If you have a website, especially one that is an eCommerce store, you need, just like retail outlets, to have the highest amount of passers by and exposure. The only feasible way online to achieve this desired level of traffic is through a search engine optimisation campaign.
Generating interest and users to your site, is best if it is positioned on page 1 of Google. Similar to a bricks and mortar outlet, you really want to be situated with the highest amount of foot traffic.
An SEO (search engine optimisation) campaign, if handled by a proper agency will bring you the highest volumes of web traffic and in turn drive sales and revenue.
What is Search Engine Optimiation?
“Search engine optimization (SEO) is the technique of bettering the organic rankings of a website on all the search engines. That is, the non paid rankings.
How is Your Website Ranking Determined?
Your websites overall ranking is determined by a huge amount of variables:
– how relevant is your website in relation to the keyword search performed by the user.
– the content on your website and how it relates to the search query. Content and the way it is formatted will have a massive impact in your online rankings.
– your URL structure ( website semantics) and site description as well as headings.
– in bound links from high page rank sites.
– your social media activity and how popular your site is amongst other users – are people talking about your site, recommending it to other users and is there online chatter about your site?
– internal graphics, site speed, bounce rates and the way users interact with individual landing pages.
All of the above factors are small pieces in a huge jigsaw puzzle, that help determine your Google ranking, but implementing proper SEO strategies, by a credible SEO firm, your companies website can over time, improve it’s organic, natural rankings.
A point to note here: Search Engine Optimisation is sometimes handled by companies that have little idea about what they are doing. SEO is a very complicated process and if you are truly serious about getting as far up on the rankings as possible, then this MUST be done by a SEO team that has a past credible and proven SEO history. Going down the path of working with a company that has discounted its rates to get your business will only end up badly!
The following Awesome Search Engine Optimisation Tips outlined below are simple to implement and will ensure that your website has the best chance of ranking and being the best sales person for your business tht it can be!
10 Awesome Search Engine Optimisation Tips
1. In bound links from external, relevant websites will do wonders.
Without doubt if you had to mention 1 awesome factor that will help with your websites SEO, is the amount of relevant links to your website from other industry respected websites. If for example you are a electrician, then in bound links from respected trade journals, will help propel your website to page 1.
These type of inbound links from websites, blogs, social media platforms and various articles will help the search engines find your website, index the pages and if there is enough of these types of links, then the positive, great rankings will surely follow.
I like to think of it like the ‘unpopular kid’ at school. If this child starts hanging out with the popular kids then he/she in turn will also start to become popular. This is the theory of inbound links in it’s most crude format – if your website is attached to popular sites, then your new site will become popular and surge in the SEO rankings.
Another way to think of it is like votes. An in bound link is a vote and the more votes you have the more the better it is for your website. A really important point to note here is that, it is nor the quantity of inbound links, BUT the quality. If yu have too many links from poor ranking websites that are not relevant to your business, then Google will treat these as spam, and you will be penalised for this.
2. The Search Engines Appetite for New Content is Insatiable
A search engine is a very hungry beast. All it wants is text and information. The more you can satisfy this hunger the more you will rank. Also known as content marketing, providing web pages of text will with SEO rankings. Images, animation and photos are not entirely SEO friendly, BUT text is, so the more you can publish on your website or blog, the better it will be for you.
The main aim of search engines like Google or Yahoo, is to provide information for people looking for products, services or educational information. If you can provide this for the engines, then they will reward you by ranking these pages. Also if people find these pages and like what you have to say, they might recommend these pages/blog articles to friends, etc and this will also help boost your rankings.
A point to note here is that you need to keep all pages relevant, web URL’s consistent and make sure that the content is totally unique.
3. Keyword Research Will Matter.
Work out your target market, think about the types of keywords or phrases they will use for their search and develop micro web landing pages based on your findings.
If you are selling a specific type of tennis racket for example, develop a web pages specifically for this type and brand of racket, rather than just the generic term tennis rackets. Being specific and developing content around this product or service is an AWESOME SEO TIP.
If you are too generic, then you will be competing with more websites and this will be harder to rank. The more niche your market, the easier it is to rank a landing web page.
An point to note here, is that the content need to be between 1000-2000 words. Anything less may not be sufficient enough.
4. Keep your Web Pages Unique – Plagiarise at Your Own Peril!
There is really no point in taking someones else’s content and trying to pass this off as your own. The engines are far too smart for this and your page will NOT get ranked. Plagiarism is not on and if the original writer finds out about this, you may end up with some intellectual property issues.
The search engines need and absolutely love new content, so go the extra mile, spend the time and effort writing your own web copy and you will see your SEO rankings rise.
5. Make Your Websites Individual Pages Keyword Rich.
Of course you have to use keywords in you website, but make sure that you do not over stuff these pages with too many keywords.
Make sure that each page has it’s own unique keywords. Just because you may offer many services or lots of products, this doesn’t mean that you have to put all your keywords on 1 page. Spread them out evenly throughout your site and try to have keyword specific pages.
A good example of this is a law firm. They may offer many types of services in different areas of law, but this should not mean that they put all of these in 1 page. A good way to work this in a SEO friendly manner is to have a services navigation tab and from there, you can have as many different pages as you like to reflect each individual service offering; divorce law, conveyancing, litigation, commercial law etc etc.
A point to note here is to write as though you were writing any article. Sure, use keywords, but write naturally, not for the search engines. Keyword stuffing on one page, sounds terrible and will not only annoy your readers but may appear spammy to the search engines. This is NOT ideal for SEO.
6. Does Your Site Take Forever to Load.
Try opening your website and see how long it takes to load. If it is more than 3 seconds then there is an issue. What you need to do is look at all your images and if there are videos, try to optimise them for web resolution; 72dpi. Slow loading sites are a SEO killer, but the fixes are simple and often very quick to implement.
If there is any type of flash animation anywhere on the site, get rid of these files immediately. Flash is also a SEO killer and this issue should be addressed immediately. Web animation was once popular but if your web design agency wants to do this then this is a critical SEO mistake for a new website – be very aware of this!
7. When was the last time you updated text on your website?
If the answer is: I don’t know, then there is a problem. Search engines will keep coming back to your site to check for any new information. They preference and then rank pages that have new content because they try to deliver users up-to-date information. Just look at how quickly news websites have information indexed and ranked. It can be in as little as 5 minutes. Obviously, this will not happen for your website, but ideally you should be updating pages and content every week.
This may seem like a very arduous and time consuming task, but if you want to rank your website and are serious about SEO then this is something you MUST DO.
If you are stuck for content and can’t think of anything to write, then maybe chat with a web copywriter.
8. Have you Installed Google Analytics Yet?
This is a great tool provided by Google and is super easy to install. These analytics will allow you to analyse important data such as number of website visits, time spent on each page and more importantly, where they have come from. This is especially powerful if you have an eCommerce website and rely on these tools to examine and refine pages for optimum performance.
If you study your web results, you will find that some pages have a higher bounce rate than others, which is not ideal for SEO. Tweaking these pages and then going back in a couple of weeks to see how the results have changed is another awesome SEO tool. Sign up for a Google analytics account, it’s free – give the code they provide you to your web developer who will be able to install it into your site.
9. Put a Blog on your Site.
Adding a blog to your site has 3 advantages and is another AWESOME Search Engine Optimisation TIP.
a) by adding content to your blog ( like I am doing now for the Hopping Mad Blog), will encourage the search spiders to keep coming back to your site – this is fundamental to SEO.
b) Make your blog interactive. What I mean by this is encourage readers to comment and leave their feedback. This interaction will keep users returning, perhaps referring other people to your blog, which is another AWESOME SEO technique. As long as users keep coming back to your blog or website, the engines will pick up on this and the reward for you is a better SEO profile.
c) Blogging keeps you thinking about your business and encourages you to interact with other bloggers and learn more about your industry online. You will find that if you start blogging for SEO, this will lead to other awesome avenues of getting your brand and business out there to a wider audience.
10. What are your competitors' doing?
I find a great way of looking at SEO is to study what my competition is doing. A yourself, why are their pages ranking on page 1 and yours not? When you type in industry specific keywords, why are your competitors always there, sometimes with 2 URL’s on the first page? If this is frustrating you, then all you need to do is study their pages., look at their content, the images, any videos, the website structure, as well as all the titles, and the way the URL matches the heading.
Looking at what your competition does and trying to emulate this is critical, but can be hard to implement if it is not fully understood. A DIY approach may cause you even more problems and harm your rankings further. I strongly urge you to deal with a SEO company for this so there are no stuff ups or errors made. Once you get your head around this, you can then have a go at it on your own. But NEVER EVER try this without getting specialist advice first.
I have been working with SEO for many years and helped many businesses throughout Sydney and Australia overcome very bad Google rankings by implementing some of the above AWESOME SEO strategies. These points are just a small portion of the entire SEO puzzle, but even if you follow just a few of these, you will over time, begin to see a change in your business websites rankings. Some points are easier to implement than others, but for you to really achieve successful organic rankings go and speak with a professional in this field.