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What Every Successful Business Owner Knows

• 02/04/11
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SEO (search engine optimization) Why It's So important For Your Business?

If you’ve been in business for any extended period of time you know that visibility is important to your business success. It doesn’t matter if you’re in retailing or in the business-to-business market sector; you need to be found on the web.

This is why I’m going to give some insight and basic facts connected to SEO. If your business is going to be successful you need it to be visible on the Internet, it’s that simple!

Search engines, generally, are looking for what customers are looking for.

Value!

That’s right, search engine are not that different to your clients. Both are looking for real value. I am not talking about price. Value is a much more abstract and complicated creature.

When a search engine comes to your website it has to make a judgment call on the site’s value to that engine’s users.

How do the search engines make this type judgment calls?

Basically they have a mathematical system that allows them, at great speed, to make a judgment connected to the value your website offers to their users. It’s a type of mathematical matrix.

I’m going to give you a basic outline of these matrixes. Then in part 2 of this piece I’m going to give some tips and tools that you might find useful in making your website more search engine friendly.

Web site pages structure

The leading search engines look at the basic navigation system of your website and mark the ones that have an intelligent site structure. Here’s a great linkto an article that gives a lot more information about this particular subject.

Keywords and phrases

You need the right keywords and phrases in certain places of your website pages. You can make educated guesses, however it’s better to do proper research in this area. What words do visitors use when looking for your product or service? It is best to have these words and phrases in the main text of each page at the beginning and final paragraphs. You should always include the most popular keywords phases found in your research.

Meta Tags

Mega tags used to have some real importance about 4 to 5 years go. However, they are no longer that important in the world of SEO. I suggest you stop worrying about them.

External Links

External Link quality is one of the most important parts of the SEO matrix. It’s a bit like personal networking; your local credibility is dependent on what your follow business owners think of you. Here is a great link to article that gives you some more information on this important area of SEO.

Content is King

This is the most important area. You can get all the other areas of the SEO matrix right but you will still not get any real visibility for your website if the content is not well written. REAL GOOD QUALITY CONTENT is the major element that all the leading search engines use when making a value judgment on your site. If what you say is of no value to visitors, search engines will rank you low. This means your site may be lost in the sea of internet information.

SEO Methods & Tools

In this section I will look at the method, tools and online recourses that are available connected to SEO. First you should always look at your competition’s websites and note what you see as their strengths and weaknesses. Not through the eyes of a competitor but through the eyes of a possible client or customer. This gives you an idea on what your website should look like and what content it should offer.

As a SEO professional I use some special online tools that in SEO terms gives me a kind of road map connected to my client’s competitor’s websites. Here are a couple of links to companies that I use in this particular area of competitive analysis. SEO Tools,  Majestic SEO and Raven.

When a potential client is talking to me I always do a quick competitive analysis that will give me some idea on what will be required to really help that particular client’s website compete against its online competitors. I can see what key words and phrases this client will need to focus on in order to stand out on the internet.

Keyword research

You normally build a list of keywords and long-tale phrases by doing some brainstorming and looking at some of your leading online competitors. However this is just a starting point. You should also use some online resources. Some of these resources are free and some cost money. Below is a list of the online tools that I use in my keyword research.

Google Adwords’ Keyword Estimator

Google Insights for Search

Wordtracker

Basically you are looking for keywords and long-tale phrases that will make you competitive with your online competition. Again, search engines are looking for certain words and phrases connected to your business or service.

Developing a page site map and clear internal navigation system

With the information that I have gathered using the above online tools I am able to develop a detailed page site map connected to what will be the top navigation page structure of my client’s website. We work on a balance between the website’s key marketing message and the necessary search engine optimization that is needed for each page.

Further onsite optimization

After our agreement on what should be in the main pages of the new website and what should be the main elements connected to the site’s main navigation we have the important onsite optimization process concerning what CMS (content management system) is going to be used for the project. This normally hinges on a number of elements connected to the coding and naming of files. Here is a list of the key areas I look at when working with CMS as it relates to SEO.

1: The physical structure of the website’s URLs needs to be optimized

2: Page titles need to have keywords

3: Main H1 and H2 tags of each page needs to be SEO optimized

4: All images on the website need to be named and optimized

5: Internal link structures need to be optimized

Content development

I normally work with a professional copywriter to help develop well written content for the new website. The client works closely with the copywriter and together they produce new value content for the website. We then work with the copywriter to develop content that has a balance of the keywords and phrases I found during my research.

Conclusions

I have just given a quick outline of the work that needs to be done when making a web site SEO friendly. This work is fundamentally important if you’re business is going to get a real ROI (return on investment) from the company’s website. The website will not generate income if it does not rank high with search engines.

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