Friday, October 3, 2008

Search Engine Optimisation for Lead Generation

By David B. Ascot

Search engine Optimisation is ranking your website well in the free path of the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and NineMSN. In Australia, Google dominates the Australian search market and it has over 80% market share. Our tests also revealed that Google searches almost always convert into inquiries or sales much more often than searches by other major search engines. So in other words, Google generates more high quality search traffic. That's a pretty good reason to focus your search engine strategy on Google.

Once you rank well on Google you normally find that you rank pretty well on the others anyway. I'll talk you through a three step process for doing search engine optimisation. Obviously, it's a fairly complex topic and companies spend thousands of dollars for getting this done for them. It all comes down to a pretty much core three-step strategy.

Step 1: Perform Keyword Research Establish keywords and phrases that are relevant to your services or your product so that you can focus your search engine optimisation efforts on those particular keywords or phrases. For example, if your business operates within a local area, your keyword research is normally going to be pretty easy. It's likely to be that your keywords and keyword phrases will simply include what you do and then your area. For example, if your business is as a carpet cleaner and you operate in Sydney, your keyword phrases likely to be something to the effect of "Carpet cleaning Sydney." You can also use keyword and search tools like inventory.overture.com, which is free, or keyworddiscovery.com or wordtracker.com; the latter two are paid search tools, but they're also somewhat more sophisticated than inventory.overture.com.

Step two: Optimising on page You need to optimise your website content, too. For high search engine rankings, make sure the right keywords show up on your webpages. This is part of the story, too, but it's also an important part of the puzzle we call "optimisation." Here are some important tips on optimising webpages.

1. Your Page Title Should Be Keyword-Rich. The title that appears in your browser in the blue bar at the very top should have keywords in it; this is because it's also the title in Google's search results. Make your title concise, short, and rich in keywords. It should have the most important keywords at the front of the title. As an example, if your carpet installation business is located in Sydney, you can say, "Carpet Installation Sydney - Install Carpet Surry Hills Sydney." And put the most important keywords at the front of the sentence. You can see that it's a bit of repetition, but it's pretty keyword rich and it doesn't sound too strange, which should get you more exposure.

2. Make Your Description Keyword Rich, Too. This is your "meta description tag." It appears in your website code and describes your page's content. This description should be rich in keywords and should include complete sentences. For example, with our carpet cleaner, your description could say: "Proper Cleaner in Surry Hills, Sydney. Best Carpet Cleaning Service at a Competitive Price."

3. What Do Your Headings Say? Search engines look at your headings because they seem to include important page content. If your headings and sub headings are rich in keywords, you've given yourself a good start. For example, you can say, "Carpet Cleaning Services in Sydney."

4. Address Your Page Content. You should ensure that you have at last one keyword rich paragraph of text on each page. Keywords used in your headings may be repeated again in you content. Try to use a mix of related key phrases. For example, Digital Printing, On Demand Printing, 60 minute Print Service rather than the same phrase over and over again.

5. Look At Links. Links are another important indicator of page content. You should avoid generic words and links such as, "Find out more" or "Click here". Instead, use keyword rich link test such as, "View our complete range of digital printing services", with "digital printing services" as a link.

Step-3: Optimise Off Page As Well Utilising off page optimisation or linking strategies is the third and final stage in making sure your website is search engine optimised. When people link to your website, these are known as "incoming links," and Google considers these as votes for your website. Many businesses fail because they only focus on using keywords and webpages but don't utilise a linking strategy. Here are a few things you can do to start making sure your site goes up the ranks with linking strategies:

2. Put Your Site on So-Called "Authority Directories." These website directories, called "authority directories," are highly respected by search engines and can help improve rankings. This can help you improve your own rankings, too. Many of these sites charge a few to list there, but this helps keep out lower quality websites. Three of the most important ones are: botw.org, Yahoo.com.au, and business.com. Be advised that this isn't about those scams that say they'll submit your site to countless directories for $49 or so. Only submit your website to these well regarded directories.

2. List Your Sites on Authority Directories. Listing your website on website directories which are well regarded by search engines can help to improve your rankings. Most of these so-called authority directories charge a fee for listing. A fact that serves to keep out lower quality websites. Three of the most important authority directories are: Yahoo.com.au, botw.org and business.com. Please note that I'm not talking about email scams that offer to submit your site to 34 million directories for $49. You should only bother submitting your website to directories that are well regarded by search engines.

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