Can Your Customers Find You? .. 5 Tips To Help Your SEO

According to a recent study, “more than 60% of websites lack the proper web programming to be ranked properly by Internet search engines.” The conversations I have with my prospective clients as The National Sales and Marketing Manager of the Web Design, Development and Consulting Company Infinity Technologies would seem to strongly suggest (anecodotally) that this would be quite accurate. So how can you optimize your site so your clients can find you. This is a combination of good web design plus additional proactive effort to create and promote good unique content.

Essentially SEO can be divided into two categories  

1. Organic SEO ( Such as good web design and the posting of unique and new content on your website or Blog as a start)

2. Paying For SEO (like Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns on Google)

If the budget doesn’t allow PPC then roll up y0ur sleeves and do a bit of organic SEO hard yards, this will take time, but with persistence and focus will produce results.

So what are 5 Tips to Get Found by Search Optimizing your Site… Organically

1. Content is King…(and by the way did I mention Blogs)

A post at  Sitemost’s Blog  says the following “The most important part of any website is it’s content. Without interesting, compelling and relevant content you won’t be able to gain inbound links and more importantly you won’t be able to make many (if any) sales. The more content you have the more authoritive you’ll appear to your clients and the more information the search engines will have to index. This is especially important for attracting long-tail searches.

It may seem daunting trying to come-up with new things to write about and add to your site on a regular basis, but it can be easier than you think. Try starting a blog or a regular newsletter. If you’re really struggling, you can always delegate the task to a staff member or hire a professional copy writer. It will be well worth it in the end.”

Blogs can be a major part of adding great content. The task of doing this doesn’t have to be left to one person. You can get staff to contribute. Also if you start looking through your archives you might be surprised at what you can repurpose for your blog. On this blog I am constantly adding new content and promoting it on Twitter and in the last week I have added over 200 links, not through anything but having new content and then .. promoting it. 

2. Promote The Content

This can be done for free such as using Twitter, get friends to mention your new article on their Blogs, Facebook. Get them to mention your site on their Twitter account. Include it in your email newsletter. Join Technorati and register your Blog, Submit your articles to Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon and Delicious. These are only the tip of the iceberg in what you can do.   

3. Meta Description Tag (The brief description of your website or blog that appears in the search engine results,that is taken by from your website by Google to describe your content at your website or Blog).

Research has shown that it is not essential to be number 1 on Google, but to be on the visible section of the page after you have hit the search button when the results appear on the screen. Get found before the break (that’s the bottom of the screen before you scroll down) is a very important.

If you write a good Meta Description you can get people to click on your link. Strictly speaking, this tag has no SEO benefit – but it is still important. Why? Because a good description can be the difference between someone clicking on your site instead of your competitors that may appear above or below you in the SERP’s ( Search Engine Results Page). For more resources go to a Video on” Optimize Meta Descriptions. ” Also another video – Anatomy of a search snippet.

 4.  Selecting The Right Keywords

Text Link Brokers mentions in their blog that “this may be the most difficult part of your journey, especially if you don’t fit the target profile.  That is, picking the keywords they will use to find your site. You can start by using free tools like Yahoo!s keyword suggestion tool.  It gives you a good place to start picking keywords. Start with a phrase you know your site is about (i.e. if you sell widgets, then simply put “widgets” in the search box).  The tool will then not only spit out other related words, but also the search volumes associated with each for the previous month. Don’t be afraid to get a few hundred words to start.  Remember, right now you are just gathering ideas – phrases that could drive traffic to your site.  They aren’t all necessarily being used by your target customer. You can also go to Google’s Adwords site and perform the above steps.  Start with a phrase or two which describe your site or product and use Google’s suggestion tool to help expand your list. At this point you want as many phrases on your list as possible.  Don’t worry, you will cull the list pretty quickly. Once you have a huge list of words, the next place to go is a site like Wordtracker , which has a keyword analysis tool.  This tool can be used for a one time fee, or if it’s something you might want to return to you can purchase a subscription.  It is a fairly simple tool to use and will give you a good idea of just how likely your site will be able to compete for a phrase. Also remember as you are culling your words, don’t just focus on the competitive factors. These won’t account for your target audience.  Therefore you need to have that picture in your mind of the target as you are selecting phrases that they might use.  If you are unsure, you could always as for help from friends and family that fit the target profile.”

 5.  Write A Compelling Title Tag (This should be written so as to get people to read it, it’s like a good headline)

This is because the title tag is the tag which is displayed in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).  It is the link that people click on, and also the tag which is generally read by the visitor before they decide to visit. This your headline… make it great, compelling and inviting. Therefore, if your title tag isn’t compelling, it doesn’t matter how well optimized your page is, it may not get that click. I would recommend you do some reading on writing good headlines it may help your SEO a bit more than you think

Lastly, an emerging SEO haven that could be producing surprising  Search Engine Optimization results is  Twitter, but that is whole new topic. What do you think the implications are for SEO and Twitter?