Search Engine Optimization

(SEO is the process of increasing the number of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user. Your website needs to be optimized to get found when your prospects are searching for your products/services by using a keyword. Below are some ideas for optimizing your site for search engines: (optimize means to make as good or useful as possible.)

1. Get Your Website Ready For Optimization:

a. Create a site map for your website
b. Add a Google sitemap on your website
c. Make sure that your coding is not blocking search engine robots from crawling the site.
d. Describe all pictures on the site in the source code of the Page. (alt-attribute)

2. Identify the keywords that your prospects use to find your
    products or services.

Identify the competitiveness of each keyword by

A. Checking the number of WebPages containing keyword
B. Use tools provided by sites like www.wordtracker.com to
    identify competitiveness.

Identify keywords with least competition and target those for optimization first.

3. Create separate landing pages for each keyword and add them to your website. Make sure that there is a link from your keyword-centric page to your      homepage, and all pages are listed in the site map of your website.


These keyword-centric pages should be well written with:

• A page title that includes the keyword/key-phrase
• A page description (below the title) that briefly describes the   page and includes keywords in the text
• Copy that explains your service (in bullet form to make it easy    to scan). The copy should contain keyword/key-phrase whenever appropriate.
• Call to action (what you want a visitor to do)   A well written web page will get a higher page ranking from search engines and will also maximize sales to the    website visitors.

4. Make sure the keyword is in the first paragraph of the copy.

Around 2% of the text in the first paragraph should be keywords. Google especially expects around 2% of the copy content to be a keyword for indexing the page for it.

5. Make sure that the source code of all web pages has an appropriate title, description, keyword meta-tags, and alt-tag; and is consistent with the web-page     content.

6. Use keyword hyperlink – word linked to another page that has additional content using the keyword. Search engines usually follow the links and may credit the     site if the page hyperlinked to a keyword is highly relevant for it.

7. Submit all keyword centric webpage URLs to search engines; in addition to the homepage URL.

8. Include your website in your industry-specific directories and trade sites. This increases relevancy of your site for the specific industry in search engine eyes.

9. Add RSS feed in each webpage for the appropriate keyword and bring in relevant information related to the keyword from other sites (RSS is a technical term     used to describe feed formats used to publish digital content that is being updated on a frequent basis—such as blogs, news feeds and podcasts.)

10.Create a Blog for each keyword and write Blogs regularly. If you are pressed for time, get it written regularly from writers who will ghost-write for you. Make      sure that your webpage address is mentioned in the Blogs. See the Blog section in this book for details of how to create and market your Blog.

11.Regularly write and post press releases about relevant issues for your business and post it in the press release boards. Make sure your website address is      included in the copy of the press release.

12. Join relevant forums and mention your webpage address when appropriate.

13. Add content to the webpage regularly

14.Generate incoming links to your webpage from other websites. Search engines take it as a vote of confidence when other sites point to your site; especially      from well-ranked sites.

15. List your web page in directories and get incoming links to your web page from other related websites.

16. Monitor page ranking of each keyword regularly and track progress.

17. Check sites that show up on page one of search engine and analyze what they are doing different.

Doing the steps above may not bring you in the first page of search
engines for all keywords; but you will be successful for enough
keywords to make your website extremely profitable.

SEO IS AN ONGOING PROCESS; EITHER HIRE A DEDICATED RESOURCE FOR SEO OR LET A VENDOR PROFESSIONAL INTERNET STRATEGY CO. TAKE CARE OF IT.