iProspect.com
iProspect .com
The home page of a professional search engine optimization firm is a good place to learn positioning techniques. One of the better ones is iProspect.com (see Figure 16.2).
Founded by Fred Marckini, author of Search Engine Positioning (Wordware Publishing, 2001), iProspect.com offers search engine optimization services to high-profile clients .
Let's take a look at the head section:
<html> <head> <TITLE>iProspect: Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Positioning ProfessionalServices</TITLE> <META NAME="description" CONTENT="iProspect's search engine optimization strategies
This is much better than the PopularMechanics.com head section. The title tag highlights their prime keyword phrase. The description and keywordsmeta tags are carefully crafted and use external JavaScripts and style sheets to help minimize the head size for maximum relevance.
Title with Keywords
People generally search for topics and services rather than particular company names . iProspect.com designers naturally chose to highlight the term "search engine optimization" in their title and throughout their home page. They chose to place their company name first, followed by their most important phrase:
<TITLE>iProspect: Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Positioning Professional
Putting their company name first emphasizes their brand, although putting their top term first would emphasize their top keyword phrase more. For example:
<title>Search Engine Optimization from iProspect professional search engine positioning
The exception is when your company name contains a keyword phrase that you want to target. Ideally your domain name should also contain the keyword phrase that you want to target.
Keyword-Rich meta Tags
iProspect.com shows the right way to use meta tags. They only include the description and keywordsmeta tags, and they are well-crafted, as you would expect:
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="iProspect's search engine optimization strategies
The 220-character description tag highlights their key phrase "search engine optimization" early on in the description, and again a second time. They emphasize the benefit of increased traffic and include their company name. The 227-character keywords tag highlights the two main phrases they are targeting; that is "search engine optimization" and "search engine positioning." They use commas to separate phrases and they also include their company name and URL. There's no question what this firm is about.
Minimal head
The head section is 792 characters . This is nearly two orders of magnitude smaller than the head section of PopularMechanics.com, but it could be reduced further. The JavaScript files could be combined into one, and the URLs could be shortened , but these are minor quibbles. iProspect.com uses absolute URLs, no doubt to increase the relevance of their company name.
So this:
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.iprospect.com/ref.js"></script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="includes/iprospect.css"> <script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.iprospect.com/oc.js"></script> </HEAD>
Could become this:
<script type="text/javascript" src="/refoc.js"></script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/i.css"> </head>
As you can see, there's a tradeoff between maximum search engine optimization and maximum speed. You can make your pages fast, but then they'll likely be less relevant. Or you can make your pages more relevant as iProspect.com has naturally chosen to do, and they'll be slower. What you choose within this range is up to you, but most webmasters do not have to go as far as iProspect.com has gone.
Meaningful alt Attributes
Here is one area where iProspect.com could use some improvement: They have no alt attributes in their img tags. The logo and home buttons have no alt attributes. The spacer GIFs need blank alt attribute values, and their URLs could use some shortening.
So instead of this:
<img src="images/logo_iprospect.gif" width="253" height="62">
They should do this:
<img src="images/logo_iprospect.gif" width="253" height="62" alt="iprospect.com">
Add Keywords into Key Tags and Attributes, and Mix Well
Remember Step #8 of the Keyword Optimization Guidelines: Add your keywords into key tags and attributes, and mix well. Here iProspect.com does an admirable job of adding keyword phrases within URLs, link text, and top-level headers. Here are some examples:
<td><a href="search_engine_placement/seo_industry.htm">the industry</a></td> ... <td><a href="search_engine_ranking/research.htm">research</a></td>
Notice that they use keyword-rich URLs throughout the page, varying the names of the file and directory to maximize relevance. This is admittedly an extreme example, as the organizational structure is sacrificed for relevance. Let's take a look at their first main heading:
<p><b>The Original Search Engine Positioning Firm</b>
This heading has their tag line and one of their top keyphrases, which is good. But it isn't a heading at all. They miss an important opportunity here by not using a styled h1 element that could achieve the same effect, and give higher relevance. Their previous home page used a styled h1 with a link to their most important phrase. Perhaps they are trying to confuse their competitors here. Let's look at their first main link (they have a row of toolbar links up at the top, with strategically named directories and filenames):
<a href="search_engine_positioning/search_placement_clients.htm"><span
Their first link includes two terms in the URL, and subsequent links include key terms in the text, giving them a double dollop of relevance. Link text generally ranks higher than regular text.
Keywords in body Text
The designers have liberally added their top keyphrases throughout the body text. Overall, iProspect.com has done a good job of weaving the theme of their site throughout their home page. They use text for text menus , and with the exception of the home button and the logo, they use graphics mainly for items that cannot be represented as text. My recommendation would be to add meaningful alt attribute values, substitute styled heading elements instead of styled body text, and optimize the page for speed. Nevertheless, their 24,469-byte home page is a huge improvement over PopularMechanics.com's 136KB behemoth.
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