Steps To Successful SEO
Many Internet professionals are intently curious about search engine optimization (SEO). But how exactly is a page optimized for SEO? There are certain benchmarks that business can follow to achieve high search engine results page ranking (SERPs) and get the targeted traffic they want. These steps will be discussed in detail.
The initial step to SEO success is to create a strong webpage. This does not mean you must fill it with irrelevant features, widgets, feeds and more. Instead, a page is considered strong when it is filled with original, quality content. When speaking of originality it means that it is not plagiarized, and the meaning of quality relates to incorporating something new. Plainly stated, when a search engine has numerous articles on walking dogs, preference begins to go to articles with specific topics, such as instructions for walking certain breeds, or walking a dog on a hot day. It is important to realize that if something has been posted time and time again on the Internet, then it is not regarded to as special.
Second, SEO pages are optimized for keywords in the right locations. First, the targeted keywords must be accurately positioned. Targeted keywords and phrases should be in the page title (not the site title), which is normally marked in HTML with the tag. Also, targeted keywords should be in the actual URL of the page (e.g. www.stuff.com/Targeted_Keywords.html). Finally, the target keywords are generally recommended to be in the first paragraph and last sentence of content. Long-tail keywords, aka related keywords, should be in the article body and separated by paragraph. What this entire process says to a search engine bot is, This article is about X because the URL, page title, introductory paragraph and conclusion say it is. But X and A, B, C, D are related because they appear to be sub-topics of X. Index this article for X and A, B, C, D under X.
The Final step is to ensure that you have exceptional backlinks (a link placed on another page which directs a researcher onto your page. SEO relies heavily on backlinks, so it is important to have your anchored on a page with minimal other links and that is highly regarded by search engines, such as Google PageRank.
SEO is not a complex idea, but its practices use thousands of dollars each year as companies teach marketers to use SEO and buy backlinks. But one thing is for sure, the SEO industry is not going away soon.
How to Kill your Website Before Web Design
Websites can fail even before a single line of code is ever written. The success or failure of your website will very much depend on the competence or incompetence – of your web designer & how dedicated or lame they are in preparing your website for your market. 95% of sites will never make page 1 or page 2 of SERPs. Here are the worst web design planning mistakes in order:
(Please see: Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009 for further information & resources)
1 – No Keyword Research – Attempting to write a website without keyword research is effectively going blind. Good keyword research usually reveals many surprises and potential niche keywords that could be used to drive traffic. Poor use of keywords is the number 1 reason for website failure and it’s totally avoidable through the use of keyword research tools – many of which are free to use.
2 – Lack of Competitor Research – without competitor research you won’t know whether your page 1 competitors have 30 or 30,000 backlinks, and you won’t know if their websites have 3 or 300 pages. The term ‘mortgage’ has 189 million pages listed in Google – moneysupermarket.com who are usually number 1 has 306,000 backlinks – hence it would be unrealistic for anyone other than a team of professional SEMs to compete. Simple research takes minutes and could save months of wasted effort and wasted cash.
3 – Same as the Next Guy – By making your website the same as everyone else you are not telling your visitor what’s different, hence you are setting your website for failure. Plan to be different and insure you convey your differences quickly – think about improving your: content, visitor experience, site navigation & any special offers you might have when planning your website – making this effort in the planning stage really pays dividend later
4 – Poor Content Quality – if you have done your competitor research then you will know how much quality content you have to write to match your competitors. Both quality & quantity of text content is important – paragraphs should be no more than a few lines long, headings should contain your researched keywords. Planning this in advance will help improve your website ranking & conversion rates.
5 – No Page Planning – lack of page planning will inevitably result in lower search engine ranking. Insure that you use well researched keywords in: page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & your paragraphs. Your menus should be easy to follow and your important headings should be high up the page. Keep your page layouts consistent and if you are writing a large website use scripting language such as ASP or PHP. Wherever possible build CMS so pages can be added or removed easily.
6 – No Plan for Marketing – most of us by now know that the myth of ‘write a website & the visitors will come’ is not true. The objective for most websites should be to aim for Page1 or Page2 of search engines. By doing your competitor research you will know how big a hill you have to climb un order to match/beat the competition. Being unrealistic with the time/budget for this task will make even the best website fail.
7 – Poor Choice of Hosting – cheap hosting deals overseas may not necessarily be good for your website as many search engines today use ‘Geo Targeting’ in some manner in their ranking algorithms and you visitors may find your website slower than your competitors. Where possible use host with servers located in your home country & look at live review sites before making a decision. If your site is geared for high traffic and/or overseas trade then use a dedicated server and insure you host has good peering agreements with the countries that you are likely to do business with. Always check your host’s IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are.
8 – Poor Colour Choice – your website is not the place to express yourself – you have less than 3 seconds to make your first impression – hence choose a colour scheme that is perfect for your website – try colour matching your photos/logos/artwork & avoid drab/luminous colours. Take care when designing websites geared for other countries as certain colours have cultural significance & insure that your colours are web safe. Poor planning in this area is will make your website look amateur.
9 – Choosing Strange Fonts – could make your site hard to read especially for people with poor vision. Wherever possible use basic fonts such as Arial & Helvetica. If you must use alternative fonts insure the text is large enough, clear & it matches your website theme.
10 – Website Name & Suffix – choose a domain that contains your keywords & select the correct domain suffix (top level domain) – whilst using your keywords in your domain is not essential, it helps with towards your page ranking. Choosing the wrong suffix will not help you achieve listings in the right territory. Common UK TLD’s:
.com – ecommerce or commercial website (UK &/or International)
.co.uk – uk corporate website
.net – often used by web hosts – large network
.biz – for business-to-business websites
.org.uk – organisation, group or charity
.info – informational site .name – usually used for individuals
.name – for an individual or group
.ltd.uk – UK ltd company
Easy Ways To Optimize Your Google Adwords Ads
Getting high quality traffic with Google Adwords begins with optimization of the campaign ad. Though it may sound difficult to manage for the new and less experienced marketers, it only requires making sense of the campaign’s basic principles. Many affiliate marketers and Adwords experts get astounding results with their ads because they know the techniques involved in maximizing their Adwords campaign. But you don’t have to acquire special skills and aptitude to bring out a set of keywords and copy that will work with your targeted market. It takes recognition that setting up a campaign is not a one-time project nor something that allows people to simply ‘wait’ for results to take place.
According to Perry Marshall, the writer of The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords, your campaigns need to be monitored, tracked, and analyzed in order to find out what to change in it or when to do it. There are several important strategies to implement this. Many Adwords gurus have contributed tips and measures to developing effective campaigns that may help you get started with your own Adwords program.
One way to do this is to have landing pages that are abundant in content. Once your visitors clicked on your ad, they have to see quality information inside, the ones that they really need. Your site’s landing page must also be rich in keywords and manifests the offer or incentive displayed in your ad. This helps lower the cost-per-click for the keywords in your ad as well as makes it easier to find in the Google search results your page.
Next, you’ll want to eliminate the usage of all ‘negative’ keywords from your ad.Negative keywords are those that will typically generate the wrong type of traffic to your site. For example, if you are in the business of selling gardening tools and books about gardening, you are not interested in attracting people looking for ‘free gardening tips’ or ‘gardening events’ (unless you offer these on your site). Eliminating the words ‘free’ and ‘events’ from your list when using the Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool will ensure your results are highly targeted and relevant to the market you are trying to reach..
You’ll also want to read your competitor’s ads regularly. Making sure your ad stands apart from the competition is essential for a successful campaign; if your ad sounds or looks too similar to your competitor’s ad campaign, you could be missing a large portion of qualified traffic.
Brainstorm some creative ad copy ideas and think of unique angles to present similar information; make sure to use action-oriented words in your headline, and capitalize all the main words in your copy for a high-impact presentation. Monitoring your competition’s ads regularly gives you another advantage; this strategy can help you drill down which keywords may be performing better than others.
Optimizing and tweaking your Google Adwords campaign is an ongoing – and necessary – process, and one that will help you get higher click through rates than competitors in your niche. Use any of these strategies to make sure your Google Adwords campaign is performing well and getting the results you want.
Website Planning – 10 Deadly Sins of Web Design
The success or failure of your website is not determined by how good your web designer is or how skilled you are at website marketing – it is in fact determined well before your website is written. Only 5% of websites will ever appear on page 1 or page 2 of search engines for their desired keywords hence try to avoid these mistakes before you begin writing your website:
(See Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009)
1 – No Keyword Research – Attempting to write a website without keyword research is effectively going blind. Good keyword research usually reveals many surprises and potential niche keywords that could be used to drive traffic. Poor use of keywords is the number 1 reason for website failure and it’s totally avoidable through the use of keyword research tools – many of which are free to use.
2 – Lack of Competitor Research – without competitor research you won’t know whether your page 1 competitors have 30 or 30,000 backlinks, and you won’t know if their websites have 3 or 300 pages. The term ‘mortgage’ has 189 million pages listed in Google – moneysupermarket.com who are usually number 1 has 306,000 backlinks – hence it would be unrealistic for anyone other than a team of professional SEMs to compete. Simple research takes minutes and could save months of wasted effort and wasted cash.
3 – Nothing Special or Unique – Considering that only 1 out of 20 websites written will ever offer a good return on investment – offering something different to your competition is vital to your long term website success. These could include: a special offer for a limited period, better content, easier navigation – sometimes it’s the little things like not forcing users to signup to view content that could tip the scales in your favour.
4 – Poor Content Quality – if you have done your competitor research then you will know how much quality content you have to write to match your competitors. Both quality & quantity of text content is important – paragraphs should be no more than a few lines long, headings should contain your researched keywords. Planning this in advance will help improve your website ranking & conversion rates.
5 – Inadequate Page Planning – it’s like the old saying: ‘fail to prepare – prepare to fail’ – inadequate page planning will inevitably result in lower rankings. Use well researched keywords in: titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text, paragraphs, page names & directories. Keep your layouts consistent & your menus easy to follow. If you have the necessary skills prepare to write your website in scripting language such as ASP/PHP for greater control of layout & functionality & consider building in CMS so pages can be added or removed easily.
6 – No Marketing Plan – you can create the greatest website in the world & still fail through failing to plan your marketing – you must decide weather to do this yourself or pay for this be done. This decision should be based on the mountain or molehill of link building that you will have to do, your marketing skill level & the amount of time you have to spare – competitor research will give you all the information you need to make this decision. If you don’t plan for website marketing then it likely that you won’t do any and still fail
7 – Hosting Overseas – planning to host your website overseas is also a big mistake as many search engines use ‘Geo Targeting’ in their ranking algorithms – worse still – your website will almost certainly load slower than if hosted with a reputable host in your home country. So savings here are not worth making. Always check your hosts IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are – yes there are hosts that tell big fat lies.
8 – Poor use of Colours – using drab or exotic colours could make your website look amateur – you have an average of 3 seconds to make your first impression hence spend time planning your colour scheme. Remember that its not your personal taste that counts – its your visitor’s. Take care though as certain colours have major significance in some countries. Insure your colours are well matched – you will find plenty of websafe colour match utilities in Google.
9 – Poor Choice of Fonts – choosing fonts that are tough to read makes it hard work for your visitors and even worse for anyone with visual impairment. Use basic fonts such as Arial & Helvetica wherever possible, else use fonts that are clear & match your website theme well.
10 – Selecting your URL & TLD – wherever possible choose a domain that contains your researched keywords then select the correct domain suffix (TLD) – use .co.uk for a UK company .com for e-commerce – you will have trouble indexing an Indian domain (eg .co.in) in the UK . Here are come common UK domain suffixes:
.com – ecommerce website
.co.uk – typical uk corporate website
.net – larger network website – typically used by web hosts
.biz – use for B2B business
.org.uk – group, charity or organisation
.info – informational sites – non e-commerce
.name – for an individual or group
.ltd – for ltd company
How To Get Your Desired Results With Google Adwords Campaign
Getting high quality traffic with Google Adwords begins with optimization of the campaign ad. Though it may sound difficult to manage for the new and less experienced marketers, it only requires making sense of the campaign’s basic principles. Many affiliate marketers and Adwords experts get astounding results with their ads because they know the techniques involved in maximizing their Adwords campaign. But you don’t have to acquire special skills and aptitude to bring out a set of keywords and copy that will work with your targeted market. It takes recognition that setting up a campaign is not a one-time project nor something that allows people to simply ‘wait’ for results to take place.
Perry Marshall, the author of The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords outlines several strategies and techniques for monitoring, tracking, and analyzing the result of each of your campaigns so you know exactly what to change – and when. The hard work has already been done; many Adwords masters have shared their tips and strategies for optimizing campaigns and there is a very simple process to getting started on optimizing your own Adwords program.
One way to do this is to have landing pages that are abundant in content. Once your visitors clicked on your ad, they have to see quality information inside, the ones that they really need. Your site’s landing page must also be rich in keywords and manifests the offer or incentive displayed in your ad. This helps lower the cost-per-click for the keywords in your ad as well as makes it easier to find in the Google search results your page.
Another way that might prove useful is the removal of all the ‘negative keywords’ from your ad. These negative keywords pertain to those that usually attract to your site the wrong kind of traffic. For instance, you do not need traffic or people searching for ‘free gardening tips’ or ‘gardening events’ if your site promotes the selling of gardening tools and other publications on gardening. Using the Google Adwords Keyword Selector Tool, you can mark off the words ‘free’ and ‘events’ from your list to see to it that you reach the market or traffic you intended.
You can also start visiting and regularly checking the ads of your competitors. This can ensure that your ads do not look the same or else, you may encounter some traffic issues. A winning campaign entails constant monitoring and improving one’s ad, according to the demands of the situation.
Think of creative ways and ideas in presenting similar information. Be proactive in your approach by using action keywords in the headline, capitalizing all the main words in your copy, and by making certain that your copy qualifies as a high-impact one. Also, drill down for keywords that generate results by constantly monitoring your competition’s ads. Some keywords just work better than others may.
Optimizing and tweaking your Google Adwords campaign is an ongoing – and necessary – process, and one that will help you get higher click through rates than competitors in your niche. Use any of these strategies to make sure your Google Adwords campaign is performing well and getting the results you want.
