Search Engine Optimisation – How to Optimise Your Site

SEO is a difficult process. There are many tricks, many intricacies and many pitfalls.  
Leaving aside the lesser points, here are some SEO instructions that will cover the main points to optimise your web page.

1) Optimise one page at a time. Google looks at each page individually as well as your Website as a whole. If you have a Website about farm animals, don't try to optimise every page for horses, cows and sheep, have one page for each.

2) Select well-performing keyphrases. Ensure the keyphrases you select are keyphrases someone might actually search for. You can do this using the Google Keyword Tool. Read more about selecting appropriate keyphrases.

3) Page URL is important. Name your pages with keywords ie. www.farmexample.com/cows.html. This is Google's first indication that your page is relevant to a search for “cows”. To name your pages like this, the file you create for your page must be titled cows.html (or .asp or .whatever). Remember that if you are renaming a page you must 301 redirect to the new page. For example if your cows page is currently named page1.html then you should 301 redirect page1.html to cows.html otherwise Google will see it as duplicate content

4) Page Title Tag is the next most important item. The aim of your title is to provide an accurate title with as many keywords as possible. The Title goes in the head section of your page. For example: 
Cows | Example farm animals Australia | Cows, Bulls and Calves
The length of your Title Tag is up to you and there is no definite word limit, but Yahoo has one of the longest Title displays at 120 characters so certainly keep it below that. Google displays up to 66 characters, so perhaps that's a good length to aim for. My opinion is that Titles rarely need to be lengthy, so unless you can see good reason to do otherwise, aim for approximately 60 characters or less.

5) Page Description Tag is also up there. Make sure you don't just list a whole heap of keywords in here, make it a description worth reading because Google may actually display this in the results. You should use your description to sell your site whilst also including keywords. For example:  
Cows information in Example Farm Animals Australia – Information, photos and videos of Cows
Again there is no real word limit. My opinion is that the description should be longer than your title but not novel length. I personally aim for 100 characters or less.

6) Page Content. This is the body text of the page – the text people read once they land on your site. The SEO cliché is that “Content is King” and as sick of reading it as I am, true it is.
This is the part where I feel it would be unjust of me not to point out that the most optimised page in the world will convert no customers if the page content is meaningless. DO NOT fill your page content with keywords. Keywords will flow readily if the content is relevant to the keywords. It is of no use writing simply “Cows eat grass. Cows give milk. Cows have four stomachs.” This will only disappoint the page viewer and they will click back faster than your page can load.  
My technique is to write the page copy thinking nothing of keywords. I then read back over it and if there are places where I can substitute keywords without disturbing the flow of the page then I do so. NEVER sacrifice content for keywords.

So there you go, there are the basics. If it already looks too hard or time consuming or if you are competing for more sought-after keyphrases simply contact me for an SEO quote.

I'm actually pretty open to being contacted about this stuff so if you have questions ask them in a comment on this blog and I'll be happy to answer.

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Small Business and the Internet

Many if not most small businesses are still owned by the older generations who consider themselves beyond learning about computers and the Internet. This blog is for them.

The smartest business mind I've ever encountered belongs to Rod Dally, now in his 60s. He used to say “I don't know anything about the Internet but I know we need to use it”.  
That may not sound so profound to you, but I think that for a man who knew nothing about the Internet, knowing that he must put it to use was as far as he needed to go. He went about managing his store and staff and simply arranged for others to manage the Internet side of things for him.
Before we knew it the business had an operational mailing list, a Website showing specials and events and a login section for frequent customers. It was a huge success and the business flourished.

Even if you don't think your business needs the Internet, it will be of benefit to you to read on to discover what other businesses (possibly including your competition) are doing.

Small businesses can grow their success by using the Internet to:

• Gain new business: Yellow Pages is no longer where I go to find a business whether I'm looking for an electrician or a Web designer. And I'm in the majority now. I want to see a little bit about the business I'm about to employ before I phone them. The Internet allows me to do that. And if your business isn't on the Internet I don't even get a chance to consider you, because I'm not going to phone fifteen companies to chat about their services, but I WILL visit fifteen Websites and choose based on what I find.

• Encourage repeat business: Special offers for frequent customers and loyalty programs can be cheaply and easily implemented through your Website. You can start them from scratch, integrate them with existing programs or run them separately. I enjoy getting the latest offers from businesses I frequent. I don't enjoy spam, so make sure you decide what is a reasonable time between mailouts.

• Expand clientele: The World Wide Web has a reach, as the name suggests, worldwide. You may find that your business can start shipping product or offering services to an entirely new market interstate or internationally. I am quite comfortable these days purchasing products from overseas using my credit card. I know I need to wait for postage, but I'm OK with that.
  If you are modifying your business specifically to gain international customers you may be eligible for a Government grant through Austrade.

• Network: Use blogs, mailing lists and social networking sites (like Twitter) to share expertise with your peers around the world. Find out what did and did not work for them, give and get advice. You may even develop a relationship with someone where you refer clients to each other. I love chatting with fellow professionals. I don't see someone in my industry who'd based in the USA as direct competition, so I feel I have nothing to lose, but everything to gain by being candid.

• Research: Make use of your Website and email lists to find out from your clients whether you are meeting their expectations. Find out what they love about your service and if there are any reasons they might go elsewhere. It makes me feel important when a company asks my opinion. And by giving it I feel I have made a difference.
  

• Raise company profile: A Website gives you a presence to people who may otherwise not have seen you. This site gives the viewer the chance to see all the information you care to provide about your company, products and services. The more I know about a company the more I feel comfortable dealing with them. 
  

There are plenty of other reasons to migrate your business online.  
There are very few reasons not to.

If you are still unsure whether you need to give your business a presence on the Internet, ask someone you know who uses the Internet. Ask them how they would find someone who offers your products or services. Chances are they'll say that they would Google it. And if you're not on the Internet then Google will show them your competitor who is.

If you'd like ideas about where to go from here, call me.

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