Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

SEO Techniques Your Business Can Utilize

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Search engine marketing, or SEO, is now the primary method businesses online utilize to attract online visitors to their website. In addition to traditional internet marketing & SEO techniques, there are a variety of alternate content marketing strategies that businesses can consider.

Traditional SEO Techniques

As a beginning internet marketing SEO techniques, businesses should incorporate target keywords into their website’s content. A primary keyword should be selected that best represents the business, and several supporting keywords should be chosen to supplement. These keywords should be used in each of the website pages’ titles, meta descriptions and page content. A 1-2% keyword density is recommended by most internet marketing SEO experts as it lends for the most natural reading for visitors while still attracting the attention of search engines for marketing purposes.

Content Marketing Techniques

In addition to incorporating keywords into your website, other SEO concepts that have proven successful for a variety of businesses include:

  • Article Marketing- Keywords can be beneficial when included in your website’s static page content as well as the dynamic pages. In order to remain highly ranked on the major search engines, you will need to not only incorporate your chosen keywords into the primary pages, but also in regular article and blog posts placed onto your company’s website. You can also post articles onto article directories with links either embedded in the content or in the resource box. Be sure to use new content as duplicate content is frowned upon by search engines such as Google.
  • Opt-In Programs- Many marketers fail to consider what will happen once their targeted lead lands on their website pages. What is the intended outcome? Are you seeking to capture the visitor’s information to incorporate into your other marketing programs, or are you seeking a direct purchase? It is important to note that most first time website visitors do not generally make purchases. So, if you are new to SEO techniques, you may want to begin with installing opt-in programs into your website’s pages. Opt-in programs work as a give-to-get concept. Your business is providing something of value and in return, you are getting the prospect’s contact information to use for future marketing programs. You could offer website visitors a free ebook, report, book chapter, or any other valuable information as an incentive to capture their name and email address.
  • Email Marketing- Once you have captured email information from potential customers, you will want to utilize an email marketing campaign to drip market to them. Email marketing is one of many proven internet marketing SEO techniques. You can manually send emails to prospects, or you can leverage a company specializing in these campaigns such as Constant Contact or Aweber.

When these alternative content marketing techniques are used in combination with your traditional internet marketing & SEO concepts, your business will be more likely to experience the level of website traffic and internet sales expected.

Search Engine Optimisation Basics

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

If your business has a website, you have likely run into the term search engine optimization. However, you may not fully understand what it means or how to incorporate the concept into your current content. If you are starting from scratch, follow the five easy steps below to achieve a positive website traffic outcome for your business.

1. Choose Target Keyword Phrases

What word or words best describe your business? The answer to this question will encompass your target phrase or phrases. It is recommended to choose a single primary keyword phrase and several supporting, or secondary phrases. Your phrase should describe your business specifically; try to stay away from words that are too general. For example, if your business focuses on luxury cruise travel, the keywords cruise or travel would be too general in nature. Some popular keyword tools that can help you narrow down your focus are Google and WordTracker.

2. Consider your Competition

As with any marketing campaign, it is beneficial to consider your business’s current competition. What are their websites utilizing for keywords? How are they incorporating search engine optimization techniques into their content? In addition to reviewing the websites of your major competition, you can also review keyword competition by using tools found on Google or Yahoo. These search engine tools will tell you how often searchers are typing in a given keyword into their searches. Keywords that appear more often have greater competition between companies for searchers. A best practice in search engine optimization is to choose keywords that are a bit more obscure.

3. Create your Content

Now that you have completed your initial research and have chosen keywords to incorporate into your content, it is time to either create new content or to update your current website’s content. Include the chosen keyword into your page’s title, into the meta description, and into your page’s content. Target a 1-2% keyword density as this will allow for search engine relevancy without ‘keyword stuffing’ pages to the point that they are awkward to read. Including keywords into your paragraph subheadings is also a search engine optimization best practice.

4. Market your Website

Now that you have created your content, it is time to market it in order to drive traffic. Post updates within blogs, consider using article marketing, create a press release for your business and consider using email marketing.

5. Evaluate your Progress

Your search engine marketing program will not be perfect every time. So, it is important to review your marketing progress so that you can make any necessary adjustments. Your search engine marketing program should not only be driving traffic to your website, but those visitors should be converting into paying customers or clients, or should be opting into any marketing programs that you have embedded into your website.

Following these 5 simple steps will enable you to build a strong search engine optimization program that will yield results for your business.