Search Engine Optimisation

1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

When done correctly, can be the best way to drive targeted traffic to your website. With the search engines being so heavily used now, a well optimised website can deliver large volumes of qualified traffic. To be effective with SEO, you really should use a specialist as it is a very specific task, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do the basics.

Basic Tips

• Select a maximum of 3 keywords per page of you website
• Add the keywords to the Meta Tags of your webpage
• Add the keywords to the page Title Tag
• Include the keyword in the body text of your webpage
• Include the keywords as headers in the webpage

Website Content

2. Keywords in Web Content.

Having chosen the keywords you wish to be found on in search engines, scatter them throughout the content of your pages. Pay particular attention to the first 250 words on your page. Don’t dilute the keywords by having too many, stick to a maximum of three keywords per page, preferably just one.

3. Write for Your Audience.

Although making your web pages search engine friendly is important, don’t tip the scales so much that you’re writing your pages, just for the engines. Always remember the objective of the site is to either, educate your visitor, make sales, generate leads, or build your brand.

Search Engines and Directories

4. Become indexed by the major search engines and directories.

Google, Yahoo and MSN are the three search engines with the biggest reach. By becoming indexed by these major search engines, it will automatically list you with smaller search engines that use these larger players to power their searches.

5. Pay Per Click search engine advertising

An ideal choice if you are looking for an immediate impact. By paying for each click through to your website, you can fix a budget and generate traffic immediately.

Email Marketing

6. Send Regular eNewsletters

eNewsletters bring customers back to a site on a regular basis. Most people don’t buy from a company straight away, instead they need to be contacted several times to put them in the ‘buying mood’.

7. Subscription Forms

Websites should offer a way for visitors to sign up for a regular email, this sign up option should be very prominent. The idea is to keep in touch with your visitors. It’s difficult getting traffic, try not to let your visitors leave without offering to keep in contact.

8. Piggy Back eNewsletters

Create an advertisement or article and place it in eNewsletters which focus on your target market. This is a highly cost effective way of reaching large volumes of targeted recipients. Once the visitor clicks through to your website, have a hook to collect the email address, which allows you to market to them directly in the future.

General

9. Email Signature

Add your website’s address to all of your correspondence. For example, add your web address to each email that you send out. Include your contact details, what your business is about, a way to subscribe to your newsletter, your web site address and of course your email address.

10. Offline Correspondence

Invoices, Statements, Proposals, Letterheads. All of this offline material should carry details about your business and your website.
Consider placing brief messages on this material featuring a special offer too, or maybe a new product or service you are launching

Building Links

11. Become an Expert Articles Writer

Website owners and email publishers are often looking for original content. By writing industry specific articles, not only do you get the reputation of an expert, but you also get great exposure, effectively for free. Always include a link back to your web site in the article.

12. Become an Expert in Forums

Subscribe to forums and reply to questions, offer advice and build a reputation. Wherever possible add your web address to the end of your post.

13. Write a Press Release

There are many online sites that accept press releases, so long as they are informative and not just a sales flyer.

Take some time and put together an interesting piece and forward it to the many online press release companies. Include a link to your website and do a search on Google a few days later, you could be amazed at the results.

14. Linking

Get links from other sites that are relevant to yours. For example, if you sell football shirts, get links from football related sites. Not only are these sites more likely to add a link to you, the search engine will pick this relevancy up and it will help your webpages to rank better.