Keywords play a large role in optimizing a website and often there is confusion surrounding exactly what they are and how they work.

Plain and simple keywords are the words that people are typing into the search engines. So if you can show the search engines that your site is the most relevant for a specific word or phrase, then when people type in that word/phrase—and if you’ve done it right–your site should rank well in the search engines.

There are other factors search engines take into account when ranking sites, such as internal and external links, domain age, URL’s, etc, but for now we will just focus on keywords.

So knowing this, how should you use keywords? Which ones should you target? Where should you place them? And how many do you need? These are all great questions and things you will want to consider when optimizing. (more…)

Almost everyone in your organization has something valuable to add to this discussion. Why not ask them which keyword they think customers are searching for?

For example, start with your office manager, or whoever answers the phones for your company. That person is usually your first point of contact for potential customers who have questions. And those questions are like gold to you. Determine what people are asking when they call you for the first time (or if you get a lot of walk-in customers, consider what they’re asking for at the front counter). Chances are, your receptionist could rattle off 15 commonly asked questions along with a slew of “keywords” most people are using when they contact your organization.
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Don't let this funny-looking fellow run your SEO campaign!

While researching current events in SEO this week, I ended up on a few SEO and online marketing websites that really took me by surprise.  Not because they had innovative and useful ideas that I had to immediately take note of.  No, these sites were full of freshly blogged tips and tricks for improving your search engine presence that have been proven to be outmoded, if not detrimental to your standings in the search engines.   
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Last week we set a foundation for ranking higher in Google, namely by familiarizing ourselves with some basics of keyword ranking. Today in the second half, we’ll briefly look at three ways to start influencing search engines, particularly Google, to rank your site higher for your targeted keywords. There’s a lot more that space doesn’t allow us to get into now, but for most beginners, this is a good place to start.
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Whether your purpose is to make money, endorse a cause, or cast a vision to the masses, if you own a website you want it to be as successful as possible. And one of the most ubiquitous ways of measuring success relates to how your site ranks in Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages). As such, just about every website owner has asked at one time or another, “How do I rank higher in Google?”
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New website: check.

List of keywords you’d like visitors to search and find your site: check.

Searching Google to find your site for these keywords: nothing…

Your site is nowhere to be found. At least not without digging to the dark depths of the search results – which everyone knows is anything beyond page three of the results. (more…)

In our previous post about web content, we laid the foundation that every successful website, without exception, must have usefulness to its visitors.  We recognized that if your site is not useful, people won’t stick around once they find it.  In turn, people won’t recommend it to others, or link to it.  And because the degree to which a site is recommended among Internet users plays a significant role in SEO, this will soon lead to even fewer people going to your site in the first place.  This is where the cyclical nature of SEO becomes more apparent. (more…)

Recently we talked about the importance of knowing your audience or customers.  Now we want to use that knowledge to optimize your site for them.
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As our previous post mentioned, a lot goes into writing good copy for the web. While you may not be able to write perfect web copy with attention to every detail, here’s a list of some very general points you can use to get started.

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A web design that looks nice does just that – it looks nice. You don’t want to scare off potential customers with a site that looks outdated or unreliable, but after visitors look at your site, chances are you’d like them to do something more. Websites are some of the greatest marketing tools created, but just having something out on the Internet isn’t enough. First, you need your potential customers to find it. And second, once they get there, you need to give them a reason to take action. One thing you can do to accomplish both of these goals is to get good, informative copy on your website. (more…)