THE PURPOSE OF SEO?
The purpose of Search engine optimisation is to increase the chances of your website ranking high in the search results when someone is looking for a service or product that you provide.
The ultimate target is to have your website appear at the top of page one following a search for keywords that generally describe your product or service.
It is important to know that if a person does a search on the World Wide Web, using say Google, there is a 40 percent chance they will click the top result?
There is just an 11 percent chance they will click the second result.
Then, it goes rapidly downhill.
So, if someone searches for a service or product that you provide, and your website appears on page 147, then simply, you lose.
How should you and your web developer increase the chances of your website appearing on the first page?
At the risk of getting a bit technical, bear with me.
GETTING A BIT TECHNICAL
Search engines are programs - like Google, MSN, or Yahoo! - that your visitors use to find websites. Google and the others, use mini-programs called web robots ('bots') that regularly scour millions of websites so they can index them - once indexed, your website can appear in search result listings.
What is Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO)?
SEO is a range of techniques that website developers use so that search engine robots can index your website in a way that incrementally improves the chances of your website ranking highly in a search result.
No matter what anyone tells you, you cannot 'buy' preferential treatment from search engines - and there are no secret technical tricks that will see your website at the top instantly. Even the common 'metadata tags' that sit behind your website have limited value.
Today, search engines and their robots are sophisticated. While SEO techniques used to be restricted to specific (and technical and costly) tasks, now you can easily attract visitors by doing very simple things yourself.
One of these is to write good content.
WHY CONTENT MATTERS
In the bad ol' days, search engines had to see the programming code - the words behind your website. This is in the web developers domain. But no more.
Today, you can focus on what your reader sees on your web page - the copy - because today's search engines, like you and your visitors, look in the same places you do.
That means that the words you use in your website help robots index your website and increase the chances of visitors finding you. If you have content that aligns with what people are looking for, you are 90 percent there. If you do not have worthwhile content, all the search engine optimisation techniques in the world will not get you very far.
Because producing content is a non-technical activity, you or your writers can take care of it and that's good news.
GETTING KEYWORDS
It is important to realise that search engines don't see the thoughts and ideas. They just see keywords. Picking the right keywords to include in your content is critical. You'll need to find out:
* what keywords are relevant
* how much demand by visitors is there for those keywords
* how much competition is there for those keywords
* what keywords should be ignored because they are too general
If you deliberately use keywords based on your company name - say 'Obscure & Random Consulting Services' - you could probably claim first position in search results. But, unless your potential customer already knows about Obscure & Random, they will not type those keywords.
How do you know which keywords are useless and which are winners?
OBVIOUS KEYWORDS
Choosing keywords that are too obvious and that many people use, makes it practically impossible for a website to attain high rankings in search results. For example, let's suppose that Obscure & Random Consulting Services decides to use keywords like 'consultant', or 'best consultant'.
Since Google indexes about 30 million pages with the word 'consultant' and 12 million for 'best consultant', it is unlikely that Obscure & Random Consulting Services will have many visitors. The competition is too big and no one will find you.
CLEVER KEYWORDS
Finding clever keywords needs another approach. Ask yourself what your customer is thinking when searching. Let's say that the customers of Obscure & Random Consulting Services specialise in selling organic pizzas to Aucklanders. Obscure & Random Consulting Services help these customers to manage their businesses, locate ingredients, and satisfy their organic pizza-eating customers.
Once they have chosen some keyword phrases like "organic anchovies" or "pizzas for Aucklanders" they decide to get real data that will tell them how people really search for information.
They can use sites like WordTracker that help find out what keywords people are actually using. This helps them identify which keywords can make a real difference by comparing their keywords with others and seeing the results.
Once you have a set of clever keywords, write them into your copy and throughout your website in a way that is informative and consistent ... but beware.
DON'T TRY TO TRICK THE ROBOT
Search engines are adept at finding what is useful to visitors and what is trickery. Once you have your keywords, do not try to trick the robot in an attempt to cheat the ranking system.
Here's what I mean.
Google has a good list of "what not to do" tactics and if your web developer suggests you use them, fire him.
* Avoid hidden text or hidden links
* Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects
* Don't send automated queries to the search engine
* Don't load pages with irrelevant words
* Don't create multiple pages
* Don't create domains with substantially duplicate content
* Avoid 'doorway' pages created just for search engines
* Avoid affiliate programs with little or no original content
* Do not trick users by registering misspellings of well-known websites
Search engines may see them as attempts to manipulate the search results. They will categorise your webpages as spam and may do the equivalent of a technical blacklist on your website.
Result? Visitors = zero.
FINAL WORD
What have we covered?
* Search engine optimisation is no longer the domain of technical people
* Good content is 90 percent of your best SEO technique
* The best keywords are not those used by too many websites
* The best keywords are selected from the customers perspective
* The best keywords have real data about how well they perform
* Avoid tricks to prevent search engines blacklisting your website
It is not easy and requires real effort just as any marketing exercise does. However, your content is king (or queen) and we recommend that this is where you spend 90 percent of your efforts.
Happy keyword hunting.
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