Thursday, January 10th, 2008
- Know who you are attracting to your site and why.
You’ve done your research. You know who your ideal clients / customers are. You do know who your target audience is. Right? Now you’re ready to create pages to attract them.
- Know what Keywords and Phrases you are optimizing each page for.
If you know and understand the people that you are optimizing for, it should be a fairly easy process to determine the keywords that will attract them. Refer to the Keyword Research Tools post to begin the process of finding the right keywords.
- Optimize your site for your human visitors first, robots and spiders second.
Great placement in the search engine listings means nothing if, when a visitor comes to your site they can’t find what they’re looking for or have a hard time reading your content. Make sure that every page has a clearly defined topic. Don’t try to cram too much information – or too many keywords into one page.
- Content: Quality and Quantity Count.
The search engine spiders are remarkably adept at recognizing quality content when they see it. And this quality content also encourages visitors to spend more time on your site and come back for more. But with the search engines, especially Google, quantity is also critical. Google loves sites with lots of quality content. And it loves sites that regularly add and update content.
- Use Your Meta Tags.
The power of meta tags has been somewhat reduced lately. But many, if not most, Search Engines still take them into consideration when ranking your page. So make sure you’ve got a Title tag with your primary keyword/phrase in it. Include a unique Description tag for each page as well as a unique list of Keywords.
- Make sure the Spiders and Bots can navigate your site.
If you use fancy bells and whistles on your site – Flash, JavaScript, frames, forms, etc. – be sure to include alternative means for search engine spiders to navigate your site and be sure to let them “know” what is contained in the elements they can’t “see.”
- Generate a site map for your visitors and for Google.
You may never use sitemaps, but there are lots of folks who do. So make nice and create one for them. You never know who is going to turn into a great customer or client. And while you’re at it, create a sitemap for Google. It’s a great way to get a new site listed more quickly and to get your site additions and updates spidered more efficiently.
- Use <Alt> tags for your images.
This is a great way to get a few extra keywords into your page. It’s also a web design “best practice” to ensure that your site is accessible to site impaired visitors as well as visitors who have turned off graphics – yes there are some folks that turn off site graphics!
- Use keywords in your page names and / or domain name.
URLs are searchable and searched by the spiders. And they give some weight to keywords in URLs. So if you’re selling massage tables and you can get the domain name www.massagetables.com that would be a very good thing. If not, you can create a page within your site that is named massagetables.html. If your domain name was www.xyzenterprise.com the URL of that page would www.xyzenterprise.com/massagetables.html. Not bad from an SEO perspective. Plus it clearly lets visitors know what the page is about – a double bonus.
- Get incoming links to your site.
The key here is related and reputable. No link farms please. And a link from Joe’s auto body shop to your massage therapy site will probably not count for much. If you have valuable information, you should be able to get some good links. As you search the web keep track of sites that you think could benefit from linking to yours and send a well-written email to the webmaster of the site explaining why a link to your site would benefit their visitors.
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Thursday, January 10th, 2008
- Organic Search Engine Optimization.
See the post on Top 10 SEO Techniques.
- Submit articles to online article directories.
This is one of the most effective free methods for generating site traffic. See the Article Directory Listings.
- Add a “tell-a-friend” script to your site.
Make it easy for your clients and customers to tell their network about you. Remember there is no better marketing than word of mouth.
- Start a blog.
Blogs are a great way to generate content fast. The search engines love them. And they encourage interaction and participation from your clients and prospects.
- Post comments on related blogs.
And speaking of blogs, get into the habit of interacting with other bloggers out there. The Blogosphere is an incredibly dynamic space these days. You’re bound to find a few blogs that are related to your products and/or services.
- Join online communities and/or Social Networking Sites.
Online communities are springing up all over the web. And they are a great source of information, inspiration and connection. When you join, be prepared to invest some time in cultivating relationships with other members of the group and adding value to the community. See the Traffic Building Techniques – Social Bookmarking list.
- Join online discussion groups related to your business and post to the forum on a regular basis.
Forums and other online communities are wonderful arenas for establishing your “expert” status. And while they are not the place to overtly market yourself, when you make consistently quality posts other forum members will naturally be drawn to your website – they’ll know about it from your email signature… right?
- Provide testimonials for services and products on sites that offer a link back to your website.
Most websites that ask for testimonials will provide a link back to your website. This is a great way to increase your incoming links.
- Exchange links with related and reputable websites.
The key here is related and reputable. No link farms please. And a link from Joe’s auto body shop to your massage therapy site will probably not count for much.
- Send out an e-zine at least once a month.
Consistent quality communication is the key. If you offer your clients and prospects something of value on a regular basis, they will reward you by remaining loyal and referring their friends.
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