Search Engine Optimization Tips - Part 2

Search Engine Optimization Tips - Part 2

Friends,

This post is in continuation to my earlier post titled "Search Engine Optimization Tips - Part 1" on blogspot. Check my blog at http://bestseoadvisor.blogspot.com. Further to our discussion on having a convincing website, we will look at how the search engines and optimization play a major role in driving traffic to the website.

Search Engines – Why & How
Most of the surfers use search engines to find information.
Search Engine Optimization & submission is the most basic way to promote a site – yet most difficult to understand.

Promoting a site on the search engines is free and there is lots and lots of traffic on the search engines to benefit from. Also search engine marketing gives a level playing field for all websites, unlike the paid promotions wherein large organizations have an advantage over the smaller ones as they can pay huge sums for paid listings and promotions.

Websites are promoted on the search engines by way of keywords and key phrases. These are known as “search terms” or the words which the users will type in the search box of the search engine. Success of any website on the search engines depends on how well the keywords are selected for the relevant products and services.

Search Engines are not aware of what products and services you are marketing. They just look for relevant content on the site based on the keywords decided by you for promotion.
So here are some useful tips how you can benefit from search engine optimization free of cost.

Choose the right keywords for optimization. Brainstorm a lot for the right set of keywords. While selecting keywords…
• Don’t ask yourself “What do I sell?”
• Ask “What might my customers be looking for?”
• Have a combination of “Keywords” and “Key Phrases”

If your website is supposed to sell automobiles then the following logic should be applied while deciding on keywords/key phrases.
• General keywords – cars, automobiles, vans, trucks, bikes.
• Specific keywords – Maruti, Hyundai, Toyota, Tata, Mercedes, Honda
• Product keywords – Omni, Lancer, Civic, Camry, Benz, Accent
• Supporting keywords - Leather seats, steering wheel, headlights, head lamps, fog lamps, music system

Search Engine Optimization should be done keeping two aspects in mind.
“What do I sell” V/S “What the customers are looking for”

Always ask this question to yourself for every keyword you have finalized for your website.
• Keywords are content specific
• Content & Keyword match = Search Engine Ranking
• What if you don’t sell some products, Relate your product content to the other products and increase your chances for getting targeted traffic.
For e.g.: The best offer of the year, 12% discount on Hyundai Accent this festival season. Accessories worth 10000 free including fog lamps and music system.
• Use PLURALS and LONG FORMS for keywords. Generally users search using plurals for any keyword. E.g.: cars, joints, dealers
• Search engines use “Word Stemming”. Search for “consult” can return documents for “consultants”, “consulting” and so on.
• Use few wrongly spelt keywords: Not everybody is good at spellings. Use this to your benefit. It is advisable to have some misspelled versions of your keywords in your website
• If your business is location specific then use the city, state, country names as your keywords
• Avoid “Skip” or “Stop” words – keywords like a, an, the, and, of, internet, homepage. Most engines would stop indexing your site or skip these words in your title while indexing. IGNORE COMMON WORDS. Such words would lead to listing in a wrong category.
• Avoid Capitals – use Lower Case
• Test your keywords before finalizing

Once you have finalized the list of keywords for your website, do the following before you actually incorporate them in your website code and upload the website.
• Check the results of your keywords on major search engines
• Study a few of the top pages to find out if you have missed out something
• Study their “Title”, “Description” and “Meta Tags”
A title is what is mentioned in the "Title" tag of the html code

Basics of a Winning Title
• Pick 2 to 4 most powerful keywords of your page and make a title out of them e.g. “Hyundai, Toyota cars and vans for sale”
• Title should contain keywords but also describe your page
• DO NOT describe yourself or your company in the title
• Title is like the Headline in a sales letter – It should grab attention

Basics of a good Description
• Description is what gets the person interested in clicking
• Be interesting
• Make the reader curious to know more
• Give solutions to common problems
• Be Compelling
• Hyundai, Toyota cars and vans for sale – Largest dealer of Hyundai, Toyota, Maruti and Honda cars. Free accessories and goodies on every purchase. Affordable finance schemes, immediate delivery.

META Tags
• Meta Tags are not Magical; They will not make your site #1
• Meta tags are not the answer to all your search engine problems
• Meta tags help in describing your site to some engines
• Meta tags tell the engine how & what your title and description should look like

Hyundai, Toyota cars and vans for sale – Pioneer Cars, 10th road, 1st lane, Mumbai – 411001. Copyright – all rights reserved.
OR
Hyundai, Toyota cars and vans for sale – Largest dealer of Hyundai, Toyota, Maruti and Honda cars. Free accessories and goodies on every purchase. Affordable finance schemes, immediate delivery

After all the hard work on defining the right keywords, title and description for your website, it is critical that you have the relevant content on the web pages. As explained earlier, search engines are not aware of your business or what products you want to sell. Search Engines are looking for relevant content on your website to award a good ranking to a specific page for specific keywords (search terms).

These are some more useful tips for Search Engine Optimization. Next time you wish to optimize your website check my blog and get latest information on Search Engine Optimization. It is not very complex but a combination of very simple tricks used effectively. Happy Optimizing folks...

Search Engine Optimization Tips - Part 1

INTERNET BASICS

In today’s world, the Internet plays a very important role for all kinds of businesses. Though having a website looks like a simple task, it is very critical to have a website which can drive traffic and has the ability to convert the traffic to potential customers for the business.
A website may be very good with colors and design elements but if the basics are not covered while designing the website, it may not have enough visitors to appreciate the color and design elements of the site.
The best of the products fail to make a mark on the internet just because the website content is not relevant to the products and is not marketed properly through keywords and key phrases on the search engines.
Search engines are the biggest & cost effective source of traffic for any website and it is very important that the website you design is “Search Engine Friendly” to derive maximum benefit out of it.

So let’s look at what is needed to have a killer website which sells.

What is needed to be there?
Product (s):

The products or services which you intend to sell on the internet.

Website:

Your website which will have details of your products and services.

Traffic:

That will be driven to your website through relevant search terms.

Conversion Strategies: Various marketing techniques and content elements on the website which will help you convert the traffic to potential customers.

In this article, I have covered the basic elements of the entire process of having a successful website. These few tips are very useful to have a successful website.

Website
A website should have these 4 basic features to make it perform to the expectations of the business. Here we are not at all looking at the color and design elements.

That can convince people to “Click” (http://www.bestwebdirectory.com)
Search Engine Friendly
Useful Content
Automated Process

What makes people “Click”?
Write your content with an individual mind.
Write to an individual and not to an audience
Make it seem a personal letter to the potential customer

(Use “you”, “your” more than “I”, “We” or “Me”)
Write like you speak. Don’t try to make it a perfect draft
One person reads the content at a time
Use illustrations from the “Real World”
Create Interest from the first line.
Use Bulleted Lists as this has a high read-through ratio
Use Short paragraphs (leading to next paragraphs)
Customers want to know “what is in it for them?”, “Why they should buy this product?”. STRESS ON BENEFITS, NOT ON FEATURES
Keep the reader interested, use simple language which does not need a dictionary to understand the content
Target your audience
One thing which I know works for website content……
…….is to use a “Pause” like this
Use words which would create a picture in the reader’s mind
Make it “Stand out”. Make it feel “Important”
Be real, don’t make outrageous claims
“Get relief from joint pain in 7 days”
Be Specific – Instead of saying “Over 100 tips for loosing weight” say “115 ways to loose weight”. Do not generalize information
Ask yourself “Why would I buy this?” and then draft the content
Use Customer Testimonials
Don’t ask silly questions – “Would you like to have a glowing skin in just 3 weeks?” This makes the reader feel inferior
It is a good practice to offer freebies and bonuses
Use connective phrases – “But wait, there is more”
Create a sense of urgency – “Offer valid for next 2 hours”, “Only 25 remaining”, “Buy today and get a15% off”
Include a POST SCRIPT. People always ready it
Finally …..
Guide them exactly how to order
Explain when the product will be delivered and how
Offer a money back guarantee. This guarantees credibility for you
Instruct them to respond immediately

Thats all for now folks... Work on this and create a killer website. In the next post I will cover the importance of search engines and how to get high rankings and good traffic for your website.

Cheers !