Posts Tagged ‘search engines’

Search engine optimization (SEO) is actually more complicated than most people realize. After all, not every business needs results from the search engines. Some businesses only need local results. Then there are businesses that rely on search engines for 100% of their revenue.

Once you figure out what your basic needs are, then you have to determine who your real online competition is. In traditional terms, your competition is the business down the street. On the Internet, however, your competition is the website that is beating you out on your keywords. Your competition might not even sell the same products or services as you. If he is getting your search engine traffic, he is the competition.

Know Your Keywords

Your keywords are your “turf” on the Internet. Your success depends on two things. First, what are the keywords that represent your products or services? You should be able to figure that out on your own. Secondly, what are the keywords your clients are searching for when they want the products or services you offer?

Let’s say that you sell cars. If you sell Chevrolet vehicles, you can easily guess a few keywords. It is not a surprise that “Chevrolet dealership” is a key phrase. Since your prospective customers are generally searching within one city, you do not have to beat out the whole world for “Chevrolet Dealership”. You must have to beat out the local competitors. Phrases such as “Chevrolet Dealership Houston” or “Houston Chevrolet Dealership”, will be easier to target and will produce your best results.

Know the Competition

Search Google.com, Yahoo.com, msn.com, and see who comes up in the top five results for your most important keywords. It does not matter if those sites sell cars. You want to be on top for your phrase so whatever comes up … that is your competition.

Beat Them at Their Own Game

Analyze those sites for the most common SEO tactics. Then whatever they are doing, you should one-up them in every respect.

Here are a few tips on what to look for:

Keyword frequency – How many times do they use the words you are targeting? Count them. Use those words and phrases more frequently and more times.

Inbound links – How many links do they have coming in? Search google.com using this format: link:www.anythinginternet.com

Prominent Keywords – Bolded keywords, keywords in the website address, keywords in the title bar, and keywords in headings are all considered important.

There are many other things to look for. I recommend you hire a professional SEO consultant if search engine results are important to you. These tips will help you optimize a few of the most obvious parts of your web page. There are a lot more things to do. You want your keywords in your page title, your META tags, and you want to optimize every page on your website.

Increasing the number of inbound links can be a lot of work. If your competition has a lot of these, you should hire a professional to help you compete. Experts can add hundreds of new inbound links for you quite easily.

If you make changes to your website, prepare to wait a long time for those changes to be 100% effective. Some things could take six months to become fully effective.

The most challenging part of having a website is getting quality traffic to your website.  You build it, and then nothing!   What does it take to get people to visit your website?  This challenge is further compounded by all the empty promises of the so-called experts out there.  There has got to be something you can do, but what?

Whether you are looking for random strangers or whether you are looking for more visits from your warmer local markets, there are things you can do that will help you build up your traffic.  There are no shortcuts.  No magical mystery techniques.

Choose one or two techniques and build it from there.  The more of these techniques you use, the more results you are likely to get.

Search Engine Optimization – Choose good keywords and incorporate them into your website.  This requires some expertise.  This will help the search engines learn how to prioritize your content into their search results.

Advertise – Promote your website in print and online advertisements.  Include magazines, radio, electronic newsletters, and other websites.  Be sure to use techniques that help you track the effectiveness of your various campaigns.

Publish – Write your own newsletters, produce your own podcasts, or write free articles for the various free article websites.  Put your expertise on paper and always include a link to your own website.  Press releases can be helpful for some companies.

Participate in the Community – Contribute comments into various other forums or blogs.  Anywhere you can embed a link to your own website is a potential place for you to contribute.  Many communities welcome your self-promotion as long as you also contribute valuable content.  Support the community and they will support you.  One great method is writing book reviews for books on Amazon.com.

Add Community Features to Your Website – Add a forum, a blog, surveys, or anything that adds enough fresh content that visitors can’t wait to return.  Consider how youtube.com works.  People go there every day to see all the new videos.  Do not host your blog on another website.  Configure their blog tools to publish into your website.

Viral Marketing – Create a system that encourages your customers to share some opportunity with their friends and family.  Offer invitation only benefits substantial enough to encourage current members to invite all their friends and family with urgency.  You could offer a limited time only free whatever to the first 100 people who register.   There are hundreds of variations to consider.   Or create a member feature that people want to share like video sharing or photo sharing.  Use a feature that pertains to your business.

Partnering Strategies – Join forces with other businesses.  You can advertise their products or services and they can advertise yours.  Create joint promotions.  Sponsor each other’s newsletters.   Form a mastermind team for creating promotions.  You can all help each other come up with powerful ideas to try.  Create an affiliate or referral bonus program and pay others to promote and sell your products.

There are so many great ways to promote your website.  Many of them work best when combined with others.   Hire a professional, form a mastermind group, or do it all yourself.  The sooner you get started the sooner you will have hundreds or even thousands of visitors on your website every month.