Martial Arts Webmasters: Time to Optimize your site!

A few months ago I was looking through the searchDefense as a Keyword, the phrase "Self Defense
engines to see if my website was even found forYour city" will be more effective an appropriate.
certain keywords. Well it wasn't. I knew somethingPeople 1000's of miles away form your location will not
needed to be done, because I was losing potentialbe taking classes at your location. Your goal is to
customers to my Martial Art and Self Defensemaximize and be # 1 for your geographical area.
Classes. As the Internet grows exponentially, theRegardless if you have no direct local competition,
important of a web presence is important.search engines will create competition for you if in the
After reading countless articles, spending hoursreal world none exist.
optimizing every aspect of my site, I finally started toOnce the Meta tags are optimized it time to review
see the results. Targeted geographical keywords hit #the content of your page. Website with tons of picture
1 in Google. The name of my company has over 9and graphics and smaller amounts of text content,
million references on keyword searches for that namemay look nice, but are not search engine friendly. If you
and My url is currently number 7 out of 9 million. Nothave java scripts, tons of graphics, and few words
bad huh?then you need to re-design your page. The more
Well lets take a minute to discuss the basics of SEOwords the better, the more KEYWORDS that you
(Search Engine Optimization).can naturally included in your content even better.
Search engines like Google, MSN, and Yahoo useSpread the graphics to other pages. Your homepage
spider-web crawlers to seek out text content ofshould be content rich, graphic light, and summarize
WebPages. Spiders also follow links both internal to ayour "product".
site and external of the site to gather their information.Once you have a well written, keyword friendly
The information they gather is used and to create thecontent on your site, must make sure the internal linking
information you see when you do a search in aand navigation is optimized. The entire website should
search engine. A complex logarithm based uponhave a site map, that is linkable from each page.
textual content, keyword density, inbound andAdditional WebPages should have natural linking
outbound links, alt text, meta tags, etc are used tobetween topics and links back to the homepage.
determine the SERP's (Search Engine Results).These Internal Links should be descriptive. Instead of
Step one to Optimize is reviewing your Meta Tags.classes, it should be "self defense classes" etc. Links
Meta tags tell the search engines spiders whatand the wording of the links are the most important
information to report, rather than the spider guessing.aspect in order to achieve your goals.
Review your meta tags for Title, Description &Finally after your web page is internally optimized, your
Keywords.focus must shift to external sources to improve your
Your Title should be somewhat descriptive of youresults via search engines. Here are several Key steps
website or product, rather than jus the name of the1)Submit to DMOZ (Open Directory Project). Submit
company. Instead of Joe's Dojo as the title of the site,only once. It may take 6-9 months before you get
it should be something like Joe's Martial Arts Dojo inlisted, but wait 6 months before submitting
XYZ, USA. This title will also act as a "keyword" toagain.2)Submit to "free search engines", do this
match a search engine inquiry for "Martial Arts XYZmanually rather than the "submit to 10K for X $"3)Look
USA".for link exchange partners to do reciprocal links.4)Write
The Meta Description should also use significant wordsand submit articles. 5)Use signature tags in all emails,
to describe your style, geographical location, as well asForum post etc that include your URL.6)Keep updating
the name of your website. This description also actscontent, adding new pages, and getting links.
as "keywords" to match a search engine request.If you follow these basics, do additional research on
Keywords are words that you wish your site wouldthe term SEO, then your Martial Arts website will be
be referenced when someone does an Internetseen in the search engines, increase your web traffic
search engine inquiry. Your keywords should phrasesand your website could bring you customers to your
that include geographical locations. Instead of SelfMartial Arts Location.