Getting great rankings isn’t just about the structure of your website and its copy. Obviously they both have a major influence but there is also a third element that must be present.
Frequently businesses will fork out for a great website and hire a professional SEO copywriter to ensure their copy is SEO friendly, engaging and customer focused. But once their site is live they just sit back and wait.
That’s when the web designer or copywriter gets a phone call asking why their website isn’t on the front page of Google.
First it takes time for that to happen (it’s not going to be an overnight occurrence), secondly your SEO strategy does not end once your site has gone live. That’s just the beginning.
Make Google love you
Probably the most important aspect of SEO is link building.
They are important because they show Google the relevancy and authority of your website. So the more you have the better.
But that doesn’t mean any old link will do.
The link building process has to be done over time and consistently. But don’t be tempted into taking shortcuts by using link farms or paid link networks. The links coming into your site must be genuine and relevant to your site. Google does check the quality of your links so if they’re not genuine and relevant you could end up with a hefty Google penalty.
Here’s what Google’s Webmaster Tools has to say on the matter:
Link schemes
Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:
- Links intended to manipulate PageRank
- Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
- Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
- Buying or selling links that pass PageRank
The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. Before making any single decision, you should ask yourself the question: Is this going to be beneficial for my page’s visitors?
It is not only the number of links you have pointing to your site that matters, but also the quality and relevance of those links. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the buzzing blogger community can be an excellent place to generate interest.
Once you’ve made your changes and are confident that your site no longer violates our guidelines, submit your site for reconsideration.
Source: Google Webmaster Central
Back link analysis
Your Google rankings will constantly go up and down as your competitors vie for the top spot. Constant link building will help you in the rankings battle, so making use of a back link analysis tool (such as SEO Books free tool) will allow you to check out not only where your links are coming from but also who is linking to your competitors.
Links through content
Another way to grow your links is through content. Writing relevant articles which link back to your website should be part of your SEO strategy.
Plus look for guest blogging opportunities and again link back to your site within your blog post.
Generating links should be seen as part of your marketing strategy. Take the ‘one thing a week’ approach and alternate between creating directory listings, writing and submitting articles and generating blog posts.
Breaking down your link building into manageable chunks in this way will ensure the process is continuous.
What strategies do you have for link building? Why not leave a comment and share your experiences.
I was recently asked my Mark Shaw to do a teleseminar with him on how I use Twitter in my copywriting business.
During the interview we chat about my Twitter experiences, success I’ve had with it and how I’ve used it within my business as a marketing tool.
You can listen to the interview here.
What about you?
Do you use it to marketing your business?
What successes have you had?
Have you ever made any Twitter mistakes?
Why not leave a comment and share your experiences too?
As a business owner you want and need customers.
Ideally those customers will be of the happy variety that come back time and time again and bring all their friends along too.
But how do you make sure your website and customer service can generate that level of customer satisfaction?
When shopping online, people want speed, simplicity and a warm and fuzzy feeling once they’ve completed their purchase.
Other than tracking them all down and giving them a hug, how can you achieve this through your website?
Here are a few ideas.
Speeding it up
Your customers want to reach your site, find their product, and add it to their shopping basket and pay. So making that process as slick and fast as possible is essential.
Let’s start at the beginning.
1. Loading your site
Your website must load as quickly as possible because your customers aren’t going to hang around waiting for you. By reviewing all the images on your site and compressing them you’ll shorten the load time.
2. Payment
Jumping to the final stage of the buying process, you’ll need to offer a range of payment choices. Paypal is a must as it’s fast, safe and very convenient.
Simplicity
A mistake made by many companies is that their website is full of images, graphics, text and adverts making it impossible for the reader to navigate because there’s so much going on they don’t know which way to turn.
Keeping your site simple eases navigation and understanding.
3. Review your text
How readable is your text? By slightly increasing your font size you’ll make your site more readable.
4. White space
There’s nothing worse than a website that contains masses of solid text. You might think it conveys to the reader everything they need to know but that’s rather counterproductive because they won’t read it.
If you want someone to look at your site, its content has to be attractive. You can achieve this by:
- Shortening your paragraphs (5 lines or less)
- Add bulleted lists to highlight benefits
- Use sub headings
- Use images
But make sure you mix all these elements up to add variety and interest to your page.
Warm and fuzzy
This is probably the hardest one to achieve. How do you give them that warm and fuzzy feeling?
5. Social media
I’m assuming you’re using social media within your marketing strategy (if not why not?) so make sure you monitor your Twitter stream and Facebook page so when customers ask questions about your products you respond to them quickly.
The other site of this is you’ll also be aware of compliments that come through your social media accounts (because you’ll be monitoring them) so make sure you say thank you.
There’s also a possibility that you’ll also get the off negative comment but because you’re monitoring your social media accounts you’ll be able to instantly make contact with the customer and put the situation right.
6. Get personal and obvious
Many companies get so wrapped up in looking professional they end up projecting a cold and impersonal image.
Customers want to buy from someone they like so by creating a website that shows your personality rather than a stale corporate image will get you noticed.
Being obvious doesn’t mean plastering your website with “buy now” in big red letters. Obvious means making your navigation simple to use so anyone can find their way to the page they want. There’s nothing worse than finding a website that sells the product you want but being unable to fathom out how to buy it.
7. Be chatty
When creating the copy on your website please don’t ‘we’ all over it.
Now sure what I mean? Well it’s quite simple. Take a look at your website and count how many times the word ‘we’ appears. In an ideal world there won’t be any.
Your customer couldn’t give two hoots about you; they want to know what you are going to do for them. So review your content and change the focus. If you’re not sure how to do that, find a professional copywriter who can do it for you. You’d be amazed at the difference it will make. You will instantly become:
- Approachable
- Customer-orientated
- Trustworthy
So there you go, 7 simple but effective ways you can change your website’s effectiveness overnight.
Try them out and come back and tell us how you got on. Do you have any other ideas? If so leave a comment below.
