Regularly we get enquiries from clients asking if it is worth using search engine submission services. These services often send emails to website owners making grand claims about how they can improve your site’s listing.
However the important question for most webmasters isn’t “How do I get listed on search engines?” Rather you need to be asking “How do I use search engines to get quality targeted visitors to my website?” By “targeted visitors” I mean people who are genuinely interested in your product and services. The methods used to achieve this are often lumped under the heading of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or more appropriately Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
5 quick Search Engine Marketing tips
1. Identify your keywords
Determine the phases that your target audience would enter into a search engine to find the services that you offer.
– Pretend that you want to buy your services. What words would you use?
– Check your website stats to find what phases currently bring in visitors.
– Brainstorm possible search phrases.
It is best to be as specific as possible and don’t forget to provide regional information (eg “Holden mufflers Melbourne”is better than “Car parts”). Some keywords are very competitive so the more you can fine tune the better. Do a bit of reading about the long tail and consider how this could be used to target niche markets.
2. Incorporate these keywords into your website
The keywords need to be incorporated into a number of key parts of your web pages. In particular they should appear in the page title (the <title> tag), page headings and subheadings (<h1>, <h2> etc) and any internal links (meaningful link text is much better than “click here”). Also incorporate your keywords into the main text of your page. Try to make this text sound as natural as possible. If you find this beyond your technical skill then ask your web designer or a copywriter to do it for you. Remember that keyword stuffing is a big no no.
3. Incoming links
Actively seek links to your website from other websites. It is very important that the link text contains your keywords.
For example: “Joe Blog’s Holden parts and service centre “is preferable to “Joe Blog motors”.
There are 3 main sources of incoming links:
– General Directories.
Try to get your site on dmoz http://www.dmoz.org. Though it isn’t as relevant as it once was, dmoz has traditionally been the starting point for many search engines and an entry in this directory should get you crawled by the major search engines.
-Industry Directories.
Check out http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchengines.html for
a list of industry specific directories and search engines. dmoz also has a list of directories.
– Other websites in your industry.
Offer to swap links with sites similar to your own. Include linking instructions on you website.
A good way to get listed on search engines is to get a link from a website that is already listed and your competitor’s website could wind up being a
source of highly targeted traffic.
Hint: Having a problem finding sites to link to you? Try entering your keywords into Google with phrases like “add url” and “submit site”. This
may find sites that accept links for site like your own.
4. Keep adding Content
Search engines love content – the more pages the better. Add at least one page a week; add a blog to your site and post to it daily; create a ‘media centre’ with press releases and news stories; add tips and advice.
5. Are you search engine friendly?
Nothing stops a search engine quicker than a javascript popup window or a flash movie. Even a misplaced html tag can cause problems. Search engines can’t index your pages if they can’t read them. Try describing all images with alt tags and provide text equivalents for all multimedia. If you know what you are doing, test your site for errors with an html validator (http://validator.w3.org/) or ask your web designer to check it for you.
Search engine marketing is a dynamic process and you should repeat these steps regularly. If you are already listed on Google and/or Yahoo you may start to see results within a couple of weeks. The major improvements may take a few months to peak.