Tag: seo

Introduction to SEO

In a previous session we looked at the importance of providing current and relevant content to retain your readers’ interest and attention. As they read more and more from you they will build trust in your expertise and use you as a reliable source of information. When that level of trust is obtained and there is a need for your type of product or service, you will be top-of-mind such that they will be open to your offer and become a customer. We also briefly mentioned the need for basic SEO tasks applied to the content.

In today’s session we will examine the seeding your content with key words or phrases that will enhance your prospecting and lead generation online throughout the search engines such as Google, BING and Yahoo. This seeding is known as Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and the goal is to give you an overview such that you have the basics to know what to learn and implement yourself using simple tools.

The following recommendations are based on our own experience and are an integral part of our internet marketing efforts. How these ideas work for you will depend on how well you learn and implement them among other factors not under discussion herein.

Every article you write to post on your website is always based on a certain theme or idea that can usually be described in a key word or key phrase such that the reader has some idea of the topic. Search engines are no different; their algorithms read your content assessing the key focus of the article such that they can provide the most relevant information to people who are searching for your type of information. If the search engines see your content as relevant, current and unique you have a better opportunity of ranking high in the search results page, hopefully page one.

So, once you have identified the key word or phrase for your article, how do you use them to enhance your ranking within the search engines? You have no doubt heard of the term Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. There are many factors that we could discuss on SEO but today let’s just look at the basics of SEO within your article posting on your website.

SEO Basics

The SEO basics include the use of your keyword or keyphrase in five areas of your website posting of your content being:

  1. within the page’s meta keyword identifier
  2. within the custom title tag
  3. within the page’s meta description
  4. within your article content itself
  5. within the description of images in your article

Keep in mind that the short descriptions to follow only skim the surface and that more detailed training is required to learn how to properly implement this advice. Don’t let this terminology scare you – there are user friendly SEO tools to help you perform these tasks yourself or by someone on your team.

SEO Within the Page’s Meta Keyword Identifier

Experts agree that the use of too many key ideas (or keywords) within an article can lead to confusion for the reader, as well as for the search engines. We suggest that each article you post on your website should have only one focused keyword or keyphrase around which all other content is focused. Once selected, through a task called Keyword Research, it is then placed in what is technically called the Meta Keyword Identifier of the website’s programming code. Again, with a little training and practice most people can do these tasks regularly on every article they post on their websites.

SEO Within the Custom Title Tag

While you may come up with a relevant title for your article, there is an opportunity to generate a custom title for the search engine results listing of your website. Thus you can have one title relevant to your article while having another title for the search engine results that may be more enticing to someone searching on your topic. Best practice is to use your keyword or keyphrase in the custom title tag. Choose your words wisely as you only have 70 characters. Once again, don’t despair; there are user friendly tools to insert this tag into the programming code.

SEO Within the Page’s Meta Description

While not seen within the website itself by the reader, the meta description is seen in the search engine results page listing for your posting. It is your chance to describe the benefit to the searcher for clicking through to your website for the information they need. Again, choose your words wisely as you only have 156 characters.

SEO Within Your Article Content Itself

This single keyword or keyphrase should be placed strategically but naturally within your article content. At a minimum it should be used in the first paragraph, in a headline and sub-headline, and throughout the article as needed, but don’t over-do it. Experts suggest a keyword density of about 2% to 4.5% that includes all the content, titles, meta sections and image descriptions. There are also user friendly tools to quickly assess the percentage of use of keywords allowing you to add or take remove keywords.

SEO Within the Description of Images in Your Article

Best practice is to place a relevant and interesting image within your article posting. This can be a simple picture to a more complex chart. Within the programming code you can place a title of the image as well as what is called an Alt Tag. Don’t worry about what it means just know that you should place a very short one to five word description of the image along that contains the keyword or keyphrase. Once again, the tools are able to handle this task too.

SEO Results and Training

There you have it – the basics of SEO that if used properly, along with other tasks, will aid your marketing efforts providing more prospects, more leads and more closed deals.

As we mentioned earlier this information describes what to do. The SEO how-to requires more training such as that offered by Training Business Leaders and Training Business Pros.

 

Here below is a screen capture of one of our favourite SEO tools when building a new webpage or blog post. It provides automated feedback and when you get it right you get a green light – how simple can it be. In another post we will cover the use of this tool and how it saves time and makes for better search results of your pages.

SEO Tool by Yoast

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization.

SEO Search Engines Optimization Means Visits

In its simplest form SEO is the task of designing or redesigning the content and contextual elements of a single webpage.

The goal of SEO is such that when a person enters a word or phase in a search engine like Google that webpage will be presented to the person in the highest position possible when compared to all the other possible websites known by the search engine.

There are multiple factors considered by the various search engines to make such a placement in the results displayed. Some factors are common among most search engines but each has its own variations. Since Google is currently the most widely used search engine the focus of most SEO is on planning the webpage to rank highest on Google and thus it should also place high on other search engines like Yahoo or Bing.

Basic SEO Requirements

Good SEO should be focused upon both the webpage itself (on-page) and on external elements that refer to that webpage (off-page).

On-Page SEO related to both the content and context of a webpage. Content is the obvious element being the textual information presented on page. Context is the wrapper in which the content resides such as the structure of the content.

Off-page SEO typically refers to creating a buzz about your message such that other webpages and social media messages make an actual referral link to your webpage. We will cover off-page SEO in other post and in our training programs.

Content SEO

“Content is King” is a mantra heard around the SEO community. My opinion is that the search engines, and more importantly your readers, demand great content. Content is the message you want to relay to the reader. Within this webpage there is usually a key idea you want to express such that the reader is educated in some fashion.

Best practice seems to be to keep a single webpage or blog post focused on one key idea using about 300 to 500 words. The key idea of the content is summarized to a keyword or keyphrase which is used multiple times in the content.

If the reader is pleased with what they learned they will be more likely share your content with others through a link to your information on a webpage or through social media. When the search engines see these natural mentions in the form of links they reward the original webpage with a higher status or ranking and thus better placement in search results.

Contextual SEO

Once the content is identified the textual message should be laid out within the capabilities of the website theme such that the search engine, along with the reader, is able to easily identify the main message of the content.

Good SEO of the layout of the content allows readers to easily identify that the information is what they are looking for and keeps them interested and reading the webpage. If the search engine identifies your webpage as what the reader actually wanted then the search engine will again reward the webpage in the overall search rankings.

Contextual elements include headlines, links, keyword or keyphrase placement, page names, descriptions and other factors explored further in our training programs.

Three Steps to Get Your SEO Started

SEO can be a daunting task but there are three steps that everyone should do to get started.

  1. Check Your Current Indexing Status: Using any number of available tools find out how the search engines see your website pages, each and every important page on your website. If the search engines don’t know your pages do not exist, then your potential readers will never find your pages. Make certain that the search engine knows that your important webpages exist. If not then fix it.
  2. The next step relates to the keywords or keyphrases we discussed earlier. Do you have keywords that are appropriate for the content and more importantly are the keywords what your potential readers are typing into the search engines? Do your research, again with appropriate tools, and use the keywords in the proper context of your content.
  3. Drive the Buzz about your content through social media, groups and other avenues such that your webpages are referenced in links from other webpages and social media.