What do you optimize?

[SEOforGoogle]

I had a great discussion about the actual pages you optimize when a client hires you for work.

For our example, pretend the client has a 50 page site, and 40 pages are unique product pages. You are getting paid to rank for 10 keyphrases, of that, 5 of those phrases are for unique products (not categories).

Do you optimize every page of the site?
Do you optimize the pages that will rank and support the 10 keyphrases?
If you were the client would you expect all pages to be optimized?

I look forward to your replies.

[bhartzer]

Optimize all of the pages in the site--but more importantly, optimize them for the website visitors and not the search engines. Optimize the pages so they get more conversions and ultimately sell more products for the client.

Make sure each title tag is unique on every product page and make sure the site is crawlable--work on getting some new on-topic links to the site using the appropriate keywords.

[freehits]

Agreed - every page.
if not for them then for me. I cant stand seeing something like dup title tags or an h1 with 16 words in it, even if it wont affect my paid accomplishment.

And every page not part of my direct needs should be linking correctly to the ones that do. If Im pushing PR at 10 specific pages, each for one main term, then thats 40 other pages that need to emphasize these 10.

Every page or none.

[etechdesigns]

If I am a client, I would expect optimization for all pages. If optimization is done for all pages then it gives best results.

If all pages are optimized then it helps in getting traffic. Because in all pages keywords are used properly.

[ctabuk]

I agree with everyone. But SEO is a strange subject. Here in Lincolnshire in the UK is Baytree Nurseries a multi-million pound affair and top on all the SE's for their business name. Check the tags www.baytree-gardencentre.com

[Steven1976a]

Ive been asking in other postings but im still unsure. Can you optimise pages that are drawn from a database?

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Steven1976a

Ive been asking in other postings but im still unsure. Can you optimise pages that are drawn from a database?

yes, why would you have an issue with that?

[freehits]

I think thats when the most ingenius seo work is done. When you need to optimize elemetns for dynamic generated pages is when PHP gets interesting.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by SEOforGoogle

I had a great discussion about the actual pages you optimize when a client hires you for work.

For our example, pretend the client has a 50 page site, and 40 pages are unique product pages. You are getting paid to rank for 10 keyphrases, of that, 5 of those phrases are for unique products (not categories).

Do you optimize every page of the site?
Do you optimize the pages that will rank and support the 10 keyphrases?
If you were the client would you expect all pages to be optimized?

I look forward to your replies.

Actually I have a thread going on this topic at HR about working on "part" of a client website. It is my personally opinion that for my work to be effective on most sites I have to work on the whole website. It is very hard to pick and place SEO on the website. Usually in this case the clients only wants to rank for the best 10 keywords and forget the the rest, but this is not an effective strategy. Targeting all possible keyword combinations from the most generic to the longest tailed ones are best.

However I do work on parts of very large websites when appropriate. Especially if it is a special arrangement with a partner of mine and could lead to fuller commitment down the line.

[jeffposaka]

I think that if a client only wants to do part of the site, that I need to do a better part explaining the benefits of SEO. Why have pages of products that are not optimized? Asking the client what is the purpose of the unoptimized product pages can help.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by jeffposaka

I think that if a client only wants to do part of the site, that I need to do a better part explaining the benefits of SEO. Why have pages of products that are not optimized? Asking the client what is the purpose of the unoptimized product pages can help.

Jeff I agree here, but sometimes there are exceptions. Lets say you have prospect website like Home Depot and they only want to run a test with my partner on the "Garden Center" part of the website. If that goes well they will sign on for the whole website. here are my issues, my partner doesn't want to turn away a large client like HD, but to have success on the Garden Center I have to make many other changes that are globally effecting the whole website. Internal linking , 301 redirects, link architecture across the whole website. There are basic SEO guidelines that must be put in place. Simple making meta tag, title tag, content changes to the Garden Center pages is not going to cut it.

BY the way HD needs some SEO help for sure. Look at those URL strings. It is so funny sometimes these large companies have no concept of search engine indexing and we still see threads all over SEO forums that SEO is dead or un-needed, LOL.

[Steven1976a]

Incredible Help wrote
"Steven1976a wrote:
Ive been asking in other postings but im still unsure. Can you optimise pages that are drawn from a database?


yes, why would you have an issue with that?"

Its our first time using a database site and my understanding is that pages within a database site do not exist or sit on the web untill a link is clicked requesting information from the database. I am just not clear if the spiders database all the information of our database. I dont have an issue its just trying to get an understanding of how the Spiders index a database whereby a page only appears when the information is requested from that database.

Hope its understood what Im trying to say
cheers
steve

[incrediblehelp]

Steve it doesn't matter that the pages don't exist or sit on server. When the spider requests the URL it is processed just like if a browser process it. So the end result that the spider sees is the same as the end user would see, unless the website is using some sort of IP delivery or special user agent cloaking.

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

I agree with everyone. But SEO is a strange subject. Here in Lincolnshire in the UK is Baytree Nurseries a multi-million pound affair and top on all the SE's for their business name. Check the tags www.baytree-gardencentre.com

I don't find that too surprising! (The site is in frames and the meta tags are there but empty and just waste bandwidth)
The keyword 'www.baytree-gardencentre.com' probably has no competition at all. I can't see how they would be anywhere else but #1 for that. But it's totally useless! They should be # for 'garden centre in their town'. They don't even rate for 'baytree garden centre'.