beyond all of the search engine optimization techniques mentioned up to this point, there are still many other considerations:

  1. The website domain name is proven to have a substantial impact on search engine rankings. When possible, we will always advise our customers to register a domain name which includes their primarily targeted keyword.
  2. Domain forwarding has been a HUGE problem in the past, we always advise to have an experienced SEO professional (us)  handle the forwarding. The reason being, is that if done incorrectly, the major search engines will see each domain as “duplicate content” and quickly bury them deep in search results.
  3. Small Business Listings are an ideal way to gain immediate exposure, especially when it comes to local search results. We advise to strategically publish small business listings with Google, Yahoo and Bing at the very least.