December, 2008

Effective Websites Newsletter

Hi [FirstName],

Welcome to this second issue of my monthly newsletter, Effective Websites. This issue contains articles about search engine optimization (placing well in search engine results) and ways you can save money by updating your own website.

I'd also like to invite you to take my "What Are Your Questions" one-minute survey. Take the survey and get your questions answered in an upcoming newsletter.

Dave Salahi

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Choosing Keywords for Search Engine Optimization

Ranking highly in search engine results can make the difference between a trickle of business to your website and a torrent. To have your site show up prominently in Google and other search engines it's important to choose and use in your copy the keywords that your website visitors will use when searching for your products and services. Your choice of keywords is critical in determining where your site will show up in search results. There are two rules you must follow:

1. You need to choose keywords that people are actively searching for.
2. You must choose keywords at an appropriate level of competition for your website & business.

The first requirement is a question of discovering what words your customers are likely to be using when searching for your products/services. These terms are often different than the words you, as a professional in your business, would use. People who are not familiar with your field may not know the jargon of your industry and they sometimes search for words that are surprising to those in the business. So, in addition to the terms that immediately leap to mind, you also need to research the words that your prospects will actually be using.

You also want to give some consideration to the volume of searches for each of your potential keywords & phrases. In general, you want to target keywords that are being searched for the most often in order to get the most traffic to your site. However, this is where the second rule comes into play. The competition for popular keywords is intense. If your website is not already well established, it can be difficult to displace the sites that are.

So, rather than targeting the most popular terms it can make sense for small and medium size businesses to go after a niche where the competition is not as fierce. This can work particularly well if your business already occupies a particular niche in your field. By initially going after narrowly targeted keywords you can place more highly in search results and generate more traffic than if you chose more popular words but ended up buried on page 20 of the search results. And by using the techniques discussed here and in future newsletters, over time, you can gradually build your rankings for the more popular keywords.

Use Google's AdWords to Discover Good Search Words

Google's free AdWords tool is a great way to discover search words.. .You can start using this tool by giving it a search word or phrase that you think people would be likely to use when searching for your business. It will return a list of related terms that people have actually used when searching. Each returned keyword/phrase will also show the number of searches that Google recorded during each month of the previous year.

Use Your Competitors’ Tactics to Boost Your Own Results

Another way to choose keywords is to provide the AdWords tool with the URL of a website similar to yours that already ranks highly in the Google search results. Search for sites in your field and see which come up at the top of the list. When you find a site for a business that is similar to yours, copy/paste its address into AdWords and Google will suggest keywords based on the content of that website. What’s working well for that website can also work for your site!

What to Do with the Keywords You’ve Selected

Once you’ve identified the keywords you want to use, you need to make sure that they are featured throughout your website. Make sure that your most important keywords are near the tops of your pages and in headings. They should also be in your page titles.

Use Keywords in Context

In addition to the headings and paragraphs near the top of the page, you also want to use your keywords frequently in context throughout the site. This means to use the phrases so they occur naturally in the text. You don’t want to create a paragraph of nothing except keywords. Search engines are aware of spamming techniques and may ban your site if you use questionable tactics like this. Instead, you want to compose your articles so that your keyword phrases fit in naturally throughout the content of your site. This ensures that your site will contain pages that are useful to website visitors — which is what search engines want to deliver to searchers.

Use Keywords in Link Text

You also want to use your most important keywords in link text; i.e., text that contains links to other pages on your site and to other websites. Your link text, like your heading text and page title text, are very important to search engines in determining which words on the page are important. You always want to use meaningful keywords for your links. What you don’t want is to write something like “Click here to visit the ABC website.” The words “click here” are meaningless to Google in terms of your keywords. Instead, you would use something like the following: “visit the ABC website to learn more about XYZ” where ABC and XYZ are your keywords.

Target Specific Words for Individual Pages

Finally, you want to target different keywords on different pages. Each of your pages needs to be focused on just one or two topics per page in order to perform the best in search engines. As you might expect, search engines rate narrowly focused pages as more relevant to a given topic than pages which cover a broad range of topics.

“Buy Words”

Finally, there are certain words that people use when they are looking for a website or a store to make a purchase as opposed to when doing research. Among these words are the words store, company, firm, consultant, etc. There may be other words or combinations of words that are buying signals for your type of business. If your business is local or regional, be sure to include the appropriate geographical terms on your website. It’s to your advantage to try to discover these words and use them instead of the more generic terms. After all, getting a million hits on your website is not productive if they’re all doing research instead of buying. You’re looking for visitors who can be converted into customers.

Conclusion

In this article we’ve only scratched the surface of the topic of search engine optimization. It’s an important topic but it’s complex and it takes time to get results. Beware of any consultant or product that claims to offer results in mere days or weeks. Consistent results take months to achieve. Shortcuts can fail to deliver or, if they do deliver, may use “black hat” techniques that can get your site banned from search engines.  Instead, focus your energy on writing good copy that will be useful to your visitors. Build your website over time and it will become a resource in your field. That’s the way to boost your search engine rankings while also building your sales.

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Save Money by Updating Your Own Website

Various solutions exist for businesses that want to edit the information on their websites without relying on a professional web designer/webmaster. Adobe offers a service called InContext Editing that allows the average businesssperson to edit their site from any web browser. For those who prefer not to pay a monthly fee, Adobe also offers Contribute which does the same thing through a software product you can purchase.

For businesses which require more flexibility in self-editing and publishing a comprehensive content management system such as Joomla can be the answer.

Solutions like the three mentioned above allow businesses to not only save money by updating their own sites but also to respond more quickly to changing conditions by making updates at a moment's notice.

Contact Dave at Artistic Web Design for more information on any of these solutions. (See contact info at the right.)

What Are Your Questions?

What are your burning questions about internet marketing? Call me at 949-362-0842 or email me at dave@artistic-webdesign.com with your questions. Or fill out a one-minute survey on our website. Then watch for the answers in an upcoming issue of this newsletter.