So, you’ve got a website ready to go and you want to get the word out to either make money on it or promote it so it’s the most popular page of its kind. Now what?
Well, the first thing you should do is double check to make sure the site is as search engine friendly as possible. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Done? Perfect. So, now it’s easy for the search engines to find and categorize it once they do find it. Time to get that website where it can be seen.
One of the most common ways to get a site’s presence known is through Pay-Per-Click campaigns. They will assure you that the most qualified and targeted visitors come to your website. Keep your keyword and phrases as relevant as possible. If you keep your bids low, it can be a profitable campaign when it targets the right audience. Keep track of the keywords people are clicking on to go to your site as well. This can tell you if you’re targeting the right people or if you need to change your ad approach. Yahoo and Google are two very popular websites to do PPC campaigns on. There are numerous articles on the benefits and banes of PPC, and though it’s not the focus on this one, its usefulness to site promotion can’t be simply disregarded.
Posting on forums is another way to promote your site. Do it specifically on forums with a topic relevant to your website. Check the TOS and make sure you can do it there first though. Simply placing your web address in your signature can create clicks through the forum, as well as create backlinks for your site. If the forum has a high Page Rank in Google it will work out even better for you. The main benefit of this is the backlinks your posts create which some search engine “spiders” deem gradually more important as they find your site linked more and more in different places on the internet.
On the idea of linking, reciprocal linking is another way to promote your website. This just means trading links with someone by putting a link on your website to them and they put a link on their website to you. Websites like Link Market and SEO Link Exchange are designed for just this purpose. As long as you keep the sites linking to you and from you relevant to your own site it should be just a matter of time before the search engine spiders find your site. The old-fashioned way of emailing the webmaster of the sites can do it for you as well, but web services like the aforementioned ones, get rid of smaller steps that might make it harder to get linked using simple “Accept”/” Reject” buttons.
I hope this helps get your site to the top of the search engines.
Tag Archives | ppc advertising company
“Do-It-Yourself” Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Three Easy Steps
Ranking high in Google’s search results can have a phenomenal impact on the success of your business.
You can either engage the expertise of a Search Engine Optimization company, or if you have the time, there are some changes you can make to your website yourself.
Step 1: Keyword Research
What keywords do you think your customers would type in to search for your products or services? A keyword can be one word (e.g., “optimization”), but multiple keywords or keyword phrases are usually preferred, because they are more specific and more likely to be what your customers are looking for.
Write down as many as you can think of. Brainstorm with your team. Think of alternative words. Consider geographical phrases if they are important to your customer (e.g., “house cleaning Hornsby”). Also, get some ideas from your competitors’ websites. Try to make a list of 20-30 keyword phrases.
Choose the two keyword phrases you think would be searched for the most. But also remember, the more competition there is for a keyword, the harder it is to achieve top rankings. If you want to rank high in Google for the keyword “insurance”, you have a very long journey ahead. So, try your best to select two keyword phrases that are the most relevant to your business but that are not vague nor competitive. It’s a good idea to have 2 or 3 words in each phrase (e.g., “wedding catering services”)
Once you’ve selected your two best keyword phrases the next step shows you how to make some improvements to your home page.
Step 2: Web Copy
Web copy refers to all the words or text on your website. Because content is king in the world of search engines, your keyword phrases need to be placed strategically on your webpage to convince Google that your content is highly relevant to those keywords. The more prominent they are, the better. (Keep in mind that as important as search engines are, customers come first, so make sure your copy also reads well.)
Here’s how you can increase each keyword’s prominence:
• Place your keywords in headings, preferably at the beginning of the heading.
• Include keywords towards the top of the page.
• Bold or italicize keywords where appropriate.
• Instead of having a link to another page that says, “Click here to read more “, reword it to include your keywords.
An important tip is to also include these keywords in your HTML “title tag”. Use your content management system to make these changes yourself, or perhaps ask your web developer to do it if you’re unsure how.
Once you have fine-tuned your home page, consider adding new content, such as detailed descriptions of what you offer, FAQs and informative articles about your products and services. (If you don’t want to write these yourself, they can be located for free on the internet – do a search for “articles directory”).
It’s also good to bear in mind that search engines can only read text, not pictures. Often web developers embed words in images to look better for website visitors or use Flash for animation, but this is a major impediment to search engines.
Step 3: Linking
Each link from another website to your website (not from your website) is considered by search engines as a vote of popularity for your business and will improve your rankings.
But it is the quality, not quantity, of the links that is crucial. The other websites should be relevant to your industry, and preferably highly regarded themselves. Ten quality links count far more than 500 links from arbitrary websites. In the same way your personal business network can have a significant impact on the success of your business, so too the online network you build on the internet.
Brainstorm all the relevant websites that could link to you, such as non-competing companies, and industry bodies and organizations. Write a friendly email to each describing the benefit their visitors would get in knowing about your business and request them to create a link to your website. Most people will not respond first time round, so a follow-up phone call is usually required.
How do I monitor my results?
Monitor your rankings in Google over the next few months by typing your chosen keywords into the search box and recording your ranking. Also look at your hosting reports to understand what search terms your visitors are using to find your website.
The above process can also be repeated for each page of your website. Remember to keep updating your content, and continually increase the number of links to your website.
