The internet has levelled the playing fields - now anyone can build a successful online business. We have witnessed the rise and success of small and home based online businesses making a strong presence in the marketplace. So how do they do it?
Making your website rank high in search engine results is one of the most important things to do. This area commonly referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can seem overwhelming to those just getting started.
SEO is about ensuring search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo know how to find your site, and find it relevant enough to rank it highly in the search results of potential customers. It is really more of an art than a science :)
Here are some first steps you may find helpful.
Do the search engines even know you exist?
Web Page Titles are important!
What Keywords are your potential customers looking for?
Do the search engines even know you exist?
Ensure you have submitted your site to the following search engine sites:
Go to http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
A simple and straightforward process. Enter in your “URL”, “comments/keywords” and click on the “Add URL” button.
Microsoft Bing
Go to http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx
Type in the characters you see in the box (identify you as a person) and type your URL, click on the “Submit URL” button.
Yahoo
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/au/free/submit
You can submit your website/webpage or your site feed too (if you have one).
DMOZ
http://www.dmoz.org/add.html
If your site is not listed, then select the best category for your site, go directly to that category on dmoz.org and then click “suggest URL”
FREE Web Submission
http://www.freewebsubmission.com/
Contain a list of the top 50 search engines. A good online resource for those getting started.
Web Page Titles are important!
The page title is the single most important page when it comes to displaying your “title” in the search results – this is the most prominent piece of information available to searchers. Some of the key notes for creating the perfect page title(s) is:-
Ensure all titles are typed in Title Case (or Proper Case).
Every page must have a unique title. Do not put the same title on every page of your website
The title must be able to stand on its own and clearly communicate the contents of the page to the reader. When a visitor bookmarks your site or adds your site to their favorites menu, the title of your page becomes the title of their bookmark.
Home page titles should clearly indicate what is available and your organization name. Not adding your organization name on the homepage can significantly lower your Web credibility. At the same token, don’t put it on all of the other pages, instead make good usage of the character limits you have.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser displays the first 95 characters of your title tag. For title tags longer than 95 characters, Internet Explorer will simply crop the tag. Google will display up to 66 characters of a title tag, cropping to complete words. Yahoo! has an absolute cutoff in presenting titles of exactly 120 characters. It is recommended to have between 62-70 characters, 6-12 keywords (with no repeated words) in your title tag.
For long titles, the best strategy is to make sure that the title works for both Google and Yahoo. For example, your primary Google title should be 66 characters (including spaces). The secondary Yahoo title can be any length up to 120 characters (any longer, it will be cropped).
What Keywords are your potential customers looking for?
Use the most popular keywords/phrases which relate to your products and services
Although meta keywords tags are not a major factor search engines consider when ranking sites, they should not be left off the page. Both the meta keywords tag and the meta description tag contribute to your search engine ranking.
Meta keywords tag is a brief and concise list of the most important themes of your page. Meta keywords tags should adhere to the following guidelines:
Keep your list of keywords or keyword phrases to 20-48 words or phrases (consider of having 10-15 strong and unique ones in the mix);
Separate the words or phrases using a comma (you do not need to leave a space between words separated by commas);
Do not repeat words or phrases;
Put your most important word or phrases at the beginning of your list.
Think of what words your potential customs would use to search for products and services. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool to find the most popular keywords related to your website and Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool to displays a list of relevant user queries that have occurred on Google.com (and on other Google search properties), based on your URL.
