Search Engine Optimisation

In addition to web directories, there are many blogs and other websites that discuss your topic. Contact the owners of these blogs and websites, and discuss the possibility of a link to your site, in exchange for a “reciprocal” link from your site back to theirs.

It helps if you provide valuable content on your site that is worth linking to.

Do a Google search for other websites that are in related fields to your own but who are not direct competitors. Contact them and ask for a reciprocal link. In most cases, this is a win-win for both businesses and the owners of the sites will be delighted to exchange links.

Link-building is an ongoing process

In some cases, a website has such useful and interesting content that people will want to spread the word and link to it from their own sites. If your site is like this, your link building will occur naturally and steadily over time.

There is a snowball effect on the Web, where links beget more links. If you start a blog (we’ll discuss this later), send out newsletters and generally keep yourself in the public eye, you will gain more and more links, and Google will increasingly love your website!

Link building in a nutshell
1.    Link building should be done personally – don’t automate the process.
2.    Search for sites that contain content related to your own site (but are not direct competitors).
3.    Contact the website owner directly to ask for a link.
4.    In some cases (e.g. if you are in a very competitive market) you may need to pay for a link.
What does the future hold for search engine optimisation?
In short, it’s going to get more and more difficult to “trick” Google into giving your site a high ranking.
Google has only one objective. To provide the most accurate possible search results, which are as close as possible to what people are actually searching for.
One very significant change that is occurring as I write this (mid-2009) is that Google is now taking into consideration feedback that is submitted by “real people” (as opposed to primarily software calculations).
Google is now asking Web surfers to “vote” for sites in the search results, based on the surfer’s own idea of how important each one is. If they like a certain page in the search results, they can move it higher on the list.

Google claims it is not currently using this data in its algorithms to determine search rankings. But it’s likely to be only a matter of time before they do. In future, Google will give higher priority to sites that Web surfers vote for.

It will look at criteria such as:
-    How often have Web surfers voted your listing to the top of the results?
-    How many times has your website been bookmarked (voted for) on a major social networking site (i.e. Digg.com, LinkedIn.com, and StumbleUpon.com)?
-    Does your web page have video? If so, how long do people watch it?
-    How often do website visitors return to your page?
-    If you have a blog, how many comments does it have on it?

These changes will make it more and more difficult for SEO experts to manipulate Google search rankings.

But the good news is, you don’t need to worry if you make sure you provide plenty of good quality content on your website, which is of value to your target market.

The old saying holds true: Content is King.

Plain and simple, if you have good content, people will bookmark it, comment on it, and talk about it on other websites. And Google will take notice. This will continue to boost your SEO efforts more than anything else.

Focus on building content and everything else will take care of itself.

One final thought

Keep in mind that even a top ranking on Google won’t mean a thing for your business unless your website is designed and written to convert that traffic into paying customers!

Google puts a very high value on the number of links coming in to your website, and where these links come from. The more popular the site is that links to you, the more value Google places on that link.

Links are considered to be a recommendation that your website is relevant and worth visiting. The ideal is to have high quality links to your site, with your relevant keywords in the anchor text. So, for example, if your site is about solar energy, you would have ‘solar energy’ in the clickable text of the link.

But getting links from sites that Google considers trustworthy isn’t easy.  The big question now is, how are you going to get them? Are you going to do it yourself, or outsource? Because the cold truth is, free traffic isn’t actually free. It’s either going to cost you money or your valuable time.

If you’re in a competitive market, you may need thousands of links to gain a top 10 position.

There are many services that will get your links to your websites, in return for a (usually large) fee, but I do not recommend going down this track. Most of these services use automated software and some very sophisticated setups to trick Google into thinking they are genuine links.

I know people who are getting top rankings on Google as a result of these kinds of automated link-building services. But their success is always short-lived. Sooner or later, Google always catches up with those who are trying to game the system. And once that happens, your site will be blacklisted and it will take a long, long time to regain your ranking again. It simply isn’t worth the risk.

Virtually every day I get emails along the lines of:
“Dear webmaster, I have just visited your website and would like to exchange links with you”.

These requests come from automated link buildings services and I immediately delete them. The links you would get from such services are worthless.

There is no cutter-cutter approach to link building that works for every website. Each site is different, and needs an individual approach. And above all, it takes time. You will need to spend more time on link-building than you took to build your site.

So, how do you build links the right way?

First, the correct way to build links is to do it manually, one link at time, rather than relying on automated software.

One of the easiest was to start building links is to submit your site to web directories – both general web directories and directories in your market sector.

Some general New Zealand directories include:
NZ Pages – www.nzpages.co.nz
NZ Webz Directory – www.nzwebz.co.nz
NZ Search – www.nzsearch.co.nz
NZS.com – www.nzs.com
Finda – www.finda.co.nz
Kiwi Websites Directory – www.kiwiwebsites.com
Xpress Directory – http://dir.xpress.co.nz
Index NZ – www.indexnz.co.nz
Directory NZ  – http://directorynz.net
New Zealand Websites – www.newzealandwebsites.com
Access NZ – www.accessnz.co.nz
The Web Directory – www.thewebdirectory.co.nz
NZ Entry Network – www.entry.net.nz

All the above directories are free to submit to. Of course, there is also the Yellow Pages online directory (www.yellow.co.nz) which is not free but is well worth getting listed in.
In addition, there are local web directories for each region of New Zealand, where you can also list your website. And within your market sector there are also likely to be directories where you can get your website listed.

Each of these directory listings creates a valuable link to your website, which will help to improve your ranking on Google and other search engines, in addition to attracting visitors who happen to see your site in the directory itself.

Beyond New Zealand there are a huge number of directories where you can submit your site, both general directories and those related to your particular niche market.

The most important international directories:

Yahoo! Search Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com) is arguably the most important international directory for your site to appear in.

It has a page rank of 8, so a link from there back to your site is very valuable. For this reason, it costs US$299 annually to appear in the Yahoo! Directory. If you can afford it, it’s worth it. Human editors will read your submission and reserve the right to edit it. Leave out any kind of marketing spin because they will just delete it!

The Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.com) is a free directory, which also has a page rank of 8. It takes longer to get into the Open Directory because each submission is considered manually and they are notoriously short of volunteer editors. But if you don’t mind waiting, it’s worth submitting your site.

Jayde. This is another free directory, with a page rank of 6,which is worth submitting to. (www.jayde.com).

Avoid ‘link farms’

While on the subject of directories, it’s worth mentioning what are known as ‘link farms’, which you might come across. Some search engine optimisation companies have set these up by cross-linking a whole lot of websites, to try to fool the search engines that the sites have a large number of incoming links.

It sounds good in theory and it did work for a while. But Google has got smarter. It now looks for meaningful relationships between sites that are linked to each other. When it sees is a group of random links to all kinds of sites, on totally unrelated subjects, it sets off a red light. Being involved in a link farm could see you penalised or even banned by Google. So, don’t risk it.

Keyword research must be the foundation of any serious website design process.

Most web designers make a serious mistake when they build sites. They either don’t consider search engine optimisation at all, or they add it as an afterthought once the site is built.
You need to build each page of your website on the right keywords, right from the start. Do your keyword research upfront, so you know before you even build your site what keywords your visitors are likely to be searching for.

And most important, don’t undertake a website design … or a re-design … without first taking SEO into account. Even the best looking site is worthless if no one can find you on Google!

Three top keyword tips
1.    Use your main keywords in the headline on your page.
2.    Use your main keywords in the first paragraph of the page.
3.    Use your main keywords liberally throughout the page. But don’t “stuff” your page with keywords. It must sound natural, or Google will get suspicious and penalise your site. It helps, too, if some of the keywords are in bold. This is an extra bonus that will encourage the search engine “spiders” to give greater weighting to your keywords – and give you a better ranking.

Meta tags – the second aspect of webpage optimisation

Meta tags are the hidden tags written in the HTML code of your website. They are designed to tell the search engines what your page is about. If you want to get a top search engine position, you must put the right content in your meta tags.

The all-important TITLE tag

It’s worth noting that Google now relies most heavily on the TITLE tag when it ranks your site. It is vital that you put your keywords in the TITLE tag. Don’t just put your company name. This is a mistake that many website owners make. You can put your company name as well as your keywords, if you like. (But if your title is more than 10 words, the last words will probably not appear in the browser bar.)

Sometimes the TITLE is the only information about your site that appears in search results. The TITLE is what people use for bookmarks. So it’s important to get it right.
Using your primary keywords in your TITLE tag is the most powerful thing you can do to boost your search engine ranking.

The DESCRIPTION tag

After the TITLE, the description is your second chance to persuade people to visit your website – or not. So it should be an accurate guide to what’s on the page. And it must be worth reading.

Ideally, you should use exactly the same keywords to start your description tag as you used for the TITLE. Then you can elaborate further on the content of the page.

The KEYWORD tag

The third meta tag is the keyword tag. A few years ago, people used to think the more keywords they could cram into this tag the better. They would list hundreds of keywords. Now, this is a waste of time. In fact, Google regards it as “spamming” and will penalise you if you repeat too many keywords.

So limit the number of keywords on each page of your site. It’s best to focus on just a few keywords for each page.

As you can see meta tags are not rocket science. And if you do it right, you are almost guaranteed to dramatically increase your search engine ranking.

Headings

After the meta tags, the next thing search engines look for on your web page are the headings.

In HTML, these are designated by H1, H2, H3 etc. H1 is usually the main headine, with H2, H3 etc for sub-headings.

Since headlines often contain important hints to the content of the webpage, search engines take note of any keywords found here. So it’s important to include your keywords in the headline and sub headings.

This may seem a bit technical, but it’s important. Make sure your web designer uses these H1, H2, H3 tags on your pages (not all web designers do).

Don’t accept from your designer that it isn’t important to use H1 tags anymore. If you’re serious about SEO, it definitely is!

Body text

This refers to the main content of your web page and it is very important that your keywords are used in the right places on the page.

Search engines look at the first paragraph for a clue as to what the web page is about, so you need to include your main keywords there.

Furthermore, search engines look at the final paragraph, on the assumption that it will summarise the ideas on the page, so it helps to have your keywords in there, too.

You also need to use your keywords on the rest of the page, in a natural way. Don’t overdo it, though. The copy must sound natural. Google is so sophisticated now, it can detect when keywords have been used unnaturally in a page, and you are likely to get penalised.

Every page on your website – not just the home page – needs to be search engine friendly! This is the basic level of care that your website designer should take when building your site. If they didn’t, you will need to go through each page and make some tweaks.

In summary

The ideal web page has the main keywords in:
•    the title tag
•    the description tag
•    the headline and sub-headings
•    the first and last paragraphs
•    a few times in the main body of the page.

If all these places use the same keywords consistently, you will have the maximum chance of getting a good ranking.

1. Webpage optimisation

Basically, webpage optimisation means setting up your web pages so the search engines can easily understand what they are about, and thus give them the best-possible ranking.
At the heart of web page optimisation is ‘keyword’ research. You may think this looks tedious and boring, and be tempted to skip it. But please try to stick with me. I’ll explain why keyword research truly can make or break the success of your website.

Over 80% of all online transactions begin with a keyword search.

To compete, you need to target all the relevant keywords.

So what are keywords? They’re the words that people are most likely to type into Google (or other search engines) when searching for your product or service on the Internet.
On the Internet, keyword research essentially fulfils the same purpose as market research does in conventional offline marketing. It helps you discover exactly what your target market is looking for and how you can target your sales message to meet their needs.

I hope you are now starting to see why selecting the right keywords for your site is one of the most important areas of Web marketing – and one that’s sadly too often overlooked.
Pick the right words and phrases for your website and you are well on the way to attracting visitors. Pick the wrong words and you will sabotage your search engine optimisation efforts.

Here’s an example

Let’s say your business is selling golfing equipment. A potential customer for your products might type “golfing equipment” into a search engine. Or they might type a variety of other words or phrases. (People usually search using phrases rather than single words.)

They might type in “golf clubs” or “golf equipment” or “golfing stores” … or many other possible variations, such as a specific make or model of golf club.

Or maybe your potential customers are not looking specifically to buy golfing equipment right now. They might just be surfing the Net looking for information on golf. Wouldn’t it be great if somehow they came across your website during their search?

They will, if you pick the right keywords. And if your website also provides lots of relevant information about golf, based around those keywords, your potential customers have a good reason to stick around and check out your site.

So how do you pick the right keywords?

You can do this by guess work. But you run the risk of picking words and phrases that no one is searching for, or for which there’s already a lot of competition. And that’s not what you want.

Fortunately, there’s a much better way. You can services such as Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com) or Keyword Discovery (www.keywordiscovery.com)  to help select the best keywords. These services will help you to find words and phrases that are in high demand by web searchers but in relatively low supply.

If you’re serious about search engine optimisation, you really can’t do without Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery. Using these services, you can experiment with lots of different words and phrases that are related to your business. They will tell you which keywords have the best demand-supply ratio.

A free keyword tool from Google

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is a free service (adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) which shows the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google and the search network in the previous calendar month.

While the information is not as detailed as that provided by Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery, it is a useful starting point for keyword research.

These are the words and phrases around which you will build the content of your website.

I’m sorry to tell you but the Web is a harsh place. You can have the best looking site in the world with great resources and content and go entirely ignored or unnoticed. It happens. It’s happening right now. Somewhere out there in cyberspace is a brand new, attractive website loaded with great content, and nobody cares. Poor little lonely site.

Here’s the sobering truth …

No matter how much money you spent on it, how stunning it looks or how persuasive the sales copy is, your website is nothing more than a bunch of files sitting on a computer. It just so happens these are HTML files on a computer that is connected to the Internet, therefore anybody can get to them.

But ultimately, they can only get to them if they know they exist. Somebody has to link to them, or they need to be given the URL. Otherwise, your website remains invisible.

But there is hope

Every website had its early days. Even sites that get hundreds of thousands of visitors a day started out with none. But it’s a gradual process and you won’t suddenly start getting hundreds of visitors to your new website overnight!

In most cases, you cannot rely on ‘free’ traffic alone

There’s still a widespread myth that you can run a profitable Internet business without spending money on advertising. It’s simply not true. Very few online businesses can succeed without paid advertising.

The vast majority of Internet businesses will need to advertise or they doom themselves to a meagre existence of small sales, smaller profits – and gradually decreasing profits at that.

It’s true that by carefully optimising your website for the search engines, you can bring in a steadily-increasing stream of “free” traffic. But this takes time (at least three to six months to see significant traffic). And, of course, this traffic is not truly free because you need to invest time (and probably money) in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Traffic from search engines

To get a steady stream of “free” traffic from Google and the other search engines is the Holy Grail of Internet marketing.

Not only is search engine traffic the least expensive, but the people who find you through the search engines are likely to be the most responsive, because they have sought you out themselves.

To get traffic to your site for the search words or “keywords” that are important to your business, you will need to put some time and effort into search engine optimisation (often abbreviated to SEO).

There is a huge amount of literature now available about SEO. Much of it is highly technical, and much of it is out of date.

Slow and steady wins the SEO race

For most businesses, it’s a slow and steady process to get your website to rank on the first page of Google. There are many factors that need to be working well to get a website firing on all cylinders and delivering well qualified sales leads on a regular basis.

But the good news is, it can be done, once you grasp a few basic principles.

The approach I recommend is to attract Google’s attention by creating the types of content that people value and want to read.

Once people start talking about you and like your products, then you are probably going to get some free high-quality links to your website, which will make Google love you even more.

Google is the only game in town

It’s worth noting that more than 92% of all web searches in New Zealand are now made through Google. (Figures from Hitwise New Zealand, January 2009). By the time you read this, Google’s share is likely to be even higher. MSN and Yahoo have about 3.5% each and the rest are really insignificant.

Worldwide, Google is slightly less dominant but its share of global searches is now more than 70%.

The bottom line is, optimise your website for Google and your ranking on other search engines will take care of itself.