SEO Whiteboard Series
September 7, 2008
Kevin Carr with our Search Marketing Lab, lets you know how to define the search terms for your website…
Search Engine Synchronization Key Phrases
The slide Kevin references in this video:
For more search help, check out our Search Marketing Lab
Increase Click-throughs To Your Website By 30%
September 4, 2008
How would you like to increase click-throughs to your website by an easy 30%?
By rewriting your title tag, you can.
(Read the results of testing by our in-house SEO expert Nicole E. here.)
Your title tag is simply the piece of HTML code that tells the search engines what your page is about… and it’s a piece of prime SEO real estate!
Not only do the search engines use it to assign relevance to your website, they also display it in the search results as your hyperlink…
… And it’s what visitors see at the top of their browser while they’re on your site.
So make sure you use this SEO heavyweight to your advantage, and write a title tag the search engines — and your visitors! — will love.
Here’s how:
Step 1: Make sure you include one!
Some people don’t even bother to include a title tag at all. This is a HUGE mistake!
If you leave your title tag blank, the search engines will show an unsightly “untitled document” in the search results and at the top of your pages. This makes you look careless and unprofessional. Besides, who searches for untitled documents? You’re squandering an opportunity for better SEO and you’re missing out on sales.
Don’t make this mistake!
Step 2: Avoid using your URL as your title
In the attempt to stay organized and keep track of many different web pages, some site owners have been known to use the URLs of individual pages as the titles.
A title tag like “Sally’s Beauty Shop/Cosmetics/product123.html” does contain the business name, the product category, and the product name itself, but it’s not very helpful to your rankings.
If you have a catalog site, you have to watch that your shopping cart software doesn’t automatically generate something like this for your title tag. If it does, find out how you can change the settings so you can title your pages yourself.
Step 3: Say goodbye friendly greeting, hello keywords
There’s nothing wrong with a friendly greeting… in person. But your title tag is the wrong place to say hello to your audience.
A friendly greeting like “Welcome to my web page!” doesn’t tell you what the page is about. And again, who searches for welcome messages?
Step 4: Arrange your top two keyword phrases so they make sense
The best title tags use a combination of words and phrases that all get searched regularly. Then arrange them in a way so they make sense.
On our Search Marketing Lab website for example, we use a combination of words and phrases that all get searched regularly — SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Marketing Tips, and Search Marketing.
But we’ve arranged them to make sense as well as pull traffic from several different keyword searches:
“SEO and Search Engine Marketing Tips & Advice: Search Marketing Lab”
If you were looking for advice on search marketing, you’d know you were in the right place after seeing that title.
That’s it!
Your title tag is easy to find and easy to change in your HTML code. On most web pages, your title tag (and meta tags) are right at the top, below your “head” tag:
<head>
<title>Internet Marketing Course - Proven Internet Business Strategies</title>
When writing your title tag, keep it under 70 characters. Put your best keywords at or near the beginning of your title tag. With the limited number of characters you’re permitted, your keywords at the end of the tag could get cut off and visitors won’t see them.
Your title tag is prime real estate, and a few minutes (or less!) work here can make a HUGE difference to your overall search rankings, traffic, and business.
Search Engine Marketing 101: Get Maximum PPC Clicks
September 4, 2008
Are your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns converting visitors into sales?
If not, your ad copy could be attracting the wrong people…
Use this quick search engine marketing checklist to see if you’re using your ad space to its full advantage:
Does your ad title state the biggest benefit of your offer?
Use the 25 characters you’re allowed in your title to highlight the
biggest benefit of what you offer. If you sell an eBook that offers dog
obedience training in five days, say so in your title ("Train Dog in 5
Days", for example.)
Is your ad targeting a specific problem?
The more specific your ad copy targets your audience, the more likely
those visitors will actually buy your product when they land on your
site. And that’s what search engine marketing is all about!
So don’t use the same ad for dog obedience as you would for puppy
training, for example. Targeting a specific problem will also improve
your Google Quality Score, so you’ll pay less per click.
Have you included your keyword throughout your ad?
Our own testing showed that PPC ads with keywords in the title and
description garnered 50% more clicks than those without. Don’t forget
about your URL. The more a searcher sees the keyword they searched for
in your ad, the more reassured they’ll be you have what they want. Plus
the search engines will bold these keywords in the ad, so it stands out
more!
How do your ads stack up? Make changes if applicable
and test your results. If your visitors are still not converting,
you’ll know your you need to work on your other search engine marketing
strategies, such as improving your landing page or choosing better
keywords.
You can find more articles on our Search Marketing Lab Blog
Spend a Little… and Get a LOT
August 2, 2008
Who wants traffic?
(I do, I do!)
Last week we started piecing together the family of strategies responsible for bringing you just that — "search marketing." We started with how to optimize your website so it shows up in the organic (read: free!) search results.
But while SEO should be one of your core strategies, it’s not going to get you a top ranking overnight…
But you can buy yourself a top spot in the "sponsored" search results that appear around the main results — in minutes!
It’s called pay-per-click advertising (PPC), and it’s well worth the cost.
Here’s why:
- PPC ads show up immediately, so you can drive traffic to your site right away — even if you haven’t been indexed by the search engines yet.
- With PPC you pay only for results. No matter how many times your ad is displayed, you pay only when someone clicks on it. And by watching your results carefully, you can determine how well each ad is converting and if it’s worth continuing.
- PPC is a great testing tool because you can run several ads simultaneously. By split testing different ads you’ll see very quickly which ones work best… and then you can immediately dump the duds.
Test your keywords this way and use the best ones on your site to boost your organic search results.
In fact, you can use PPC to test everything from your product offerings and price points, to your ad headlines and salescopy… and find out exactly how to appeal to your target market.
And done properly, PPC advertising is also very affordable. In fact, if you do it right, you’ll actually make money while you boost your visibility and traffic. What a deal! (Find out four ways to squeeze every penny out of your PPC campaigns on our blog.)
If you want to make sure your target market finds your site, you need both SEO and PPC. That’s effective search engine marketing.
No other set of strategies offers you so much scope. You can dramatically improve your search engine rankings AND direct quality traffic to your website — often without spending a single dime!
A lot of the techniques I covered are basic to the way search engines do business. Just getting those right will give you a competitive advantage.
… But some techniques come and go. What worked magic for you last year may disappear in a puff of smoke this year!
And discovering a great new search marketing trick could put you way out ahead of the competition — and seriously boost your bottom line…
So do the basics. But make sure you also try out the new techniques and strategies. With ongoing search marketing you’ll be where your market can find you — front and center in the search results.
Can’t get enough search marketing? Visit our Search Marketing Labs for even more traffic-generation strategies.
Google Fights For Order
July 27, 2008
Puzzling over search marketing? Get the big picture!
How well is your website optimized for the search engines?
Kevin Carr explains how Google lets you in on the details of how they make order of the internet for their search results:
Now that you have an idea of what Google is looking for, here are some key SEO strategies that we recommend to all our customers…
- Find the hottest keywords for your market: This is the starting point for any search marketing campaigns. Read more on how to do keyword research.
- Plug keywords into the right locations in your copy and code: Give the search engines the information they need in the places they check regularly. Put your keywords in the headlines, subheads, and body copy of your web pages. In your code, use them in anchor text, alt text, title tags, image tags, and meta tags. (Use them sparingly here - the old strategy of loading up your meta tags with keywords doesn’t work anymore!)
- Use keywords that relate directly to your content: If you sprinkle keywords like "guaranteed weight loss" through your site, but your site sells shoes, the search engines will ignore you. Your keywords will work best if they reflect what your site is about.
- Keep the "spiders" coming back with frequent new content: The more fresh, relevant content they find, the higher the search engine spiders are likely to rank your site. Keep all the copy on your pages current, including any changes or updates to your business or products. Make sure to archive your newsletters or bulletins on your site. A blog or forum also keeps people heading back for daily updates and discussion.
- Fine-tune your keyword density: Make sure you integrate your keywords as naturally as possible into your copy. You won’t keep your visitors’ attention if all the text on your website is just a jumbled bunch of keywords! Look for keyword density of 4% to 6%. Then use lots of synonyms — the search engines take those into account, too.
- Collect links from other sites that are considered reputable and relevant: Natural, relevant inbound links are search engine gold. Focus your strategy on requesting one-way links from sites with high natural ranking in the search engines. Also, put out "linkbait" - quality content that contains a link back to your site. Distributing free articles and press releases is a great way to get quality inbound links. And don’t forget the power of social networking! By taking part in online communities or uploading your video to a site like YouTube, you can drive new traffic to your website, and get new sites linking to yours.
- Use an XML sitemap to boost your ranking in Google, Yahoo, AND Windows Live Search: Sitemaps help the spiders find their way through all your pages. And with the new sitemaps formatting protocol, the three search titans are giving website owners more clues than ever before about how to help the spiders index their sites.
How many of these are you using? What have been your results so far? Leave a comment and let us know!
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