Like most things in life, there is a right way to optimize your website, and a wrong way.\u00a0 The high road will get you more visitors, more sales, and a better reputation, as well as move you up in the search engine rankings.\u00a0 The low road will give you more visitors, but may wreck your reputation and get you banned from the search engines altogether.\u00a0 SEO isn’t rocket science, it just takes time, common sense and patience.\u00a0 There are\u00a0 three important words to remember: Keywords, Links, and Blogs.\u00a0 Let me show you what I mean.<\/p>\n
I’m not trying to be punny, well, maybe a little, but these are a big key to your optimization success.\u00a0 Research is the word of the day here.\u00a0 You have to find words to use on your website that are relevant to the content, not being overused in the industry, and focused enough to bring you visitors that want to buy your goods and services.\u00a0 Researching the keywords is time consuming, but is paramount to building a successful optimization campaign.\u00a0 Once you have selected your keywords, spend time adding them (sparingly I might add) into the content of your website.\u00a0 Try to target one or two keywords per page.\u00a0 That way more of your site will be indexed, and you can rank more pages on the search engine results.<\/p>\n
Once you have employed your keywords effectively, you want to think about link building.\u00a0 I’m talking about both within your site and from the outside.\u00a0 As much as possible (and natural) you want to try to link the pages on your site together.\u00a0 That way when a visitor lands on one page of your site, they can easily get to another page they are interested in without having to go back to the home page.\u00a0 When you add links from page to page, it not only helps the search engines index you, it helps the customers find exactly what they are looking for.\u00a0 This increases the likelihood of them making a purchase, and makes it more likely that they will return to your site again.\u00a0 Building external links is possibly more important, and is a bit more difficult to do.\u00a0 A great strategy is to find blogs and articles that are relevant to your site, and leave a comment on a post with a link back to your website.\u00a0 You can also find sites in your niche, and offer to trade links with them.\u00a0 What you don’t want to do is resort to link farms or massive directories with no relevance to your site whatsoever.\u00a0 That could be bad news.\u00a0 External link building will take time, so be patient and try to add your link in the places that will benefit you the most.<\/p>\n
Every website that wants to increase its rankings and traffic needs a blog.\u00a0 Let me say that again:\u00a0 Every website…you get the idea.\u00a0 Blogs are one of the easiest ways to present fresh, relevant, content on an ongoing basis.\u00a0 They allow you to connect with your customers, and can help you become recognized as a guru in your industry. If you don’t have a blog, it’s time to start one. \u00a0 If you aren’t a good writer, or you don’t have time, hire someone to write them for you.\u00a0 It is very important that you update them with fresh material as often as possible.\u00a0 Don’t wait more than a week to put up some new content.\u00a0 If you you do this well, news of your blog will spread and your reputation will soar.<\/p>\n
Keywords, links, and blogs are not the only elements you need to optimize your website.\u00a0 In the coming weeks we will be exploring the ins and outs of other (ethical) techniques for increasing your traffic and rankings.\u00a0 However, if you concentrate in these three areas, you will likely see an increase in your traffic and your sales.\u00a0 So challenge yourself.\u00a0 Try these techniques, and then come back here each week to learn the rest of the story.\u00a0 You will be glad you did.<\/p>\n