Looking Beyond SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is one of the most highly talked about topics between Webmasters and marketers. It is probably also the single topic that more webmasters obsess over than any other (in terms of their website anyway!). However, while SEO can be an excellent resource for targeted traffic, all website owners should concentrate their efforts on more than trying to squeeze one more percent out of keyword density, or beg one more PR5 link from an authoritative site. As well as sapping energy, causing breakdowns in family relationships, and being responsible for the onset of male pattern baldness it also causes us to lose sight of our ultimate goal.

You Mean There's More To Online Life Than SEO?

The ultimate goal for the vast majority of websites is to either make money or promote a service that makes money. How the site goes about it is entirely up to the Webmaster. Whether you choose to make money through affiliate links, PPC advertising, product sales, dropshipping, or any other method the single most important aspect of your website is your visitor. Visitors are those people that you attempt to attract to your site and they are the ones that will essentially make you some cash.

Don't Forget The Real People

The biggest problem with concentrating on SEO is that while the search engine spiders might be difficult to please they are a walk in the park, a piece of cake, and an absolute breeze when compared to real-life, living, breathing, walking, talking visitors. Search engines rely on mathematical algorithms to determine the quality of your site whereas the visitor relies solely on personal opinion. The next time you're attempting to inject 2 or 3 more instances of key phrases like "California Mesothelioma lawyer attorney" into your content try to remember that some poor soul might actually have to try and make sense of what you're writing.

Some Search Engines Are Complying

Fortunately for you and I, of course, some of the mathematical search engines are also coming round to this way of thinking. Google, in particular, want to offer users natural search results. They want to promote natural web pages, with natural content, using natural keywords, gaining natural links. This means that Webmasters are able to start obsessing over a number of other factors now instead:

Optimizing Your Content For Conversions

Conversion rates are not a part of SEO but should be a part of your business strategy. Consider how many people visit your site and the percentage of those people that either click through the links on your page or purchase a product. It is virtually impossible to predict with any certainty what your conversion rate SHOULD be but you should always strive to improve it. Your content should convert, your newsletter should convert, your mailing list should convert, and your emails should convert.

Improving Customer Retention Rates

Customer retention is also important. Once you sell a product or provide a service, even if you persuade a visitor to click a link and make a purchase you should do everything you can to ensure that you retain your customer base and they return to make purchases again. A big part of every successful business is repeat custom and without it you will always be fighting an uphill struggle to generate new leads and convert those leads into customers.

Ensuring that you offer the best service, the best prices, the best results, or the best information and help can generate good customer retention. However this isn't all of it. Company or website branding also plays a part, and following up with after sale emails and contact is also vital if you have the relevant information to hand. Use business cards and compliment slips whenever possible and always ensure that you include a company signature in all your email communications.

Generating Sales And Marketing Methods

Sales are obviously vital and without sales you will never achieve customer retention. In order to make sales it is important to acquire or generate leads. SEO is obviously a very beneficial way of generating leads but it isn't the only way. PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, advertising is a good way to instantly drive traffic to your site. SEO can take months to begin to generate results whereas you can truly hit the ground running with an effective PPC campaign. Ensure that you have a compelling advertisement lined up and also ensure that your website content is geared toward the conversion of any visitors you do receive.

Banners And Text Ads

Banner advertising and text advertising (I'm trying to ignore the temptation to mention their use in SEO) have taken a back seat to SEO and PPC, but for some sites they still have their uses. Find websites or newsletters that offer information relevant to your product or your service and then try out a small advertising campaign before you inject large amounts of money in a campaign that may not bear any fruit whatsoever.

Offline Advertising Methods

Offline advertising is also an option, though it can prove costly. For geographically targeted campaigns it may prove particularly beneficial. Local radio stations, local newspapers, and even billboards are options that do still generate results. These can cost money though. Bear in mind that some websites have been known to take this a step further with skywriting and other unusual tactics. These are best left to the behemoth sites like Ebay in all honesty.

Conclusion

SEO is not the be-all and end-all of a website. It is a powerful online marketing technique that can in time generate large amounts of targeted traffic. However, it is important to remember that once that traffic arrives your site must be optimized for conversions and sales. You should also consider using other forms of advertising in order to gain more site visitors and a more diverse range of traffic.

Search engine optimisation - it's all in the writing

I now propose to go right out on a limb and say that design has very little to do with search engine optimisation. This is a sweeping generalisation, I admit, and one to which my designer friends will take instant umbrage. But it is true to all intents and purposes. Design can certainly assist in achieving good optimisation. By that I mean it will assist if it doesn't hinder the process with acres of code that the robots need to wade through in order to find the potatoes and gravy. Or if the navigation throughout the site is logical and easy to achieve. Or if the pages are designed to load quickly.Other than that, optimisation is all in the writing.

Now, I am a copywriter with around 10 years' experience of the advertising business; and there can be few people in the world who know less about design than I do. But my entire working life seems to have been spent arguing with designers about the length of copy in relation to the size of the pic in any given piece of work. And I confess that I mostly lost, thereafter seeing my words relegated to four lines of 8-point Myopic beneath an illustration the size of a house.In website terms, however, the tables have been nicely turned. Here's why.

To optimise a website, you first need to take a good, long look at the HTML meta tags of Title, Description and Keywords. Do you see what I see? Yes, they are words. And all of these words require researching and embellishing. Likewise, take a peek under that all-singing, all-dancing Home page banner - and what do you see? More words. These words, unlike those used in the meta tags above, are written for both search engine and potential human customer alike.Search engines love words. Great, isn't it?

Given all of this, it is pretty clear that all you need in order to properly optimise a website is a lexicon of well thought out words - keywords and keyphrases - sprinkled like generous confetti throughout the meta tags and the body copy. Well, almost.

In the first place, those words must be relevant. They must state clearly what it is you are selling and where you are selling it. The general marketing principle is: (a) product description, (b) product benefits, (c) region of operation. What you don't need are turgid explanations about the size of your company and who the product is designed for. Your potential customers will mostly be bright enough to know whether or not they are in the market for what you are offering. So to say, for instance, that your 'range of gardening gloves is ideal for gardeners' is a touch obvious, not to mention redundant and a waste of valuable space. In all promotional writing, brevity and clarity are the two most important attributes. But I digress.

So how do you go about collating these key words and phrases? First, you could invest in software that generates your meta tags and keywords for you. Fair enough; there are some good programmes around, and I would be the first to applaud any device that makes life a touch easier. On the other hand, you could take the more intellectually satisfying route and do it yourself."Oh, no," you cry, reaching for the gin bottle. "I don't do writing!" To which I answer: "You don't have to. Someone has already done it for you." I should tell you, straight away, that I am not an advocate of plagiarism. However, it is not theft to take a good, long look at somebody else's literary ideas and adapt them to your own ends. I will cite John Donne's penchant for re-working William Shakespeare as a good example of this. And what is good enough for Mr Donne, is certainly good enough for me. So, to formulate your keywords and phrases, why not research what your competitors are doing, then adopt and adapt? By competitors, I mean serious competitors, the people who are listed at No. 1 on Google, Yahoo and MSN in your sphere of activity. Delve into their meta-tags, analyse their body copy, figure out what it is that convinces the search engines to place them at No. 1.

If you feel that such a ploy is a little devious, you can console yourself with the thought that the writers of the No.1 material probably pinched it from someone else in the first place. So that's all right then.

And now for the denouement to this piece, which is the most important bit of all.

We have established with some certainty, I think, that a website stands or falls in the listings stakes by the quality of its words. Of course, that quality is determined by the search engines, not your old professor of English. So the judgment is in algorithm terms rather than literary terms. That's fine; we are simply trying to accommodate the engines, not win a Nobel Prize.

Further, in my not so humble opinion, every Home page should carry a stick of keyphrase-rich body copy. And this stick of copy should be placed where it can be seen, read and acted upon by the search engines. As close to the top of the page as possible.

Sadly, so many Home pages don't have this attribute. The page designs leap from whiz-bang banner to product list or string of pics with no intervening tit-bits of information - in the shape of copy - designed to feed the search engine robots. There is little for the robots to get their shiny little teeth into.

Let me prove the point. On several occasions recently, I have been asked to optimise websites on which the Home pages were bereft of any meaningful copy. Within an hour or two, the copy was written and the sites posted to the engines. Within a couple of days, the sites in question were featuring nicely on the first couple of pages of the major engines. Previously, they were barely indexed.

There's nothing magical about any of this. Because, guess what, search engine optimisation is all in the writing. If this has been helpful, maybe you'll let me know.

Pay-per-click Marketing Strategy Can Boost Your Sales

Every business out there is competing hard with others offering like products or services, thanks to the way the world has opened up and provided consumers with access to many different resources. Thanks to the pay-per-click marketing strategy found across the internet, someone requiring a service in Canada can easily hire a business in Florida or a product manufactured in Colorado can reach an end user in Australia. This is great, because the opportunities for higher sales and income are vast, compared to previous decades where your business was only locally known or only popular in the surrounding cities.

Stiff competition, however, has also meant that anyone with a business needs to promote and market their company effectively, encouraging and enticing surfers to visit their site and hopefully purchase their product or service. Having a pay-per-click marketing strategy to make sure your website gets seen and receives plenty of hits is integral to your business's success, because if you're not receiving traffic to your site, you've got a seriously struggling venture on your hands.

There are plenty of ways to boost sales and promote your website these days. Information is the current trend in tempting surfers to click links and reach your site. Articles posted on your website that teach people something new or give them pertinent information are helpful to draw in clientele. Press releases can also be effective to bringing attention to your business or company. Thanks to the way that individuals quickly turn to computers and the internet for their information, the written word and fundamental text has become the strongest venue to drawing in business.

Pay-per-click or PPC advertising is another growing method of boosting hits to your website. This principle of marketing is a venture of cooperation between websites, as you ask other sites to display a link for your website. When individuals are attracted to an ad displayed on a website, they click to follow the link through to your business portal. The company advertising your link receives income that you supply. In effect, this pay-per-click marketing strategy is paying someone to promote your company.

For someone adept with computers and having great interpersonal and negotiation skills, pay-per-click can be set up by an individual. Most people, however, don't have the know-how or the time to work through the steps needed to set up this type of advertising. The best thing to do is to hire a PPC consulting firm that has all the resources and networking skills to build an effective promotion program. Not only that, hiring a pay-per-click consulting firm means that you don't have to worry about links on dead sites, maintenance or creating a catchy advertisement.

Companies devoted to PPC consulting will work with you to develop a strong pay-per-click marketing strategy to know what product or service you're trying to sell. From there, they'll define your market target and develop surveys to help with the set-up of the promotion program. Once they've achieved result from these surveys, pay-per-click consulting firms will create advertisement that reaches the people you want it to and test the results. Revisions are sure to come into play, and businesses geared to pay-per-click consulting will compare their marketing against solid results. Considering the amount of work involved in this type of promotion, you certainly don't want to go less than the full distance by trying to set up pay-per-click advertising yourself.

Reputable consulting firms that specialize in creating a pay-per-click marketing strategy for businesses are ones that are geared to website promotion. Every type of industry has experienced and skilled experts and the common jack-of-all-trades individual won't be able to pull off such an intensive networking to boost your sales. If you're serious about a successful business, you should hire companies that provide exactly what you need and you'll soon be able to see that the cost of their time and efforts pays for itself over and over again as your sales increase.

Effective SEO Through Good Code Structure

For a successful Search Engine Optimization strategy, take into consideration that search engines look at content and also at the structure of the markup. They emphasize the importance of text content, page titles, keywords rich text, meta descriptions and information architecture. A website where quality of content and code prevails will rank higher in the major search engines.

There are many Search Engine Optimization tactics, but try to find the best combination and don't sacrifice the usability and performance of your website. Here is some basic information about improving your source code from an SEO perspective:

Avoid Classical 404 Error Pages

The 404 - File Not Found - page is presented to the user by the server as an error page. The user gets this message directly from the server of the website he is trying to visit. This error page is supposed to appear only when the server cannot find the requested location and is unsure of its status.

In the vast majority of cases, the 404 error emerges for pages that were moved or even deleted or the layout of the site or page information changed.

Many hosting companies offer a 404 redirect page. This means that when a user enters the URL of any page of your domain, and that page does not exist or can no longer be found, you can automatically redirect the user to a specified page - usually your home page or your sitemap.

Pay special attention when you decide to delete certain pages. Remember to redirect them to a main page of your site using the 301 (Moved Permanently) HTTP response code.

You can greatly improve the user friendliness of your website by creating a custom 404 page.

- Present a message of apology for the inconvenience;
- Try to ease the user's way back to your site. Introduce error messages and include evident links to the home page, sitemap, and contact page;
- Offer assistance and encourage the user to continue to search for the information he needs on your site. You could even include a search box right on the error page;
- Keep the same design for the error page as for the rest of the website.

But remember that the best strategy for a 404 error page is to prevent it from coming up altogether, as many customers might be left with the impression that the whole website does not exist and not just the specific page they were trying to access.

Keep Away From Orphan Pages

An orphan page is a page that is not linked to another one and thus cannot be found by spiders. To avoid having orphan pages on your website, check regularly that all your pages are linked to each other.

Search engines consider sites with orphan pages to be unprofessional, and not worthy of getting a high rank. This kind of website is under construction or is the result of a poor design process. If your pages aren't linked properly search engines won't index them and will consider them irrelevant for the search.

Pay attention to the fact that some search engines don't correctly index websites that use HTML frames. When spiders crawl through your internal pages, they index each individual page and display them as orphan pages in search results. Most frame designs include a content frame and a navigation frame.

Visitors require both frames to navigate through the site. Create a JavaScript to check if the page is loading correctly, and load the frameset. In this way, users won't be able to open pages outside the frame. This is a very easy way of losing clients.

Use 301 Redirect Pages

To avoid displaying a 404 error page, set up a 301 redirect page. The code 301 means "moved permanently" and it's the easiest way to preserve your search engine rankings for that page.

There are two ways of generating proper 301 redirect pages. If your site is hosted on a Linux or Unix server create a .htaccess file to add the redirect to your server's web root.

The .htaccess file contains specific instructions for certain requests, including security, redirection issues and how to handle certain errors. If it is hosted on a Windows or IIS server then the 301 redirect can be set up in the Administrator's section of the server software or through the DNS (Domain Name Server) zone.

Make a habit of reviewing the log files which contain data sent by your server. Search engine spiders often make critical decisions based on what your server tells them through the server's headers.

Pay attention, an improper 301 redirect can cause you big problems, since your website might fail and users won't be able to visit your pages. Setting up a correct "301 redirect" assures that you'll stay high in search rankings.

Create a Sitemap

A sitemap is a web page that lists all the pages on your website. They are intended both for users - to find easier the information they need, and for search engines to index pages.

Your sitemap link should be right on your home page. In this way spiders are sent directly to the place where all your content information is gathered. Sitemaps can improve SEO, however, be advised that they only take into consideration a limited number of links to those pages.

To make sure that spiders check your whole site and have more chances to get indexed, it would be a good idea to use a sitemap generator. You can use ROR sitemaps that are readable by all search engines.

ROR is a sitemap tool that uses XML feeds to describe your website. ROR sitemaps allow search engines to match text search with structured information, thus obtaining more relevance for your site. This kind of sitemap helps search engines to better understand your website content - products, services, images, articles, etc. By creating a file with product names, descriptions, prices, images, availability, affiliate programs, and any other relevant information customers can find you easier.

Don't Overuse Dynamic Pages

Dynamic web pages include dynamic content - images, text, etc - which change without the page being reloaded. Client-side languages like JavaScript and ActiveX are usually used to create these types of web pages.

Search engines don't rank dynamic pages with many parameters well. If you choose not to turn your dynamic URLs into static ones, at least put the most important parameters in your URLs first and try to limit dynamic parameters to no more than two.

Spiders can't read the text rendered as graphics. Any text that you want the spiders to read and index should be written out as text. At the very least, put any text that appears in graphics into the images' ALT attribute.

A slightly better alternative is to write your text in Flash, but remember to have a "Skip this intro..." link that takes visitors (and spiders) to the text-rich content of your site. Don't neglect this information if you want to optimize your search engine strategy.

Put .CSS and JavaScript into External Files

For a search engine, improperly formatted code will have a negative impact on your rankings. Since search engines read only a certain amount of information on a web page, you should try to increase the text content to HTML tag ratio.

If you have too much HTML code, the text content won't be seen entirely. For reducing HTML code, utilize hand coding using external .css files and Javascript.

Make Sure You Have Well Formatted [X]HTML

Try to fix as many of the HTML errors as possible. Although the search engines don't rank websites that have standard compliant code better they tend to "read" them easier. Use the W3 HTML Validator to check the validity of your code.

For a successful Search Engine Optimization strategy, take into account all of the aspects presented here. It takes time, effort and patience to achieve a higher rank in the main search engines. The idea is to have a long term strategy that makes your website stay on top for an extended period of time.

Top Ten SEO Factors

These are what I believe to be the top 10 most important things (not necessarily in order) that you need, in order to get your website found in the search engines.

There are many other factors as well, but if you follow these guidelines, you'll stand a much better chance, and you'll be off to a good start.

1. Title Meta Tag

The title tag is what displays as the headline in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). It's also what displays in the top blue band of Internet Explorer when your site is displayed.

Your title tag of your website should be easy to read and designed to bring in traffic. By that, I mean that your main keyword phrase should be used toward the beginning of the tag. True, there are websites being found now that do not use the phrase in the title, but the vast majority still do as of this writing.

Don't make the mistake of putting your company name first, unless you are already a household name, like Nascar or HBO. People are likely searching for what you have to offer, not your name.

Your title tag should be written with a capital letter starting the tag, and followed by all lowercase letters, unless you're using proper nouns. Some people prefer to capitalize every word, too.

2. Description Meta Tag

The description tag is the paragraph that people will see when your page comes up in the search results.

Your description tag should be captivating and designed to attract business. It should be easy to read, and compel the reader to act right now and follow your link. Without a description tag, search engines will frequently display thefirst text on your page. Is yours appropriate as a description of the page?

A proper description tag is what people will see below your title. You should make proper use of punctuation, and with readability, use your subject and geographical references.

3. Keywords Meta Tag

The importance of Meta keyword tags fluctuates from month to month among different search engines. There is a debate in the SEO community as to whether or not they help at all on certain search engines. In fact, in the summer of 2004 it appeared as if they were losing importance altogether.

However, you'll NEVER be penalized on any search engines for using relevant targeted keywords in moderation, and they can only help you with most, especially Yahoo.

Avoid stuffing your keyword metatags with too many keywords. Just use relevant tags that apply directly to the content of that particular page, and don't overdo it.

4. ALT Tags

The small yellow box that comes up when your mouse cursor is placed over an image is called the ALT tag. Every relevant image should have an alt tag with your keywords or phrases mentioned in the tag.

A proper ALT tag goes after the file name, and before the Align indicator.

* - The ALT tag is no longer being considered for ranking purposes by some search engines. That said, it still cannot HURT you, and will still help you with some engines. My recommendation is to continue to use them, but be sure to avoid keyword stuffing. Besides, who knows when the pendulum will swing back the other way?

5. Header Tags

The text of each page is given more weight by the search engines if you make use of header tags and then use descriptive body text below those headers. Bullet points work well too. It is not enough to merely BOLD or enlarge your text headlines.

6. Link Text

Search engine spiders cannot follow image links. In addition to having image links or buttons on your web pages, you should have text links at the bottom or elsewhere. The text that the user sees when looking at the link is called the link text. A link that displays products does not carry as much weight to the search engines as a link called oregon widgets. Link text is very important and is actually one of the most frequently overlooked aspects of web design that I've seen.

7. Site Map

Using a site map not only makes it easy for your users to see the entire structure of your website, but it also makes it easier for the search engines to spider your site. When the search engine spiders come to visit, they will follow all of the text links from your main index page. If one of those links is to a site map, then the spiders will go right to the sitemap, and consequently visit every page you have text linked to from that site map. On the site map page, try to have a sentence or two describing each page, and not just a page of links.

8. Relevant Inbound Links

By relevant, I mean similar industry or subject related sites. Right now, no single strategy can get your site ranked higher faster than being linked to by dozens of other relevant websites. It used to be that the quantity of incoming links mattered most, but today, it's much better to have three highly relevant links to you from other popular related websites than 30 links from unrelated low ranked sites. If there are other businesses in your industry that you can trade links with, it will help your site enormously. Link to others, and have them link to you. It's proven, and it works. To see who's linking to you, in Google type the following...links: yourdomain.com

9. Your Content

Not to be forgotten of course, is the actual content of your webpage. It must be relevant helpful information that people want to read. These days, each webpage should be laser focused on one specific product or subject in order to rank highly for that search phrase. The days of writing one webpage to appeal to dozens of search terms are long gone. Ideally, each page should have between 400 to 650 words on it. Too few, and the search engines won't consider it to be relevant enough. Too many words and the search engine spiders may have a hard time determining the actual subject or focus of the page.

Use your keywords or phrases often, and use them at the beginning of your paragraphs wherever possible. Don't overuse them and make the page sound phony, but don't write a page about a certain subject, and not mention that subject repeatedly either. Reading it out loud to yourself is a great way to judge how natural your text sounds.

Concentrate on writing quality pages that actually appeal to the human reader. Write pages that provide the reader with exactly what they are looking for; that is, information about the exact search phrase they've entered.

10. Avoid Cheating

With all of these tidbits of information, it's tempting to think that you can stuff 100 keywords into your title, or create a page with the phrase oregon widget company being used 100 times in headers, text links, ALT tags, bullet points etc. but that cannot help you. In fact, it can penalize you, and get your site banned from certain search engines.

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