No.1

Research, research, research……..

Find out what keywords people are using to search for your goods or services. There are lots of free online tools to help you with this – Google Keyword Tool is one of these.

In general, don’t go for broad keywords like “Books” “Lighting” or “Cars” as the competition is greater and the visitors may not be interested in what you are offering. Better to be more specific like “Children’s books online” “Online lighting store” or “vintage cars hire”. You will rank higher for these searches and your visitors will find your site relevant.

No. 2

Place appropriate keywords throughout every area of your site: your titles, content, URLs, and image names. Think about your keywords as search terms – how would someone looking for information on this topic search for it?

The title tag and page header are the two most important spots to put keywords

However putting too high a proportion of keywords on your site could get you labeled as a spammer, and search engine spiders are programmed to ignore sites guilty of “keyword-stuffing.” Be strategic in your keyword use.

No.3

Adding a sitemap to your site – a page listing and linking to all the other major pages on your site – make it easier for the search engine spiders to search and index your site. It should mean that most or all of your pages are listed in the search index.

No.4

Make your URL search engine friendly. Using a client of ours, I will show a good example of a search engine friendly URL.

The client Fairbrothers Formal Wear is in the business of suit hire, with a focus on wedding suit hire. Major keywords here are Suit, Hire, and Wedding. So a search engine friendly URL used for the “Wedding Suit Hire” page on their site is http://fairbrothersweddingsuithire.ie/suit-hire-collection/wedding-suit-hire

No.5

Search engine spiders can only search text. They do not read text in images.
That’s why it’s essential that you add “ALT” tags to your images. “ALT” tags allow you to include keyword-rich descriptions for all images on your site and this is read by the search engine spiders.
The visible text around your images is also valuable for SEO. Add captions to all your pictures and be descriptive with the text in immediate proximity to your images.

No.6

Your content needs to be fresh — updating regularly and often is crucial for increasing traffic.
The best sites for users, and consequently for search engines, are sites that regularly updated with useful information about a given service, product, topic or discipline.
One way to ensure that your site gets new content on a frequent basis is to integrate a blog like this one! An executive blog is an excellent way to reach out to your clients, create more opportunities for internal and external linking, while giving your site a more personal voice.

No.7

A blog is just one element of social media distribution, an important SEO strategy. You should be distributing links to fresh content on your site across appropriate social networking platforms.

So when you complete your latest blog posting, get it out there. Tweet if you followers on twitter, post it to your facebook friend’s, let your contacts know about it on Linkedin………..

Once it’s out there, watch as its retweeted, recommended ,forwarded, shared etc…. The distribution power of social media really is amazing. And you get a whole lot of backlinks to your site!

No.8

An easy way to direct more traffic to your site is by developing relationships with other sites.
Lots of sites have link pages, where other relevant non competing companies are listed. Personally ask the webmasters of well-respected sites if they’ll include a link to your site on theirs. Be sure to return the favour — then everyone wins!
Do a little prep work and check the page rank of the site before asking. Links with high ranking sites will really make an impact, where as low ranking sites will make little difference or may actually impact negatively on your traffic.

No.9

Flash websites do not allow a site to be well optimised. The spiders do not read the text, the URL is static and not optimisable etc…. We would recommend that full flash website should only be used in a small number of cases.

If you want the benefits of Flash, without losing the capability of optimising your website, we would recommend that you incorporate flash element within a standard website, as we have done on our site www.themarketingpod.ie

No.10

Track the results and use this feedback to improve future SEO strategy.

With free analysis tools like Google Analytics, you can track the increases in visitors to your site, see how the visitors are finding your site, what pages they are reading, how long they are staying etc… You can even drill down to see what keywords delivered the visitor to your site and how long they stayed and whether that completed a goal that you may have set.

This information can be used to inform and update your SEO strategy. Concentrating on what is working and what is not!

If you need any help with any of the above, The Marketing Pod’s experienced Search Engine Optimisation team would be delighted to help. Just give us a buzz!

If you would like to outsource your SEO contact The Marketing Pod www.themarketingpod.ie today to discuss the most suitable SEO package for you.

Location, Location, Location

A website can create high passing trade for your business without paying high street rents. A highly visible website allows smaller companies to compete on a level playing field in terms of passing traffic with larger more established brands.

Attract Customers In

Just like a shop promotes itself with sales and special offers your website can attract visitors with latest product launches, product sales and promotional campaigns. Be innovative in how you attract traffic through your virtual front door.

First Impressions Count

Much of how you present yourself online is about first impressions and you should ensure that your website is creating the right impression for your target audience. Like a bad shop window potential customers won’t stop and look if they don’t like what they see. Make sure that your website is visually appealing and makes passing traffic want to come in.

Keep your Visitors Engaged

Can you imagine a shop that did not change its window display for years? It just would not happen because it would make a business look dated and unprofessional. The same applies to stale and out of date information on your website. Information on your website should be fresh, up to date and include your latest products and services to engage your potential customers.

If you want help creating an impressive virtual shop for your business that is highly visible to your target market The Marketing pod create visually appealing websites that deliver.

www.themarketingpod.ie

With these type of stats it is essential that your business has an engaging website and even more importantly, that that website can be found by people searching for your products and services on the likes of Google and Yahoo search.

5 things you may not know about online marketing:

1. Online advertising can be as localised as you like, so that adverts for your company only appear in the local area that you wish to target
2. You ad may appear many times, however you only pay for the times that the ad is clicked on and the person is delivered to your sit
3. Free feedback is provided, informing you of the number of visitors, where they were from, what search terms they used to find your site, how long they stayed, what they viewed while in your site etc… (Traditional advertising provides no of this feedback
4. You can set daily/weekly/monthly budgets, so that your advertising spend and visitors to your site are spread evenly over time. Eg. €5/day budget with a maximum cost per click of 40 cent would delivery approx 13 relevant visitors to your site per day
5. The return on investment is much greater v’s traditional advertising

There are some simple steps that you can take today to ensure that your local business is effectively promoted online:

1. Every local business should have a good website that is visually appealing, up to date and informative.
2. Your contact details should be clearly visible on every page of your website.
3. Every page of your website should include a ‘call to action’ which prompts customer to take next step in the sales process.
4. You should establish the keywords that people use when searching for your products and services and make sure they are on your website in high density on relevant pages.
5. You should have a Google local area listing (this is the map that appears on Google searches and lists local businesses relevant to the “keywords” typed by the searcher)
6. For immediate website visibility you could consider a Google Adwords campaign where you pay for your business to list at the top of Google for your relevant keywords (The return on investment for this type of advertising is much better than traditional forms, as you only pay for searches that result in someone clicking and entering your website
7. You should have as many people as possible mention your company in online blogs, forums and reviews.
8. You should make sure that your location e.g. Dublin is mentioned in the titles and other website page tags.
9. Your contact page should include a map and easy to follow directions to your business.
10. Quality links from other websites to your website are very important for improving your search engine rankings. Swap links with other businesses.
11. List your business on as many online directories as possible.
12. Make sure that your website sells your strengths and your unique business offerings.
13. All your brochures, business cards, email signatures and other print marketing materials should include your website address.

If you would like professional help to implement any of the above techniques for your small to medium sized business, The Marketing Pod is a commercially focused marketing agency that produce stand out websites and customised marketing campaigns that deliver real results for our clients.

www.themarketingpod.ie