This week’s topic was Search Engine Optimization (SEO) — both on and off-site.

I have a decent understanding of code, so the on-site SEO makes perfect sense to me. The basic concept behind such coding involves developing your website in a manner such that search engines have the easiest possible time crawling it.

The actual application of this technique uses 6 key aspects of the webpage. The first is the page URL. The URL itself acts as one of the page’s keywords. For instance, if your page was “small-gucci-handbag-red.html,” then a google search for “Small Gucci Handbag Red” would potentially locate your listing. The next element is the title tag. This is simply the text displayed at the top of the window for a particular website. This is also the text that google will use when it lists your page in search results. Once again, the text in the title tag acts as a keyword.

The other elements have to do with content — either headings or actual text. Keywords used in headings will be cached by search engine crawlers as well as repeated words in the main text. However, the intended keyword should only be 3%-5% of the main text. Otherwise, search engines may suspect black hat techniques or poor content quality.

The last two elements are alt text and anchor text. Alt text is simply a text description of an image. This is important as search engines are of course incapable of “seeing” what an image looks like. They have to rely on related text to determine its content. Anchor text is the stand-in text for a link. For instance, Silas’ Blog or This Link. Search engines will pick up on the text being used to link to another site and use them as keywords.

Off-site SEO is more simplistic in nature but complex in application. It involves other websites linking to yours. There are specific techniques that are considered black hat techniques (such as guest blogging) and specific techniques that will boost your ranking (such as endorsements from reputable sites.) Essentially, the way others link to your website can have a large effect on overall ranking, and care needs to be taken when posting your link or asking for endorsements.

As far as what my client can do to really boost both of these, we first need to make sure his website is optimized with the url, title, and the web elements. We discussed in class the keywords that might be good for his website such as “independent,” “local,” “waldo,” and “import.”

Some particular sites that would be great for backlinks for off-site SEO would be any major car websites — especially those involving customization. Here’s a small list of one’s I immediately thought of:

Magazines: Super Street, Lowrider magazine, Import Tuner, Popular Mechanics, Car and Driver

Custom Car Websites: Stancenation, Stanceworks, Speed Hunters

As far as actual content, pictures of ongoing builds or finished projects would be ideal. Many of those magazines and websites feature a host of car projects as well as their owners or the shops they are created at. A second type of content that would be great is edited video features of some of the ongoing or finished builds.

This all assumes that the owner is happy with his custom work.