How Well Is Your Website Optimized?
By John Gumas
Let's say you and your family want to go on a cruise to the Caribbean. If you're like most people, you'll head straight for Google, Yahoo or one of the other major search engines and type in what you are looking for. The results that come back do not happen by accident. Those results are part of a powerful marketing strategy called search engine optimization, or SEO.
So, how do you get your company to come up when your customers search the Internet? The detailed answer to that question is much too long and complex for this forum, so we have outlined some basic "on-page" factors that you can implement immediately. These are adjustments to the format and text on your website that should help your site increase its rankings. Here are just a few suggestions:
- Determine how your customers and prospects search for you or your competitors and make a list of the most commonly used search words or phrases.
- Once you determine these key words and phrases, make them an integral part of your Web message.
- Make sure that those key words and phrases are strategically placed throughout your website &mdash and make sure they are grammatically correct.
- Be realistic with the phrases you choose. If they are too generic, you will get lost in the crowd.
For instance, let's take our example of a cruise. If a cruise operator selected its key phrase to be "cruise," chances are it would not be successful since "cruise" is so generic and is used by so many. They would increase their chances by changing the key phrase to "Caribbean cruise." And they would increase their chances even further if they used "five-day Caribbean cruise."
For a real world example, try this test: Come up with two to three search phrases (one to three words long) that you'd like your site to come up high on the search results for. Type these into Google, Yahoo or any one of the other major search engines. If your company comes up, then congratulations, you've passed the test. If it doesn't, then you need to seriously consider a comprehensive SEO plan.
Improving your SEO has green benefits as well. Web marketing is generally greener than using paper and materials to promote your goods and services. So, improving your website's performance via SEO allows more people to learn about you without increasing the amount of resources needed &mdash and that is good business all around.
September 2007 Builder Architect Edition Issue
| Permalink
