Everyone says that Search Engine Optimization isn’t black magic, but I suspect that it might be. I also suspect that reading Harry Potter too many times makes me think I am a wizard. So my suspicions are suspect.

I am not a programmer. I can program, but my skills really lie in being, what I call, a web generalist or an internet linguist. I keep my ear to the ground, I know what’s going on and I try to juggle and monitor all the ways that the internet is changing and then I bring that knowledge to each site I manage and build. But, I know that when it comes to programmers, they are often uncomfortable working within another’s work. Everyone does things a little bit differently. I never really understood that until I recently took on the project of retrofiting an already built site to be search engine optimized.

There are two things that should be considered before any work begins on a site:

1. How will you market the site?
2. How will you ensure your site is built to be search engine optimized?

The site that I am working on is a real estate site in Manzanillo, Mexico—Perla Del Mar. It isn’t ranking very well (or at all). I suspect it isn’t for many reasons, but most likely it’s META/Title tag information was terrible (ie: Keyword: Pearl of the Sea). But when very little thought is given to SEO when a site is built, it is difficult to go backwards without building an entire new site.

How Do You Choose What to Search Engine Optimize on a Retrofit?

Currently, I drive a 1990 Honda Civic (wagovan). It has 400,000 KM. She runs pretty good, but she’s no spring chicken. I recently took it to the mechanic for some brake work. And he told me the same thing I am going to tell you—We don’t want to rebuild the entire car. It’s not worth it. We just want to make sure it’s safe (read: works).

I am not interested in pushing some sort of fear rhetoric. The site is good looking and it works for their prospects—except that no one can find it. So, I did what would hopefully lend a positive return without rebuilding the entire site and spending a lot of my client’s time/money.

1. Optimized Keywords and Description
2. Optimized each page’s Title
3. Optimized content on Index (main/parent) page and second level child pages.
4. Added a few anchor links inside of the content
5. Added descriptions to images (ALT tags) within content areas
6. Added a robots file
7. Added “nofollow” tags on the links on the Links page.

We could’ve re-built the site. Completely revised the content. Created a site architecture that is logical and straight-forward. But that would have taken time and cost a lot. With this method, I paired down the endless list of things that could be done and picked the above handful which could be done quickly and hopefully yield the best results. However, this is a work-in-progress, so the results aren’t all in.

Phase two of this project will be external: purchasing Google Adwords, writing a Press Release and getting links from other sites (like this one).

If you have any questions about what I mentioned in this post or how to retrofit your site to be search engine optimized please contact me or leave a comment. If you have suggestions, I am all ears (or at least I have two of them).

Photo by Danilo Prates