Search Engine Optimisation for Lead Generation
When you do search engine optimisation, you are increasing your website’s rank among search engines such as Yahoo, Google and MSN. In Australia, Google is the main search engine with over 80% of the search engine market share. Tests have also revealed that Google searches almost always become either sales or inquiries much more often than searches by other major search engines do. In other words, this means that Google gives you the most high-quality search traffic. This is why you should focus your efforts to optimise on Google.
Once you rank well on Google you normally find that you rank pretty well on the others anyway. I’ll talk you through a three step process for doing search engine optimisation. Obviously, it’s a fairly complex topic and companies spend thousands of dollars for getting this done for them. It all comes down to a pretty much core three-step strategy.
Step 1: Perform Keyword Research Establish keywords and phrases that are relevant to your services or your product so that you can focus your search engine optimisation efforts on those particular keywords or phrases. For example, if your business operates within a local area, your keyword research is normally going to be pretty easy. It’s likely to be that your keywords and keyword phrases will simply include what you do and then your area. For example, if your business is as a carpet cleaner and you operate in Sydney, your keyword phrases likely to be something to the effect of “Carpet cleaning Sydney.” You can also use keyword and search tools like inventory.overture.com, which is free, or keyworddiscovery.com or wordtracker.com; the latter two are paid search tools, but they’re also somewhat more sophisticated than inventory.overture.com.
Step two: Optimising on page You need to optimise your website content, too. For high search engine rankings, make sure the right keywords show up on your webpages. This is part of the story, too, but it’s also an important part of the puzzle we call “optimisation.” Here are some important tips on optimising webpages.
1. Your Page Title Should Be Keyword-Rich. The title that appears in your browser in the blue bar at the very top should have keywords in it; this is because it’s also the title in Google’s search results. Make your title concise, short, and rich in keywords. It should have the most important keywords at the front of the title. As an example, if your carpet installation business is located in Sydney, you can say, “Carpet Installation Sydney – Install Carpet Surry Hills Sydney.” And put the most important keywords at the front of the sentence. You can see that it’s a bit of repetition, but it’s pretty keyword rich and it doesn’t sound too strange, which should get you more exposure.
2. Make Your Description Keyword Rich, Too. This is your “meta description tag.” It appears in your website code and describes your page’s content. This description should be rich in keywords and should include complete sentences. For example, with our carpet cleaner, your description could say: “Proper Cleaner in Surry Hills, Sydney. Best Carpet Cleaning Service at a Competitive Price.”
3. Pay Attention to Headings. Headings are very important for search engines because they seem to help them find page content is important, too. Make sure that your subheadings and headings are keyword rich for a good start, for example, using a heading such as “Carpet Installation Services in Sydney.”
4. Address Your Page Content. You should ensure that you have at last one keyword rich paragraph of text on each page. Keywords used in your headings may be repeated again in you content. Try to use a mix of related key phrases. For example, Digital Printing, On Demand Printing, 60 minute Print Service rather than the same phrase over and over again.
5. Links Are Important. Yes, links, too, are important for page content. Instead of using generic phrases like, “Click here to find out more,” use those that are keyword rich and indicate what your business is. “Take a look at our carpet installation services” is one good example.
Step-3: Off Page Optimisation Off-page optimisation, or linking strategies, is the third and final stage. Every incoming link to your website is considered by Google as a vote for your website content by other websites. The reason why many businesses SEO efforts fail is that they focus exclusively on using keywords on web pages but they lack a linking strategy. Here are a few tips to start pushing your site up the ranks through linking strategies:
2. Put Your Site on So-Called “Authority Directories.” These website directories, called “authority directories,” are highly respected by search engines and can help improve rankings. This can help you improve your own rankings, too. Many of these sites charge a few to list there, but this helps keep out lower quality websites. Three of the most important ones are: botw.org, Yahoo.com.au, and business.com. Be advised that this isn’t about those scams that say they’ll submit your site to countless directories for $49 or so. Only submit your website to these well regarded directories.
