Poll: Do you pay attention to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your website?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
SITE STAFF
Jul 29, 2010

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Do you pay attention to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your website?".

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[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2010-07-29 11:09 GMT]


 
Simon Bruni
Simon Bruni  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:57
Member (2009)
Spanish to English
I had to look it up Jul 29, 2010

"Search Engine Optimisation. Process of choosing targeted keyword and phrases related to a website intended to improve the ranking of the website in search results from search engines".

And I don't have the foggiest idea of how to go about it. Any (easy) tips would be appreciated.


 
Mary Worby
Mary Worby  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:57
German to English
+ ...
Other Jul 29, 2010

No, but it's on my list of things to do when things go quiet. It's been on the list a while!

 
Claire Cox
Claire Cox
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:57
French to English
+ ...
No Jul 29, 2010

And I'd no idea what SEO meant either! If it does mean search engine optimisation (as Simon kindly informed us), why does it need a definite article? I thought that as translators we were supposed to make things clear and comprehensible......

 
Esther van der Wal
Esther van der Wal  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:57
Member (2010)
English to Dutch
+ ...
It's not as scary as it sounds Jul 29, 2010

Besides working as a translator, I am also a writer and editor. Since the magic abbreviation "SEO" has entered the public domain, it's hard to omit when working as a web editor. So I recently sat down and started exploring the concept and discovered it has been blown up to mythical proportions already, but there is no reason to be afraid.

SEO boils down to:
- choosing the right keywords and incorporating them in the right way in your web texts
- paying attention to the s
... See more
Besides working as a translator, I am also a writer and editor. Since the magic abbreviation "SEO" has entered the public domain, it's hard to omit when working as a web editor. So I recently sat down and started exploring the concept and discovered it has been blown up to mythical proportions already, but there is no reason to be afraid.

SEO boils down to:
- choosing the right keywords and incorporating them in the right way in your web texts
- paying attention to the structure of your web site
- being linked to by other (good quality) web sites

For a comprehensive (and free!) starter guide, see this one from Google.

I have rewritten the web texts of a graphic designer the SEO-way and he was very happy with the results. The next SEO web text assingment (for an online game developer) is already on the shelf.

Do get in touch with me if you're interested as well. Just one thing: it might be hard to target keywords such as "freelance translator" or "English to Spanish" since this is a field of fierce competition. But if you specialize in e.g. "Turkish culinary translations", I think it might be doable to improve your Google rankings by optimizing your web site.

Now all I need to do is find the time to apply this to my own web site, optimize and then translate it!
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Sophie Dzhygir
Sophie Dzhygir  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:57
German to French
+ ...
Other Jul 29, 2010

I don't monitor it, but my husband does and tells me the result from time to time.

 
Kitty Brussaard
Kitty Brussaard  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:57
Member (2009)
English to Dutch
+ ...
Other Jul 29, 2010

This has been on my TO DO list for some time now and perhaps this poll - serving as a reminder - will give me the final push

I'm absolutely convinced of its importance. If you want to attract new (direct) customers with your website, it needs to be highly effective in terms of search engine visibility.


 
Muriel Vasconcellos
Muriel Vasconcellos  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 00:57
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Other - my tech does Jul 30, 2010

The tech who designed my website has been adamant about it. She has quite a few tricks up her sleeve.

 
Ramon Somoza
Ramon Somoza  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 09:57
Dutch to Spanish
+ ...
Of course... Aug 2, 2010

And for certain keywords my professional page pops up as #1 in all search engines, including Google.

Simon Bruni wrote:
And I don't have the foggiest idea of how to go about it. Any (easy) tips would be appreciated.


For an overview of what SEO is, have a look at the definition of Wikipedia for SEO.

There are two types of SEO: On-page and off-page. On-page is the SEO activities you perform on your own page, and off-page SEO is basically link building for your site from reputable sites, so as to enhance your page rank.

Esther's link to the Google article is OK, but I strongly disagree to limiting on-page SEO to keywords and structure of the website. There are many other things that should be done to rank well in search engines.

Now, SEO is not as complicated as it looks, but you need to do it (specially off-page SEO) little by little, or you will end up in the dreaded "Google Sandbox" that haunts all webmasters. Which basically means that you will not show up in Google for a couple of months.

If you want some further help, please feel free to ask, I'll be pleased to help. For the more advanced guys, visit my SEO Translator blog.

Muriel Vasconcellos wrote:
The tech who designed my website has been adamant about it. She has quite a few tricks up her sleeve.


Muriel, I checked out the page rank of your site, and you have a PR4, which is quite good. PR is no longer what it was, but it still is an indication. However, when I checked out how well you score for your site keywords on the search engines you do not score so well. One of your keywords (a long tail one, at that) such as "translation services in medicine" does not even show your homepage! So the developer did a lot of effort in increasing your PR, but apparently did not such a good job with the keywords. (BTW, your name DOES pop up for that long-tail keyword a few times, but not your site).


[Editado a las 2010-08-02 21:53 GMT]


 


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Poll: Do you pay attention to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your website?






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