by Francois Muscat | Jun 1, 2011 | SEO
To build up your business profile online takes quite a lot of time and effort. Search engine optimization (SEO) also takes time and effort. It is an ongoing process and you always need to keep working on it. SEO is not a one time event that you can quickly do and be done with it. If you are looking for top rankings on the search engine result pages (SERP’s), you always need to work on your website to make sure you get the best results.
Search engine optimization can become quite technical and there are many steps involved. You can break the search engine optimization process into four main steps.
Evaluation
Always start evaluating your objectives and goals. Are you looking for more sales, visitors or leads? If you are, look at the website itself. How well is the optimization of your website? Do you notice any visible effects? Look at the architecture of your website. Are you focusing on a competitive market niche? Always establish metrics to show your success and progress.
Planning
Do some keyword research. Select the best keywords and keyword phrases based on search volume, level of competition and relevance. Add these keywords to a keyword list and apply them to a page plan. Once you have selected your keywords, you can now create strategies on how you will optimize your site. This may mean physical structural changes to your website, link building campaigns, social media optimization or a content growth strategy.
Optimization
This step involves applying the keywords and strategies from the previous step. This involves the actual optimization of the website pages. Do other related off page optimization methods as well such as link building. Always add regular fresh content to your website. The new content can be new articles, blog posts and articles.
Measurement
Use an analytics program to view statistics about your website such as the number of visitors, bounce rate an the time that visitors spend on your website. Monitor your rankings on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Monitor your conversion in the form of sales, leads, etc.
Once all these steps are done, this process starts all over again. Always evaluate the results, plan the changes, implement any optimization and then measure the results.
by Francois Muscat | May 10, 2011 | SEO
Did you know that by adding a blog to your website you can improve your site’s organic search engine optimization rankings? Using a blog is a great way to attract links and targeted traffic to your existing website and it can be done in three ways.
- Blog posts written with original and interesting opinions and content can attract links from other blogs which can build up the popularity of the entire site.
- With a blog, you can add fresh content to your website on a regular basis. Each blog post is seen as another page on your website by the search engines. Websites with lots of pages tend to rank better with the search engines.
- When you publish a new blog post, it is distributed over the internet with RSS (Real Simple Syndication) so new visitors will begin arriving to your new blog post within minutes of posting.
Tips for blogging
Keywords: Before you start writing a new blog post, select a topic and keywords related to your website that your readers and customers will find interesting. It is all about reaching your target audience with an interesting and useful message. This could be about the opinions on the latest industry trends or just basic advice. Prepare a list of keywords that you can use in your blog post title, category, tags and the content of the blog post.
Writing: Blogging/social media is not about selling directly. It is about engaging with readers with interesting content and thought provoking writings. You are branding yourself as the expert and leader in your market and niche. Do this right and people will return to read what you have to say.
Links: If you write original and interesting blog posts, you will develop a readership that will return to read what you have to say. Others will use your advice on their own blogs and they will naturally link to your posting as a reference to support their writing. These links will help with the ranking of your website with its link popularity, improving your site’s organic search engine rankings.
RSS: When you publish a new blog post, RSS (Real Simple Syndication) pings out the blog post title, first few characters of the blog post and the URL (address) of your blog post to various blog aggregators and search engines. These new blog posts can be indexed very quickly and they can appear on the search engine result pages within minutes of posting.
by Francois Muscat | May 5, 2011 | SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of getting your website indexed, discovered and analysed. It is also the method of getting your website ranked on the search engines and to improve your rankings for keywords users are searching for.
People are searching the internet for information and to buy. They are using the internet to find a business to buy from or to find answers to queries that they might have. Every sale that you miss out on is one that your competitors might get, making them in this process stronger.
How long do you think your business can survive without customers? What would happen if your customers were unable to find your contact details? The same is true if they cannot find your business on the web.
Reasons to use search engine optimization
Targeted customers
SEO is form of pull marketing. People are searching on the search engines for answers to their questions. If your website matches their search, they might become your next customer.
Credible
People usually trust the organic/natural search results more than paid advertisements.
Low cost
While you may pay to have your website and the pages optimizes, there are no payments made every time someone clicks on your organic listing on the search engines. Paid search (Pay Per Click) can be quite costly, especially for high volume low intent key phrases.
Long term
Once you have obtained your positions on the search engine result pages (SERP’s), it is relatively easy to maintain it with low costs. Compare this with paid advertising (PPC) where you need to continue paying for every click through.
Measurable
Results are easy to measure using Google analytics or any other website tracking software. You are able to measure which keywords brought in visitors and even which ones brought in buyers.
by Marianna Muscat | Mar 14, 2011 | SEO
SEO copywriting is very different from SEO editing. While the two types of content producing techniques have the same goal (to get picked up by search engines), there are instances when one technique is more suitable than the other and there are also different opportunities for each method.
The main differences between SEO copywriting and SEO editing are as follows:
- With SEO editing, you will be modifying existing copy. If you receive an article that needs to be modified for search engines, you will basically be reading through the blog post or page to see where certain key phrases can be inserted into the content (without changing the meaning, look or feel of the article). In the case of SEO editing, it’s important to make sure that the key phrases you are inserting read naturally and that you’re not clumsily forcing the key phrases into unsuitable sentences.
- SEO copywriting means that you will be writing the entire page, article or blog post. This may seem like more work than SEO editing, but it’s often easier to start from scratch than to modify existing content. With SEO copywriting, you will have a general guideline (of key words, focus points and call to action) giving to you, but you get to set the tone of the copy.
When to call the shots
If you are going to be writing for a company that also has a bunch of articles (in the form of press releases, brochures, PR material and event coverage), it would be best to suggest SEO editing. This way, you won’t have to come up with ideas for 50 pages, but take what the company has already got and simply modify the articles for search engines. In the case where the client is unhappy with the existing content on the website, your best bet is to offer Search Engine Optimisation copywriting, where you recreate the pages from scratch to ensure that Google and Yahoo! finds your client on the internet.
by Marelise da Silva | Feb 16, 2011 | SEO
Okay, so now you simply have the hottest website on the block but for some reason or another, sales are the same – no movement and hardly any traffic diverted to your fantastic new website. So what’s the deal? Your logo is fabulous, your content is great, your headings are captivating, yet your traffic is nothing to write home about, so to say.
The reason why you are falling short is that it is not good enough to have a knockout website, but it is also important to manage the site properly. Is your SEO up to scratch and are you ranking high enough on Google? Your website may not be easy to find.
Search Engine Optimisation tips for web designers
- Pay attention to the code. Don’t only focus on what your clients will see, but also the coding behind the website. Tell Google what your pages are about by using descriptive tags for your images and meta titles.
- Don’t overdo the keywords. Ideally, a web designer shouldn’t be the person focusing on SEO, but if you’ve been tasked with the job it’s important to focus on not overdoing the keywords. Also make sure that each page has a unique title.
- Use interesting text links. Links are an important part of search engine optimisation. Using general text such as “click here” or “read more” means that you’ve wasted a huge opportunity. Rather use keywords in your text links, such as: learn more about “financial advisors” (and this text link can link to the home page or the company profile).
Perhaps you need to call on the experts to give you some much needed advice. One way of increasing traffic flow to your site would be by outsourcing SEO and submission or try reciprocal link building to send more traffic to your site by finding link partners.
The other scenario might be is that your site might be fantastic, you have done all the right things, and traffic is coming hard and fast and you are not terribly certain how to go about “growing” your site. Maintaining a good relationship with the company or individual that designed your website is beneficial as any slight or small changes to your site can be tweaked when added information needs to be added.
by Marianna Muscat | Feb 8, 2011 | SEO
Writing Search Engine Optimized copy is rewarding, but there’s nothing rewarding about putting in the effort to do keyword research and edit your pages – only to realise that you’re not being noticed on the internet!
A sure fire formulae to put you on the SEO map is pretty easy though. With a bit of trial and error these tips will help you get your SEO up and running and pretty much help you get the ratio correct:
SEO writing tips
First and foremost, your keyword density is of paramount importance. The same as spoon feeding a child, we will be spoon feeding Google the information you would like them to have.
Give or take, your keywords should be at least seven percent of your content. If you are writing a 300 word article, then about twenty one of those should be keywords.
Bolding is important, too. One keyword per article should be in bold, but the keywords used should be different.
Search Engine Optimization Example
A good example would be, say, if you are doing an SEO piece on vehicle finance. The first paragraph would have the words vehicle finance bolded, the second paragraph would contain the synonym financing for your car, which you would bold. The third sentence, say, would have vehicle finance again, which will then be bolded once more, the fourth and fifth a repeat…got the picture?
When finished writing, the word vehicle finance would be repeated a few times, but the key word (and bolding) is not repeated all the time.
This way we prevent making the article too spammy.
Repeating the keywords two or here times each is a good idea, but don’t bold them each and every time.
Writing a good article first, then easing your keywords into the article is a good strategy to writing SEO.
Always stick to the main theme of the article otherwise it will be ranked as something entirely different.
