Entries Tagged 'seo' ↓

Are you the type of person who breaks out into a cold sweat whenever you hear the term search engine optimisation?

To many it seems to be one of those mythical beasts that you can only tame if you’re armed to the teeth with an array of magical implements.

Well fear not for your knight(ess) in shining armour is here to save the day.

There are 5 very simple SEO checks you can make right now. Open up another browser window and pull up your website.

Ready?

OK, first things first. Let’s take a look at your website structure:

1. Looks aren’t everything

That’s something my mum was constantly telling me when I was growing up.

Take a look at your website – this one is especially pertinent for all owners of custom built websites. For many business owners the ‘look’ of their website is at the top of their list. It’s the part of the process that takes the biggest budget because they want theirs to be prettier than anyone else’s.

The problem with custom builds is that, sometimes, looks are at the expense of SEO, especially if you’ve been seduced by flash. Yes, it looks lovely but unless you’ve got some magic going on in the background coding it’s not going to help your search engine optimisation one jot.

Template websites – love them or loathe them – tend to be more SEO friendly from the start. If there are any web designers out there who want to disagree or comment further please do so, I’d love to hear your take on the design vs SEO debate.

Next we move on to how to get found in the first place, yup, the dreaded keyword research bit.

2. Keywords

Remember this post is all about simple SEO checks so I’m not going to delve into the realms of thorough keyword research.

Take a minute to jot down the top 3 words that you would use as a Google search to find your website.

For example I would choose copywriter, freelance copywriter and possibly Suffolk copywriter to get a geographical tag in there. Next ask a friend or colleague to do the same, in fact ask as many people as you like to do the same and eventually you’ll have a list of keywords.

You may not think that’s very scientific but it will give you keywords that real people would search under for you.

Next you do the hard bit and work out how competitive they are and which ones are the best to tackle (you’ll need to use something like Google’s free keyword research tool for this). The chart below should help you work that bit out.

It’s also a good idea, before you make any changes to your site, to search under the terms you decide on and write down your current ranking so you can watch in awe as your site rises ever higher.

That’s your keywords done, so what’s next? Well it’s back to your website.

3. All present?

If you want your site to rank for your identified keywords they need to be in your copy. That doesn’t mean cramming them into every sentence on the page. But rather weave them into the text in a couple of places.

Your headings and sub headings are always a good place to put them and in your title tags.

OK, so now you’ve got your words in your website copy, what’s next?

4. Power content

The next thing to do is write a page or blog post centred on your keywords (one for each keyword). Again that doesn’t mean stuffing, but using your keywords wisely (e.g. in a post of about 200-300 words, use your keyword 2 or 3 times).

Try and use it in your headings to give it more prominence. Once you’ve published these on your website you can then use them on your social media sites too (e.g. your Facebook page) and link back to your site using the keywords as your anchor text links.

With me so far? For the next bit you’ll need a bit of help.

5. Get votes

Every link that comes into your website acts like a vote of confidence in Google’s eyes. The more you have, the more authoritative you are.

So ask friends and colleagues to link to you (like a link exchange) using contextual anchor text links.

OK, so these 5 tips aren’t the most comprehensive SEO techniques but they can and will make a difference. So what have you go to lose? Give them a try and the come back and let me know how you get on.

The world of search engine optimisation can be confusing.

Identifying your keywords, looking at your site structure and building back links are all vital aspects if your SEO strategy is going to work.

But what can you do about your copy? Making sure it’s written by a professional SEO copywriter is obviously a step in the right direction but here’s a list of 8 quick tips you can use to optimise your web copy.

Open a second browser window and take a look at your web copy as you read – is there something you can improve?

1. Headline

As with any form of marketing, your headline must grab attention and draw your reader in. It must sell you, your company and your products and services.

A weak headline will result in people navigating away from your site to one that offers them what they’re looking for.

2. First impressions

Assuming your headline has caught their attention it’s vital that the rest of your website does. Do the first few lines of text live up to their expectations? Do the images you use compliment or detract from your copy?

To work, all the elements of your web page have to compliment each other and work together.

3. WIIFM?

This is the question that sits firmly in the forefront of your reader’s mind – what’s in it for me?

Make sure you tell them the benefits of your product/service straight away. That’s not the features here we’re talking about what it is that your product/service will do for them – save them time, save them money, make them more attractive, make them healthier etc. Something that they will value (that’s why it’s so important you know who your customers are and what they want).

4. Easy on the eye

This is where readability comes in. People don’t generally like reading from a screen so you must ensure your information is accessible and readable. To help you reader skim your content for the most relevant points use headings and sub headings, break the text up with bulleted lists and use images to help get your message across.

Above all keep Bryan Eisenberg’s 5 R’s of Search Engine Marketing in your mind:

• Relevance (make sure your copy is relevant to your market)
• Reputation (great content will build your reputation and encourage links)
• Remarkable (only truly great copy will build your reputation)
• Readability (use the right HTML, tags, headlines, bullets, sub headings, font size etc.)
• Reach (don’t cast your net too wide)

5. We

How many times does ‘we’ appear on your website?

A website full of ‘we’ comes across as being very self-centred. The reader doesn’t care about you; they care about what you’re going to do for them.

Go through your copy and change your ‘we’ for ‘you’ to shift the focus firmly on your customer.

6. Voice

The tone of voice you use is very important. The information you provide has to be accessible so avoid jargon. Also to make it more readable avoid using the passive voice. Be active and involve your reader in your text.

7. Other wording

The wording on your website isn’t just confined to your body text. There are also ALT tags, captions, banner text etc.  Are the words here really adding value?

8. Hypertext

The hypertext links are the words you use to link out to other relevant information. Make sure you use your keywords within these links to get the most value from them.

That is a quick and simple list of things you can do on your website to help attract visitors and boost your conversion rate. How many are you missing on your website?

There is one formula that is ingrained in the minds of many internet marketers and internet businesses out there:

The regular addition of fresh content will undoubtedly help your search engine optimisation strategy, generate more traffic and therefore potential business.

But just adding content for the sake of it could do more harm than good.

If you write or commission a copywriter to create a vast number of SEO rich articles for your website are you really adding value?

“But I’m driving traffic!” I hear you cry.

You many well be but what’s in it for those people when they find your article?

• What value will it add?
• What’s your call to action?
• Is it really all that relevant?

If your content doesn’t offer the reader anything or ask anything of them, what’s the point?

Adding fresh content to your website is a good thing.

Making sure it’s search engine optimised is great.

But you also have to ensure it’s relevant, adds value and asks something of your reader. If you don’t they’ll skim read and head off to another website because you haven’t used that content to draw them into your website, get interested about your product or buy.

So the moral of this post is – add content, make it relevant and make sure there’s a call to action/lead into your main website.

I have been a copywriter for a while now and many of the projects I am commission to carry out involve search engine optimisation.

That’s hardly surprising considering the importance of online marketing to today’s businesses.

People’s attitudes to online search are changing. Companies are now recognising that if they want to open up their businesses to new markets they have got to get to grips with SEO and keyword identification.

Keyword research

Most people ‘get’ keyword research these days.

They understand that the words they have to target are the ones their customers are searching for. That list might include the particular product that they sell or their geographical location etc.

Usually the list of keywords I am given are pretty relevant – they cover the products/services and will drive targeted traffic to their website.

But the problems start when it comes to allotting keywords to the copy – how many should each web page target?

Common misconceptions

When investing in SEO most people want to maximise their ROI and use SEO to get found for every keyword or phrase they can think of.

For a start, initially, that’s not practical. Over time as they build links and relevant content, they will see rankings for most of their keywords (the level of their ranking will depend on the competitiveness of the term they are targeting). But from the outset, SEO takes time and the early results will be found with the least competitive words.

The second problem is that many people view their website as their Home Page. By that I mean they want to load their Home Page with all their keywords.

So, for example, if they sell silver jewellery, their keyword list may look something like:

• Silver jewellery
• Silver jewellery suppliers Suffolk
• Silver jewellery gifts
• Gifts in silver
• Silver necklace
• Silver bracelet

You get the idea.

Now, to try and include all of those words on one page is complete madness because the resultant text won’t encourage anyone to buy.

Using keywords the right way

For starters you must remember there is more than one page to your website. Plus, Google and the other search engines also recognise this as each page is indexed individually. Therefore you should be targeting different keywords on different pages. The keywords should also be reflected in your navigation and page titles.

With regards to the number of keywords per page, you should only look to target 2 (3 max) primary keywords. You can of course incorporate long tail keywords (i.e. your primary keywords plus modifiers) but trying to target more than 2 can create unwieldy text.

The main point of your website copy is that it should be relevant, interesting and compelling. The traffic your keywords attract must be drawn in by your text and encouraged to buy – otherwise what’s the point?

By researching your keywords, using them to structure your website and then target each page for different keywords will maximise your chances of SEO success.

Can Twitter really help with your SEO?

That’s the question answered by Wasim Ismail on searchenginejournal.com.

The web is becoming more and more social. Social media is becoming a major part of business marketing strategies and is not just the latest ‘thing’ for teenagers. The search engines recognise their importance and are constantly finding ways to integrate social and search results.

Why?

Because social media is the voice of internet users and can no longer be ignored.

Of all the social media platforms out there, Twitter is probably the most popular micro blogging platform (that is until the next big thing comes along).

Due to its vast size, Twitter really does have the potential to help your SEO activities as your tweets can help build your online brand and reputation.

In his post, 10 Tips to Improve Your SEO Using Twitter, Wasim shows how you can utilise your Twitter account and tweets to enhance your SEO activities on line. This is a must for any Twitters out there looking to make the most of their social media activities.

So grab a coffee and have a read – it could be the most productive 10 minutes of your day.