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.