The single reason businesses optimize their web pages is to attract more customers! Optimization allows search engines such as Google and Yahoo to find the business website when customers are seeking information about the product or service provided by your company. Getting your information into the customer’s view during the point in the buying process where purchase decisions are made greatly enhances the chances of earning a new customer.
Going about optimizing the page can be a complex undertaking. Hiring a local SEO coordinator or consultant can be a good start. However, even if a consultant is engaged, it is useful to the enterprise manager to understand the main processes that will get the company page into the top search engine results.
Although complex methodologies exist for SEO, there really are essentially five simple, effective and efficient methods. These methods have been successfully employed by and have delivered solid results.
On-page Optimization – selecting keywords using free keyword tools or the Google Adwords tool can help the search engines understand what your page is about. Keyword selection is a fairly detailed process, but the enterprise must identify two or three significant phrases that customers would search for that describe what the enterprise does and also describe the page content.
When these phrases are identified, they should be used in the title, headlines and text of the web page. Use of these phrases in the content body though, should not be overdone. Overuse of these terms can be viewed negatively by search engines, so the web author should only use the keyword terms in a form that they would normally be used in conversation.
As keyword selection is a bit challenging, the business owner may want to invest some time in learning some of the intricacies of the process. Choosing useful and effective keywords can be an art form that requires application of consumer behavior, language and communication techniques.
Off Page Optimization – Elements included in the Off-Page effort include setting links and submitting your site to local directories. Off Page Optimization primarily centers on link-building or getting other sites to set links back to the business page. The more links pointing back, the better. Essentially, ‘Off Page Optimization’ involves letting your niche community know you are there. There are four sub-tasks to Off Page Optimization
Blogging Article Marketing Site Submission Direct Outreach
Blogging – is simply reaching out to other sites, commenting and leaving your URL with your comment. The search engines will see that you left a comment and will follow the link back to your site. These back links are extremely important in building confidence with the search engines that the site provides content described by the keywords. And remember to use a keyword phrase if possible as the name of the link that you attach to the URL
Articles – embedding links pointing to your site within an article and then releasing it for publication elsewhere can also build a network of links. Many enterprise operators wrestle with this since article writing can consume a great deal of time. Still, articles don’t need to be much longer than 500 words or so and can consist of only a few paragraphs.
Site Submission – Submitting a site to the search engines is useful especially for new or start up businesses. Google and Yahoo! eventually find sites on their own, but submitting the new site usually causes them to send out a search ‘robot’ to validate that your page exists and to evaluate its content.
Direct Outreach – This is perhaps a fancy term for simply asking others to set a link to the company’s website on their page. Contributing content exclusively to these sites is a good reason for other sites to agree to this. As most website operators struggle to post new and relevant content, gaining a contributor for the price of setting a link is usually a good trade. This is similar to article distribution, but requires directly contacting other webmasters and proposing the deal. It also may require some agreement that you won’t distribute the exact same content elsewhere on the internet.
Other tactics help in the effort to get your page into the top Search Engine Results, but these five elements can get your page in the game.
assist organizations of all types compete for new sales over the world wide web. With a track record of placing sites in Google’s top ten results, our organization uses proven methods and cutting edge techniques to win world wide web traffic to business websites.
