SEO Challenge - Template Tutorial - Noobs Welcome

[HomeComputerGames]

Hi All,
I just recently started frequenting this forum and see a lot of people wanting to learn.
It just so happens that I have just finished creating my new design for my site and am just starting to create the template.
I thought it might help some people and myself to post the project here while it is developed.

I'm not looking for any feedback on design, rather I want to cover many of the questions I see posted here.
This is not a quick post but a log for those that are new.
This is also for the experienced to discuss the finer SEO aspects of optimization,

The design and coding will be geared towards Optimum SEO.
This means that most code blocks will be placed with css and coded in the page so spiders read it as meant to be.
The design goal should be similar to this product listing design. (you may have to click to enlarge)
http://www.homecomputergames.com/img...1a21dblue2.jpg

I do have the image cut up and have started a basic block layout.
You will see that I am getting all of my placements set before even thinking about actual content.
VIEW TEMPLATE

These are the cut up images used in the template.
VIEW IMAGES

You will see that there are only 6 images. The K size is still large as they still need to be optimized. I will cut the K size in half by optimizing the images when I start tweaking the finished product.

Regarding SEO in the design and code:
In this template I want to get the best bang for my buck for the Search Engines. There are several factors that you have control over in your coding that will effect how Google sees you.

Here is a tool that will let you see your site how the Google Spider sees it.
Search Engine Spider Simulator

Go there and enter in homecomputergames.com and then submit.
When you get the results look under Spidered Text .
This is how Google sees me.
You will see that there is a large amount of text that makes little sense.
This is because of my menus, dropdown boxes, and being too busy to fix it.

Now test our template, homecomputergames.com/newsite-1.html

Compare this spider text closely to the text on the current template I am working on.
Notice how I am going to be able to talk to the spiders and make some sense once I enter in some real text?...
All of my menu text will be deeper in the document.
I am also closing the document with some related keywords in the "FOOTER Keywords 2" code block.

Related Phrases:
Not all placements that now say keywords in the template will be the exact keyword. Some will be related to the keywords.
For this example I am going to target "PC GAMES".
So relations might be "personal computer", computer games, computer, gaming systems, video games, and so on.
As explained by Google, For top optimization you should still know what the page is about even if you remove all of your keywords.
Read that again and then Think about it....

Once I have the correct SEO pattern for my template all of my content should be automatically optimized to an extent.
So that is optimizing over 140,000 pages with just one page.

I do want to open a discussion on what will be the best logical display and keyword density to have. I have done considerable research on my competitors and know most of the common SEO factors between them.
Also known as pattern matching, there is most often a common pattern between the top sites. Finding as many patterns as you can helps you to refine your plan of attack.

**Note: just because you outdo your competition with on site optimization, this does not mean you will overtake them. You still have to get the 1,000,000 backlinks that they have......perhaps a few less. What it does do is give you advantage over the ones that made it to page one but do not have 1,000,000 backlinks.

I want to squeeze every little bit of optimization out of this template that I can.
You Pros, Please consider the questions I have posted in yellow on the template.
These are questions I would like to discuss.

FYI:
I will use inline styling until I complete the template. I will then move it all to a style sheet and use classes.
I will convert the nested table to div blocks before completion. Tables make good holders while developing at times.
I have heavily commented the code on the template page. So most every block of code should be easily understood.

I'll continue this log as I advance in the project. This should help some in the process and the understanding of templating and onsite SEO.
I also hope to get contribution from the pros on this. This is an area where we can never know enough.

Be back later

[GregK]

This is a great idea. I think it will help new affiliates a ton and even has some good info for intermediate guys as well.

[Albertbndr]

This was pretty good info. i do tried to work on this but never got a proper guideline. Hope to catch you soon for learning more on this.

[HomeComputerGames]

It is a lot of info but barely scratches the surface.
I thought perhaps it might get people thinking about Planning before sitting down to write content on a blank page.
I see a lot of people just sit down and start adding content to a quickly tossed together header. They then wonder why their site isn't performing and soon give up.
I do not care what some of the neigh sayers say about not planning. I know from many years of experience that planning is crucial to a smooth flowing operation. From design to actual business operations a plan should be made.
Nothing says that you cannot change your plan. But at least you have some sort of direction to go in and goals to shoot for. As opposed to running in circles with no direction.

My affiliates receive much more than this from me. I am constantly working with them and their sites in the goal for better performance. This not only helps them earn more, but when they earn more so does HCG. Plus personally, I actually do care that they do well. I love the letters I get when people get their first commission ever........All VERY exciting!

My next part in this log will be on keyword research and competitor pattern matching. Though I have already done this it might be good info for others.

HCG

[HomeComputerGames]

Well, I managed to get a little time to work on the template.
This is the working version of it:
Computer Games: Buy New Computer Games | Used Computer Games | New Video Games | Used Video Games, & more

You can see I added the dynamic meta tags, top menu, top H1 header, middle h2 header that are all pulled from the database, and the search.
If you view the source you will see that I also moved most of the inline styling to a style sheet. I will move the rest as I go.

XHTML Validation
Next I went and validated the template for proper xhtml
[Valid] Markup Validation of http://www.homecomputergames.com/dev/ - W3C Markup Validator

I had to fix a couple of errors but now you can see it passes validation.
I can even add one of their nifty buttons if I wanted to.


It is important to try and keep your code clean and validating correctly.
I hear it shows Google that you care but really think it allows the spiders to crawl easier.

To Do
Next I'll tie in the left and upper right menus, insert the banner modules from my banner manager into all of the banner locations, set up fields in the database for headers 2, 3, 4, and 5 so I can have control over the content, tie in the center text which is pulled from the database according to the page, and tie in the footer module.

After this I can start with my optimization for my category pages.

There is still a lot to do that is beyond the scope of this that deals with the shopping cart, dynamic product content optimization, and other dynamic issues.
I probably have another week or two before I can go live.

Dynamic Pages to Static Pages
For deeper optimization of the site I have also written a script that will make actual web pages from my dynamic content once the optimization is completed. This is so the database is rarely used thus freeing up ram and cpu resources on the server.
The pages will simply load much faster.
This will also give me over 145,000 actual web pages. A lot to manage... But I have created a system to handle any updates made such as prices and sales. If the database information gets changed for a page it simply creates a new static web page and overwrites the original.
So basically the database will just handle transactions and act as a backup for my content.
This should speed my site up 300% or more for my large categories.
This is also a good idea for any dynamic site running on a Shared Hosting account such as Godaddy has.

SEO Friendly URLs
The biggest benefit I will get from this is instead of my URLs looking like this for my Nintend Wii main category page:
homecomputergames.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=9

They will be SEO friendly and appear as this:
homecomputergames.com/nintendo-wii/index.php

A product page URL might look like this:
homecomputergames.com/nintendo-wii/racing/mario-cart-with-wii-wheel.php

You can see I will now have my keywords in my URLs.
This is something I should have done a long time ago.

HCG

I could have done this with mod_rewrite but I wanted the static pages for lag reasons.

[GregK]

SEOing keywords into URLS is a big help. Not only does it add to your ranking, but it makes it easier for users and I think it comes off as more trustworthy. I would much rather see links with titles like /wii/index than .php?main_page

[pinkelephants]

Great guide, HCG! Super useful.

[HomeComputerGames]

Sorry for getting hung up. I have done a little more but it's still a bit of a mess.
Anyone want to write all of the category landing pages content for me?

I wanted to touch upon competitor sites pattern matching for your on site SEO development.
With site pattern matching you bring the law of averages over to your side.
It is basically finding common patterns between top sites such as keyword density, links out, amount of text, etc... and developing an average from them all. The more patterns you find between the sites the better.

What this does is give you a good starting point to refine you SEO with.
As opposed to developing with no sort of numbers.
For example:
If you know what the average keyword density in body text between the top sites is then you can start off using your keyword xx amount of times in your content matching the average. Same with meta tags, headers, etc...
You can then refine even more and look for patterns of where in the body text did the keywords appear. You can keep drilling down on several factors such as images and alt text, hidden comments, CSS class names, document titling, and so on.

What we have to realize is that Google is a program and it only understands math.......nothing more. It does what it is told to do and makes no real decisions. It does not read your content and think that you are a good writer and should be rewarded. Or your English is not that good so ban your site.

Finding the common denominator for as many of these questions that Google asks about a site when it is determining your SERPs for your keywords will give you a very good head start and something to work with.

At least in my experiences this has worked well for on site SEO.

Anyone else do this when creating a page or am I being too detailed in my research?

[jordancn]

This is a great info thanks for sharing, I am learning more about SEO with this..