Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing help people find companies and services online. For businesses it's an excellent opportunity for free marketing. But if your website shows up on Google page three or higher, chances are that companies with better ranking will snatch potential customers from you.
This article talks about how to improve search engine optimization (SEO), how to get the most out of your keywords, and how to make your website more visible to Internet users.
Choose your keywords carefully
When coming up with keywords for your web copy and SEO strategy, find a balance between words that are specific for your business and words that people actually type in the search window. For example, if you specialize in wedding flowers arrangements, the keyword "flowers" is too general and wouldn't do much for you. "Wedding bouquets" is a better choice. "Yellow chrysanthemum", on the other hand, is too narrow.
Do you need some inspiration? Here's a trick: go to the website of a competitor that ranks well. In the web browser menu, go to View and View source. A new window will open up with all the information about that page. Look for meta keywords and you might get ideas for keywords to use, or not to use, on your company site. We don't recommend being a copycat, hopefully your website has something very unique to offer, but it doesn't hurt to check out what the competitors are up to.
When you incorporate your keywords in the website copy, make sure to include the most important words in the first paragraph of each page. Finally, keep in mind that you write for humans, not for machines, so don't overstuff your copy with keywords.
Understand the use of meta keywords
It's important to point out that meta keywords won't do wonders to SEO and website traffic. In fact, many search engine algorithms don't care much about meta keywords. However, as long as you do it right, it doesn't hurt to have them. In my opinion, having 5-15 carefully chosen meta keywords per page is better than having no keywords at all.
While general meta keywords won't have a great impact on ranking, putting keywords in page titles (or meta titles) can make quite a difference. Instead of having ordinary page titles like "Welcome to Company X" or "About", make sure you have descriptive page titles, for example "Welcome to Company X, Specialist in Y, City State" and "About Company X, experts in Y products".
Alt tags and alt titles are text that describes images. It shows when the mouse hover over an image, or when a picture doesn't load properly. Again, they don't do wonders to SEO but it doesn't hurt to have them.
In the end, the most important place for keywords is in your website copy.
Avoid competing with the whole World Wide Web
It's extremely tough for a small business, or a start-up company with a brand new website, to compete online with literally thousands of companies in the same industry with bigger marketing budgets. If you own a local business that only serves a certain city, state, or even country, zoning in on your geographical area can improve your ranking. If applicable for your business, include geographical areas in page titles, meta tags, website copy, and in other content elements of the website.
For example, if you own a small florist shop in Tampa Florida, the keyword "flowers" is like a needle in a haystack. Google it and you will get about 150 million hits. "Floral services Tampa Florida" on the other hand reduces the search engine competition significantly.
Images and videos make crawlers blind
Search engine spiders don't see images, flash videos, slide shows, etc. If your homepage is nothing but pictures and banners, search engines won't be able to crawl the page and take information from it. It's just as if the page were empty. So make sure you have at least one or two paragraphs of copy (text) on your pages, especially on the homepage.
Be inviting - Have control over Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are one or two short sentences of what a webpage is about, and on search engine sites they show up as preview snippets underneath the page title. They are important because people read them and determine if the site is of interest. If you haven't entered any meta descriptions, the search engine will take whatever it can grab from the page, and it's not always what you want Internet users to see. Also, if your homepage has a lot of images, the crawler can't read the page, and it will grab the few random word it can see on the site. Google sometimes ignores the meta descriptions and grabs text directly from the site, so again, make sure to have at least one paragraph of quality copy on each page.
When you write your meta descriptions (or web copy paragraphs) you want them to be descriptive, informative, and inviting. Have a look at your ranking competitors and ensure your preview snippets are the best.
Link building - A way to increase popularity
Popularity is important for search engine ranking, and links are a way to measure it. The more web pages that refer to your site, the higher the likelihood to rank well. The higher you rank, the more people see your site, and the higher the odds are people will talk about it on the web. And around and around it goes. In other words, external linking is good. Contact companies you trust about exchanging links, write a blog, and share your links in respectable and appropriate forums. But be careful not to overdo it, nobody likes an annoying spammer.
A word of caution: there are companies out there offering linking services or link exchange programs. Don't end up in so-called bad neighborhoods, a.k.a. websites with questionable content. It could sabotage your ranking. Do your homework before you buy any link building services.
When it comes to internal linking (links within your own site), avoid the generic "click here". Instead, create link text that describes the link well, e.g. "information on server virtualization".
How do I know if my efforts are paying off?
After you've put all this hard work into choosing keywords and putting them in various places, you want to find out if it's actually working. The obvious step is to enter your keywords on different search engine sites, and see if your website shows up on the first page. You may also notice a rise in inquiries about your company, or even better, an increase in sales. But in case you don't get the ranking results you were hoping for (keep in mind it can take time), you need black on white website data in order to analyze and improve your web traffic.
Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools offer great free online devices for accessing information about your website visitors and their behaviors. And remember, whether your results are fantastic or you get a bit disappointed, nothing on the web is static. There's always room for changes and improvements!
Next step - Attractive and persuasive website copy
Once your website attracts more and more visitors, you need to keep them interested and inspire them to come back for more. In my article "What makes for great web content " I talk about important factors for successful website copywriting, such as attract visitors with compelling text, easy-on-the-eyes website structure, and how to convert visitors to customers.
Lena Edstrom is a writer and editor with years of experience in the copywriting and web content field. She has helped numerous companies with website content and SEO strategies. As a native Swede with office in Chicago IL, Lena helps Swedish business owners, who want to launch their businesses in the U.S., by translating and adopting marketing material to the North American market.
Visit Lena Edstrom's website at http://www.edcwriting.com for more information and advice on copywriting, web content, and search engine optimization (SEO).
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