Monday, September 29, 2008

How do I search your website? SEO Rules you cannot ignore.

Recently I was searching one of my friend’s Website on virtual consultancy service. I knew she had a site, but could not remember the web address nor could find her business card anywhere. All I had was her name. So I thought of searching Google for her website basis her name. Result = Nada! Determined to find her website, I searched basis ‘virtual consultant Boston’ & ‘virtual consultancy services Boston’. Again I could not find her business. Well if you are in the consultancy business, I think it’s kinda obvious that your name should link back to your website. Search keywords describing your service for the respective geographic area such as “virtual consultancy services Boston” should also shoot results of your website. But here nothing of the sort was happening. I finally had to go through all my old emails and find her contact information. Upon speaking to her, I pointed out how difficult it was searching for her business website online. To which she replied in not so many words “Well, my Web designer said that people have to pay to be on the top and I don’t really want to pay for that.”

I was baffled. So as per what her designer said, you can only be found, if someone knows your name or your business name? But cannot be found if someone is searching for a virtual consultant in Boston? Sounds ridiculous! Well as a small business owner you need to immediately wake up and smell the coffee! People who go online to search are generally looking for answers to their problems. Most won’t know your name or your business name. How do you ensure they find you before you competitor?

SEO Rules
Organic Search Engine Optimization does not require you to pay the search engine owners to bring your site to the top rankings. What organic SEO does, is makes your website more search crawler/robot friendly and follows the white hat ethical SEO rules laid down by top search engines. Generally good search sites like Google keeps updating its algorithm to improve search results and a good SEO firm will update and follow such guidelines accordingly.

Some basic must-dos to make your website SEO friendly:
  • Ensure your website coding is clean. Remove extra CSS and Javascript. Get your site W3C (www.w3c.org) validated to make it search friendly. There are 100% validated websites out there, so trust me it can be done!

  • Spend some time right at the onset to do a thorough keyword research. Believe me this is the basic ABC of SEO. Look for keywords in programs like Keyword Discovery, Overture, WordTracker and website logs. You should know which keywords; users will use to do a search for you. Like I typed ‘virtual consultant Boston’ to search for my client’s website.

  • Now that you know which keywords to optimize write your content them. Ensure to write SEO friendly content. Use 2 or max 3 keywords phrases per webpage. Don’t confuse the search crawler by using too many different types of keywords and diluting all. To understand more about keywords read my previous post about The Tango between Keywords & Search Engine Crawlers Part I & Part II

  • Make sure to include the keyword phrase in the title, the alt tags, and the body of content. Bold it; use it in links, in H1 tags

  • Start building relevant incoming links to your website. This is part of organic SEO, and ensures more number of relevant linking to your site, will make your site more popular with search bots. You can do this via article posting, forums, blogs, reciprocal linking, directory submissions etc. All this is very time consuming and tedious, but essential for your long term Search Engine Optimization strategy. Above all be patient. It takes time but following the above basic steps will work in winning the war and being found online.
Go and type your site’s preferred keywords on search engine. Can you find your business in the top 10 listings…. Nope? Then you definitely need to pull up your socks and take SEO help from experts.

Write to me at mark@analytixsolutions.net to discuss any further questions you might have about how to get your website SEO done.


get a free quote for seo services

Friday, September 12, 2008

How SEO can help you combat recession?

SEO ExpertThere is a severe economic downturn which cannot be denied. As small business owner it is very essential to be totally prepared to hold the fort and ride this downturn with effective strategies for survival and growth.

Besides following the commonly given away practical advises such as decreasing your debt, decreasing your expenses; increasing your savings and practicing frugality in your business and personal life I would advise to capitalize from your existing customers and convert maximum of prospects into customers. They can definitely ensure your survival. If you’re running a traditional set-up with not much of technology put to use, you surely need to open up that client directory you used to maintain few years back and start calling up them and promote your services with some healthy discounts.

If you own a good website, you should surely launch some good promotional offers that can help convert your prospects into business. You would also need a good marketing plan as whatever your blowout offer may be; it’s no use if you do not have sufficient website visitors to read about it.

Check out for Search Engine Optimization program. It’s the right antidote needed to get your internet marketing done within a small web marketing budget.

If you plan to pop-up any further question SEO related questions for me, like how, why, what, when, etc. here’s few further facts from me:

  • With SEO, you can get your website placed on top rankings of major search engines. This gives your website better visibility, more number of visitors and an extended chance to reach out to your prospects before your competitors.

  • SEO will help to turn your website into an online shop by increasing traffic and improving conversion rate. Hiring a professional SEO expert can deliver good results.

  • Organic SEO is free of cost and delivers results for a longer period of time compared to any pay-per-click advertising options. Hire a SEO consultant to kick-off your organic SEO program and save on cost and time.

  • Organic SEO is no rocket-science and you can find tons of net materials on do-it-yourself SEO practices. It’s not difficult to begin with, but the only constraint is that they take up lot of time. A SEO pro can in-turn help you save this time and even bring on board all the experiential tips and tricks that drive faster results compared to trial-and-error methods.

Internet marketing offers many avenues to know and reach your targeted customer instead of waiting for them to come to you. Be active, be found and make marketing the center of your activities to survive the recession besides following the conventional precautions.


get a free quote for seo services

Friday, September 5, 2008

Need help in deciding the best keywords for your site?

SEO Keywords Suggestions
You would have often heard SEO Guru or SEO service providers asking “Which are the keywords you want to optimize for your search engine optimization?”

Keyword research is the backbone of a good SEO plan. If you select ineffective keywords or focus on wrong ones, your entire search engine strategy might go kaput, since you will not be attracting the right kind of audience to your website. It is all well and good to get to the top 5 or 10 ranking on Google, Yahoo, MSN or any other major search engines, but ask yourself this simple question “Is the traffic to your website converting into results you want?” If not, your SEO strategy is really not that effective.

The problem faced during selecting the right keywords is proximity to your own business. Since you are so close to your own business you might wrongly have a myopic view and you would unintentionally focus on keywords you want your audience to search, thinking it best describes your product/services. But usually it’s completely the other way around. You need to understand how your audience search for your product/services and be there to be found with those search words. Best way to combat this would be ask someone not related to your field to come up with words to search for your product and services. You will be amazed to see the results.

The average internet surfer out there is still using vague keywords or phrases to search answers to their problems. They will generally not be aware of technical jargons or typical terms you use to describe your product/services. It would be beneficial if the right blend of keywords are used that are most likely to attract your target audience.

Web users who commonly use search engine seem to fall into two categories. They either enter in one or two word searches, or then enter detailed (often too detailed) phrases. Monitoring your own search activities, particularly when you are frustrated with the results, may help to define how you can best optimize your own site to snare those search terms.

One of the best ideas is to ask your SEO agency to provide you a Keyword Traffic Analysis and Trend report that should aide your decision to choose the final keywords. The best SEO professionals are able to advise you on those keywords or key-phrases that users are likely to use and not based on what you would like them to use. They will also research your industry and competitors prior to kicking off your SEO strategy that would give you a much clear idea on the returns you can expect from your SEO program.



get a free quote for seo services