Website Marketing

When you finally go live with your website the search engines will look at you with fresh eyes. It is interesting to see what information is collected and what is displayed in the search results.

While it is exciting to go live, it can also be disappointing if you get ranked a lot lower than you hoped. You can of course make changes, but Google then has to re index the site and that can take time.

Tips before launch

The home page

• The website header
  Short, to the point and use your top keywords
• Site description
  This appears in the meta tags and is often the text you see when search engines list your company. Make sure that it is optimised to show what you do and uses the right keywords.
• Keywords
  These are also in the site meta tags, start with the most important keyword and work down the list.
• Content Headers
  The headings help to define what you do and are seen as more important than the content. Home page content headers must once again be optimised.
• Content
  Text is important as search engines use this to define what you do. Put the important content higher up on the page and throw in a few keywords. Even bold some of the text to highlight the importance of the words.
• Image alt text
  This is the text that appears if you move your mouse over an image. Get creative and include keywords here again.
• Image Names
  Try to name the image accurately. It is easier to upload straight from the digital camera or keep the original name when the image was created. Optimising images will result in you coming up when people are searching for images. Google will often display image in the web search results in between the normal text listing.
• Google Maps
  Register your business on Google Maps. You often see the map with the location of businesses in your area as well as their contact numbers.
• robots.txt
  Make sure your text is correct and does not prevent your site from listing.
• Site Map
  Get a search engine friendly site map working and submit to the search engines. This tells them what your site looks like and what pages it can index. This is not a definitive guide as they will also follow links found on the website
• Navigation
  Use words that reflect what you do. Keywords where possible and make sure they are accessible from the root of the website. This will assist the search engine in getting the information it needs to work out what you do.
• News
  Get some news going on the home page with the date displayed. Show that your site changes on a regular basis and is a living website. This is once again an opportunity to fine tune some keywords.

Remember that search engines cannot read. They can only take in information and then use the data to create patterns so that when you enter a word to search for, they can assemble the data and produce a list that makes sense.

Try to think like a search engine and look at the patterns of data.

Some copy may explain what you do but use too few keywords, too little repetition and when analysed by a search engine look like a mass of text with no common thread.

General tips for the rest of the website

• Optimise pages
  The home page can only be optimised so much. Every page in your website has the potential to come up in the search listing. In some cases you may even list more than once as a result. Take time to ensure your pages are optimised
• Links
  Link between pages other than the navigation. Insert links in the text to show that the information is connected. If some pages are not connected directly to the root of the site, use these to show search engines that they exist. Use keywords where possible to reinforce what you do in the link text.
• Inbound and Outbound Links
  Links in and out show that you are connected to the world wide web and improves your credibility. Get listed on directories, send press releases to news sites and get visible.

Work your site

After the initial launch you will have a pretty good idea where you fit on your first listing. Take a look at the information displayed and assess the relevance. If you can improve, make the changes. Search like a customer and not the company owner. If people don’t know anything about the company and are looking for your products and services, how would they conduct their search. Take a look at these search results too. You can’t be all things to all search results, so look at the listings, find out what the more popular search phrases are and see what you can do to improve your rankings.

Bear in mind that your competition may be doing the same so take time to assess and improve. Over time the consistency of your site as well as the optimisation changes will result in a site that is listed closer to the top.

Not sure if you’ve got all the bases covered or want help to get your site optimised, contact me.