Search Engine Optimization: I Just Can’t Get My Head Around It
By Ruby Gates
MarketShift Strategies
You have a website and but traffic to the site is disappointing. Does this sound familiar? Many businesses find themselves weighing the option of creating a new website because they are perplexed on how to optimize the one they have.
There are six common problems affecting website optimization and all of them can be corrected.
Design: Is your site using design techniques that may be limiting your ranking potential?
Structure: Could your site be structured in a more effective manner?
Spam: Does your site currently utilize tactics that may be causing ranking penalties?
Optimization: Is your site properly optimized for your target phrase(s)?
Popularity: Does Yahoo or Google see a healthy number of relevant backlinks to your site?
Content: Does your site need more textual content or does it need to be stated better?
Additionally, have you checked out your competitor’s site and their ranking status?
Why You Should Care
If your site is not optimized, your marketing endeavors cost more and often have shallow impact. Think for a moment how you engage in business. You most likely head to a search engine and check out the web site of a new client, partner or business you want to engage in. If their site is poor, or they are difficult to find on the Internet, doesn’t that affect your internal criteria for credibility and your level of trust?
Moreover, not have a strong web presence in business today is like not having a telephone 60 years ago. Your ability to stave off competition and emerge as a leader in your field is greatly impeded and viewed as outdated.
What’s Does This Have to Do With Marketing?
Do you think that advertising alone is the only thing you need for a marketing strategy? Imagine the power of your advertising dollars if you were able to integrate your print advertising campaign with an online marketing strategy. Not only will you secure broader coverage, but you also ensure tighter control of messaging and branding.
For example, if your marketing strategy involves a print ad campaign marketing a new product but the home page of your website makes no mention of the new product, this will greatly impact your sales potential. Additionally, if your site is not optimized around the new product, potential buyers conducting searches for the product will not find your business easily. Meanwhile, you’re spending a hefty sum on an ad campaign that doesn’t integrate the cheapest and most powerful marketing tool you have- your website.
What’s the Least you Can Do to Increase Traffic?
Or I Hate Articles that Don’t Give Suggestions
Below are some simple things you can do to your site to increase traffic. Be patient, as the results aren’t immediate, but should improve your site optimization:
Identify Important Keywords • Define a list of words that are the most important to your business. Check out what your customers use for search terms, check a thesaurus and talk to your co-workers.
Upgrade Web Copy • Find out which keywords from your list are the most relevant and how they rank in regards to keyword searches per month on search engines. Write your web copy to include the most competitive and highly ranked keywords. If you need help understanding how keywords rank on search engines, email me.
Organic Link Building • Work with your partners to create highly visible links to your site from your partners’ site. This doesn’t mean a link buried deep on your partner’s site. This means a link on their home page or other highly trafficked page. In turn, you reciprocate a place for their link on your site. The more organic links you have from relevant websites, the better your site will do.
- Organic link building is one of the easiest things you can implement, but be sure the link to your site compels the user to click on it. In other words, understand the value of your link on your partner’s site and pitch it in manner that compels user behavior.
- There are a couple of things to consider when hosting links on your site. Make sure the links are relevant to your site (which is why existing business partners are always a good place to start) and check out their Google page rank. Additionally, check out the source code and make sure there is not a ‘no follow’ tag as this tag will nullify the link’s benefit.
If at the very least you implement the three elements above, you are on your way to optimizing your site. Again, I can’t stress how powerful a well-optimized site is - it is worth investing some time into evolving your web site into an effective marketing tool.
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