Search Engine Positioning
Getting search engine traffic is a constantly changing and increasingly competitive science. If you are considering search engine traffic as a source of business, you must first determine if search traffic will be cost effective for you, and if it is, you must execute your strategy with care. The following outlines the steps we go through to get search engine positioning, traffic, and customers for you.
Choose Keywords
Determine the best search terms for your business – those terms search engine users use when looking to buy products and services like yours. We recommend coming up with two to five three-word phrases that are appropriate for your business. The goal is to get on the first page, if not top position on your keyword phrases.
- Create initial group of relevant keyword phrases for your business.
- Check phrases against searches.
- Review site log files for current search traffic and search visitor behavior.
- Revise phrases and add new phrases.
- Check search results and competitive sites to evaluate opportunities.
- Finalize initial keyword choices.
- Report current site positioning on chosen keywords to create a baseline.
Optimize Site and Pages
Adapt your website to include your keyword phrases in the basic structure of the site, as well as individual web pages. At the very least, look at: page titles, headings, navigation, sitemap, alt tags, meta tags, links, file names and page copy.
- Make site changes and develop optimized pages.
- Analyze and adapt site and pages for optimization.
- Load revised site.
Submit Site
Once the site has been optimized with keywords, submit your site and specific pages to the major search engines. You are then at the mercy of the engines with regard to when they will re-index your newly optimized site. Sites that are larger and change often are usually on a regular indexing schedule, and your changes will show up quickly in search results.
Develop Links
Critical to your search engine positioning are inbound links. Not only are the links themselves important, but the text in the link and the page you are linked from can make a difference, as well as the importance of the site linking to you.
- Find existing inbound links
- Analyze inbound links and their effectiveness
- Create a link strategy using your site links, your other domain links, and links on other sites.
- Organize and implement a campaign to develop new links on other sites.
- Monitor links.
Convert Users
Once you have the search engine traffic you are looking for, look at how much of that traffic is converting into customers. Improving your conversion rates is at least as important as the traffic you are getting as it is more valuable to your business to have only one site visitor who buys than 1,000 who don’t. To improve your conversion rates look at:
- Traffic sources and patterns
- Keyword conversions
- Site copy effectiveness
- Entrances and exits
Evaluate and Adjust
Like any marketing strategy, search engine positioning requires care and feeding, which generally means:
- Monitor search engine positioning
- Monitor site traffic
- Monitor and develop new inbound links
- Monitor changes in search engines
- Monitor competitors
- Adjust accordingly