Just wanted to dispel a few rumors about SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.
So you know what it means to you and your business I was going to go through the whole workings and explain not only how it works but how you do it.
Let me be honest here, most of my SEO clients actually know how to do SEO for their websites, but have quickly realized that it is far more cost effective to get a company that is already set up for this purpose.
Anyway I will cut to the chase, instead of me showing you how it all works check out what one of the top SEO experts in the world; he has made 3 short videos explaining how it all works…. Simple
Take a look http://www.seolinkvine.com/video1-seo.php
Then see how I can take the SEO headache away from you Affordable SEO Services
The Three Most Critical Factors To Marketing Your Website Online Today
Most of these websites are just going to gather dust in “Google never never land” and be a waste of time and money – barely visible to anyone, even to those searching for their very business.
Critical Factor One: Your Domain
The first issue to address in creating a website is your domain name. One of the most common mistakes people make is trying to be quirky or cute with the name. Forget quirky and cute, unless you can combine those qualities with a domain name that is short and easy to remember..
Next, give the structure of your domain name a great deal of consideration. Are there ways to incorporate keywords in the domain name that will be easy to remember? For example, if you plan on creating a website that is devoted to the marketing of your own line of greeting cards, try to work in “greeting” or “cards” into the domain name. Keep in mind that the name of your company may or may not be the best choice for the domain name.
While we all like to see our names pop up when we look around the Internet, your focus is on the products or services you have to market, not on the wonderful name you have chosen for your business. If it seems that creating an easy to remember domain name that calls to attention to your products and services will mean forgoing the use of your company name in the URL, then bite the bullet and go ahead. Keep in mind you can put your company name in all sorts of places on the actual website.
Critical Factor Two: Your Website
Aesthetically it goes without saying that your website must have a clean tidy look, be easy to navigate, original (not some cheap template), colour coordinated, fast to load, represent your company image and deliver your message.
Decide at this point whether you want the ability to update your web site yourself, a good web designer will guide you on this.
Images:
Images are important too, it pays to get your own images if you can and it’s also important to use images that directly relate to your business, used sparingly but magnificently. Like a great book cover design and title is designed to get you to open the book and read it, if it’s good you’ll never put it down, but if it wasn’t for the book cover you may never have picked it up in the first place.
Critical Factor Three: Traffic and Conversion
With many of my clients the design of their website always seems to take the top priority, indeed this is very important but could be the least of your worries if you have no traffic, no leads, no enquiries and more importantly, no sales.
Local Business SEO:
This is a very much overlooked and powerful way to get local business using free tools that Google provides. Just go to Google Places sign up for an account and follow the directions. You will get traffic inside two weeks.
Other online resources are also available to market your products and services. Message boards, online yellow pages, business associations, chamber of commerce web sites, and other locations that will welcome the presence of your contact information and an ad about your business. Many of these are free, although some may have a modest fee.
Do you know what it takes to get your site to the top ten on Google?
I thought I would show you all the things that I do to get you ranked, just go to one of my page’s here: Cost of SEO and I show you, I have even included the hours it takes per month.
Ok, so you could do it yourself but its going to take up most of your day, that does not include the massive learning curve finding out what works and what does not, including Keyword Research and Analysis, Content Optimisation, Web site Analysis, Link Management and about 20 other critical criteria that’s involved.
1. Most SEO companies will want to charge you an astronomical set up fee: I DO NOT CHARGE A SET UP FEE
2. Most SEO Companies will want you to sign a six or even 12 month contract: I DO NOT TRAP YOU INTO ANY CONTRACT
3. Most SEO companies will charge you double compared with my services Cost of SEO
Don’t follow your competitors and rely on hope and a prayer for prospective clients to find you on-line. If you’re not in the top ten of Google you may not as well be on Google at all (how many times have you searched on Google page 2 or 3?).
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – do I need it?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – or getting you to appear in the top ten results of a Google search for your products or services – can be a touchy subject for some, here’s why:
If done incorrectly SEO will yield little or no results, the biggest three mistakes that are made are quite common:
Mistake number one:
Client wants to be number 1 in Google for a generic search term. Let’s say that a client runs a weight loss company selling physical weight loss products, books or advice. The first problem is that the client wants to be number 1 in Google for the term “weight loss”. There are two reasons why this will not work and is also the biggest SEO mistake of all.
1. Weight loss has lots of fierce competition in the search engines, some of these sites have been around a long time, they are many massive websites and Google puts importance on these existing websites , the chances of you competing with them are slim.
2. Weight loss is a generic keyword anyway, it would be like typing in ‘Widescreen tv’ and getting exactly the model you wanted, the chances of making a sale from these keywords would be very slim indeed.
The trick is to find what I call a buying keyword, a specific product or service that’s in demand but with as little competition as possible. You may need to get your thinking cap on for this but that’s one of the important factors that separate you from the 95% of business owners that do not know this simple yet effective step.
Mistake number two:
The SEO company allow you to choose the keywords as per in mistake number one and tie you in on a 6 month or one year contract. Result is that the SEO company gets a bad name (quite rightly so) but more importantly you get hardly any customers or none at all at a great cost to you, which will continue to burn a hole in your pocket until you get out of the contract.
Mistake number three:
Your keywords are irrelevant to your optimized webpage or perhaps your message on the page is just not clear enough, believe it or not have seen this too many times to mention. I cannot stress enough that your website needs to be as relevant as possible.
Try not to sell everything on your home page or landing page (a landing page might be a page on your website that you are optimizing for a specific product/service or promotional offer.
Get people who visit your site to sign up for your newsletter, make sure your newsletter offers a unique opportunity to gain access to information about your product or service, I can’t stress the importance of this enough, many companies do this and most get it wrong.
This will reinforce your SEO efforts and bring you the rewards of a warm market.
SEO done correctly will create massive results but be patient, it can take between 2-6 months before you start to see the results coming in, but when they start coming in there’s no stopping it (happy days).
Talk to Dave Barlow (The Web Maverick) about your Web Designer and SEO options