Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Internet
marketing is the act of getting your site found and viewed among all the other
hundreds, thousands or even millions of web sites that provide what you do!
The outline below includes focal points for SEO:
1) SEO - The
foundation for your site, but not the only “rank setter”
Search engines crawl your site - we
can't set the rate, but we can definitely affect it by making
frequent changes.
If the following information does not exist or does not agree with your
text or is not changed often,
the search engines will rank your site accordingly:
a) Metatags/Description
for the search engines to use - this requires research
b) Site Map to
include every page and to submit to the search engines, which helps them find
your pages!
However, search engines only go two levels
deep. Navigation and organization are critical.
c) Page Title
on every page for the search engines
d) ALT tags on
every image for the search engines
e) Frequent
Changes for every crawl
f) Keywords in
the right amount, not too much, not too little
g) Pages
for each separate product or piece of information (named accordingly)
h) OPTIMIZATION
Don't
give Flash or graphics your most important real estate on your page
Use your
keywords, but don't flood your page with keywords - readability is very
important.
i) Add
your cities and towns that you work in - most people type that in first
j) XML Sitemap submission and Analytics account
2) CLICKS –
How many visitors you get to your site
Advertising – all points back to web site
PPC
(pay per click) Ads
(Google & Yahoo)
Coupons,
discounts, specials
Two for one perform better than discounts
Free
anything – giveaways
Newsletters – email with catchy phrases that link back to your site
Blogs –
are Discussion groups for you
Promote
your site on Brochures, business cards, fliers, ads, etc.
Articles – find an
angle and write your own and/or find a publisher.
Make yourself the
"expert".
3) LINKS –
The second most important thing about your site
Reciprocal,
relevant LINKS are very important to the search engines.
More URLS
of your own – the best links.
Links
developed at the right pace – too slow or too fast is bad.
Google
doesn’t like links exchanged for cash, but that doesn’t mean
you
can’t buy them!
Directories
(niche specific) – the best bang for the buck
Chambers
and other organizations list you and can provide large audiences.
Video,
video and video - 3 different kinds. Examples are at
www.csiportals.com/video.asp.
4) HINTS
Don’t use email accounts to send
newsletters or information that bounce responses.
Use themes
to optimize sections of your site.
Look at each page on your site as a separate web site and treat it that way.
Use a lot of different URL's to divide or give a different look to your products
or promotions.
Have a Registration opportunity on each page or area of each page on your web site.
Give away a chance of winning something with each registration.
Never assume that visitors will land on your home page first.
Keywords
aren’t just words, they can be phrases, too.
Search engines
think your biggest, boldest text is your most important.
Make your
content easy to read for both the search engines and your visitors.
Use text
based navigation (not images).
Don’t
believe “We submit to 100 (or more) search engines” – there are only a few.
Do submit every page of your site(s) to these search engines and
every related directory.
DISCOUNTS/COUPONS/SALE with a Deadline – date of TODAY (which can be
programmed in to automatically change
daily).
Use the free Google webmaster tools and reporting for AdWords.
Submit your site map.
Use Email software that tracks your hits and your conversions.
DEFINITIONS:
HTML (HyperText
MarkUp Language) is not programming code, but rather just descriptors of
what appears on your page. All kinds of code can be interspersed in your
HTML (or included, or redirected to, etc.). We, at CSI, use a combination
of VBScript, SQL, Javascript and .NET programming to provide you what you need.
SEO stands for Search Engine
Optimization.
SEO is what helps Google, and other search engines, rank
your site and if it's done right (and often), your site will appear when people
search on your keywords - the words or phrases that tell what you
provide. Some of the things that affect SEO are
metatags, descriptions, alt tags, and links - which are all in your HTML.
SEM
stands for Search Engine Marketing,
which is internet marketing.
It may involve
PPC (pay per click) ads, if that is right for you. On
Google, this means that you figure out where you want to be on the right column
(or very top) and bid for the amount your clicks will cost you.
It always involves marketing your site on the internet in a multitude of
ways.
PR stands for
Page
Rank - Google ranks each page in order of
importance. If you download the Google toolbar for your browser, it will
show you the page rank of each page you view.
SERP (Search Engine
Results Page) is the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in
response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of web pages
with titles, a link to the page, and a short description showing where the
keywords have matched content within the page. A SERP may refer to a single page
of links returned, or to the set of all links returned for a search query.
SERP's now show your streaming VIDEO just before your listing - those get
clicked on first!
PPC (Pay Per Click)
You have to bid on your
keywords to get your choice of placement in the order of ads
displayed. On Google, these are the listings displayed in
the right column. You only pay that amount when your ad is
clicked. Clicks help your ranking on the free search
engine listings. Our Internet Marketing Download (above)
has step by step instructions on how to set up a PPC ad on
Google.
Impressions –
Your ad may be displayed many times without
any charge to you with a PPC ad. This is very good as the average person
needs to see your name from three to five times to establish credibility.
Conversions are how many sales you make off your ads.
Make sure you track this. Since all ads and internet
marketing is trial and error, and since conversions are the most
important focal point of internet marketing, you have to track
what works and what doesn't.
Google AdWords
are
displayed at very top and right column of Google searches.
AdWords are Pay Per Click (see above). Yahoo
has a similar program. AdWords accounts are free to set up, you only pay
when people click on your ad. Google Webmaster accounts are also free and
have a ton of good information, how to's, and reports.
Google Analytics
Google
Analytics is absolutely free! We will set it up for you with any of our
programs or you can set it up yourself.
Google Analytics shows you how
people found your site, how they explored it, and how you can enhance their
visitor experience. Improve your website return on investment, increase
conversions, and make more money on the web.
With over 80 reports, your free
Google Analytics account will track visitors through your site, and will keep
track of the performance of your marketing campaigns - whether they're AdWords
campaigns, email campaigns, or any other advertising program. With this
information, you'll know which keywords are really working, which ad text is the
most effective, and where your visitors are dropping off during the conversion
process. Don't be fooled by the fact that this functionality is available to you
for free - Google Analytics is a full-featured, powerful analytics package.
AdWords advertisers can find
all of these benefits from within their AdWords account - Google Analytics has
been fully integrated with AdWords. All of your reports and settings are
available from the Analytics tab.
Options include:
Dashboard
It’s now
easier to add an AdWords account to an existing Google Analytics account
PageViews
Daily/Hourly
Average
Visits Daily/Hourly
Number of
Visits per Entrance Path
Reporting
Filters (excluding your own clicks)
Dynamic
Reporting
-
Downloadable to Excel
-
By
Visitors, Traffic Sources, Content, Goals and much more.
-
Many reports now have a "Go to:" box that lets you jump to a
specific row within a report table.
-
The 'Content by Title' report now allows you to drilldown to see all
URLs that share a page title.
-
The Content by Title report has been updated to include a Segment
drop-down menu.
-
The default Map Overlay view is now by Country (instead of the
Continent)
-
The ability to click on external links in certain reports and
navigate straight to those pages. These external outbound links are
available in the Referring Sites, Top Content, Top Landing Pages, and Top
Exit Pages reports.
-
Many of the reports now have a "View by: Daily/Hourly" switch that
allows you to select whether you want to see your data by day or by hour.
-
We've added more Help resources to the
Email Reports interface.
-
Bounce rates measurements have had their colors changed for visual
consistency.
-
Cross-segmenting by Network Location has been added to the standard
list of segmentation options throughout the interface.
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