Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimization refers to any efforts that are required to try and get your web site into the top rankings of Google (and others) search engine listing results when someone searches for your "keyword phrases".

Everyone loves successful search engine optimization, because you can get lots of traffic…and…it's free! The problem is, that no one really knows how Google decides where to rank your site and when it will show up. Any expert that tells you that they know exactly how Google's ranking works and/or guarantees that you'll get into the top spots (for a fee, of course), is being less than truthful. Even so, there are proven techniques that you can employ to get your site into the top of the listings. We believe in being very transparent about what we're doing and why we're doing it, so we'll show you exactly what we're doing, and why it helps to skyrocket you right to the top!

Business owners have big challenges when it comes to search engine optimization:

	Often, Google doesn't even know their site exists (this is VERY common)
	Even if Google does know about their site, it never shows up in search engine listings.
	Even if their site does show up in some kind of search, it's hardly ever the "keyword phrase" that the owner would like
	Even if the owner could dictate to Google what keywords to show the site for, most business owners don't know which words and phrases are the money makers!

All is not gloom and doom however! With a little help, you can start to overcome all of these issues. Check out our plan on How to dominate your market to see what we advise.

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What You Should Know About Using SEO As A Business Strategy

One of the main objectives of building a successful business online, is to drive as many targeted prospects as possible to your web properties and then convert these visitors into qualified leads or sales for your business.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the main strategies used to help business owners achieve this objective. The goal of SEO is to increase traffic to your website by getting pages of your site to rank as highly as they possibly can in search engine results like Google and others, whenever a visitor searches for certain keywords in the search query.

The purpose of SEO, therefore, is to make your website's content rank higher than your competitor's website content in the search results, by making your content more relevant and authoritative to search engines than your competitors. This will result in what is called "organic" traffic, or FREE traffic.

In essence, the goal of SEO boils down to the simple formula shown below:

Most search engine experts agree that achieving the #1 rank in Google for a particular search term means you can expect to get around 60% of all the traffic from people searching for that particular term.

The challenge, however, is that search engine optimization is an ongoing process, not an event. Search results for URL rankings change week-to-week due to competition. Maintaining a top organic SEO ranking, therefore, requires constant work - monitoring keywords, modifying web content, and so on.

Achieving a top 10 ranking in a major search engine like Google and top placements in other search engines and directories can sometimes be achieved, but very few sites get there and too often the effort required to achieve this is well beyond reason.

Because so much of SEO and search engine ranking results is based on matching the "keywords" that matter the most to the website owner with the keywords entered by users in a search engine query, many webmasters and members of the SEO community have devoted much of their efforts over the years to finding and exploiting ways to manipulate the search engines into ranking their websites higher for those keywords (for example, stuffing pages with the keywords they wanted to rank higher for).

Ultimately, however, the real key to a successful SEO strategy, is to satisfy the needs of those people who are searching online for whatever they are entering into the search query.

Avoid The "Quick & Easy" SEO Red Button

Search engine optimization has long been considered something of a "black art". Business owners would pay thousands of dollars per month for mysterious activities that would result in fleeting results at best. Often these were attempts to exploit holes in Google’s algorithms that were quickly closed by Google. Business owners were left with big bills and poor rankings.

Search engines like Google continually devote money, resources and the collective brainpower of thousands of incredibly intelligent and talented people to create a smarter way to satisfy search users. Focusing on SEO methods that are based on "gaming" the system, or that violate search engine companies' stated terms of service (also referred to as "black hat" SEO methods), is ultimately a huge waste of time, money and effort and could get your site banned from the search engine listings altogether.

SEO - Where Do You Start?

Assuming that you want your website to rank as high as it possibly can in the search results using ethical and legal SEO methods (also referred to as "white hat" SEO), The next step, then, is to select your keywords wisely.

Selecting The Right Keywords

The first important decision required for the search engine optimization process is choosing the right keywords and keywords phrases to optimize and rank your website highly for.

For every keyword you want your website to rank highly for, there is an associated cost, so you want to select only the keywords that will give you the best return on that investment.

Things to consider include:

• The overall search volume for that term (it's no good ranking for a keyword or phrase that no one is searching for),
• The level of competition for that term (the less competing pages there are … the easier it is to get higher rankings. In addition, some websites are better optimized than others and become harder to compete with),
• The level of "commercial intent" from the typical searcher using this term (it's better to rank for a term that results in sales).

We utilize sophisticated keyword research and analysis tools to create your initial keyword list, as well as a number of different data sources that can help narrow the field down. Some of these include:

• Pay per click results – If you are running a pay-per-click campaign, this data can be very meaningful. It can quickly provide you with search volumes, level of competition, and (if conversion tracking is done correctly) the "money makers" that show which keywords and phrases are actually generating sales.
• Log/statistics analysis – This data shows how current customers are finding your site. It's useful information for finding good candidates for keyword targets. However, other tools need to be used to provide data on search volume, competition, and commercial intent.
• Competitor research – We analyze your competitors' sites to understand what keywords they are bidding on successfully, and use these to generate potential new keyword targets. If you find which terms your competitors have invested their SEO efforts in, it’s logical to assume that these may have great search volume and commercial intent. As with log data, other tools must be used to analyze each target’s potential.

To create your own keyword list, start by making a list of the most relevant keywords related to your business.

Ask yourself this question ...

If you could rank #1 on Google for just one keyword or keyword phrase, what would this keyword or keyword phrase be? What if you could do the same for 10, 25 or 50 keywords?

Next, enter these keywords into Google (one at a time) and you will see the leading sites in the search ranking results for each search query. To increase traffic for your website, you will need to rank higher for those keywords than the top sites shown in the results.

Even more importantly, you will need to figure out how to make your site better and more worthy of being ranked higher by the search engines for those keywords than those sites that are currently occupying the top spots in the search engine results. The work required to achieve this feat is what SEO is all about.

Need help building a keyword list? Click here

Build A Content Rich Website 

Once you have selected your keywords, you then need to use these keywords to build a content rich website.

A content rich website is not just about keywords. It is about providing content that offers value to your readers. Your content should engage your readers' attention and keep them on your site for as long as it possibly can.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when building a content rich website:

• Will visitors want to bookmark my site?
• Will visitors want to return to my website?
• Will visitors want to refer my website to others?
• Will other websites want to link to my site?

Gather Actual Data

Starting the SEO process with accurate market data analysis and a Strategic Online Business Plan will give you the best start in getting your website to rank higher in the search engines.

Once you begin implementing your online marketing strategies, however, you will need to have a system in place that provides you with actual, "real-time" market data you can use to continue improving your results and growing your business.

This information system will allow you to understand visitor and customer behaviour on your site, e.g.:

• what keywords they are searching for to find your site,
• which pages they are entering and leaving in your site
• how long they are staying on your site and each of its pages
• which sites referred the visitors to your site
• traffic funnels
• pages with errors
• etc ...

Having an information system in place will also allow you to discover new opportunities in your market and increase the lead on your competition.

Improve Your Landing Pages

Once you have access to data about your website and can understand and analyze it, you have one of the means to continually improve your results and keep ranking high for organic search engine results. For example, you can create new content for your website based on studying the keywords that people are searching for online to find you, or improve some of your existing pages.

Some other ways to improve your landing pages are:

• Continue monitoring your keyword rankings in the URL ranking results of major search engines
• Ensure that your "on-page" factors remain optimized for your desired keywords
• Outsmart your competition by studying the keywords and criteria your competition is using to achieve better search engine rankings than your website

Ultimately, search engine optimization is not mysterious or secretive — it's about following a systematic process of ranking and placement methodologies that will enable you to to beat your competition in obtaining a high ranking for your desired search keywords.

If all of this seems quite overwhelming and time consuming for you, then you should consider outsourcing your SEO needs to us. We provide SEO services based on a methodical and systematic approach that ensures not only that all of your SEO elements and "on-page" factors are in place and maintained correctly, but we also help you create, implement, monitor and improve various market-driven proven strategies for addressing your "off-page" factors, which are important for increasing your website's rankings in the search engines.

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