In a previous blog called “Why bother with SEO?” the importance of SEO for businesses online was discussed in detail to help you understand its inherent value. In a nutshell; once your website is SEO’d, then it will rank higher on Google and other search engines for the desired search terms for your business.

But how do you know if you’re going about this in the right way? 

It’s a good question to ask. Just because a person understands what SEO and Search Engine Marketing is, doesn’t mean they know the right process of implementing it correctly to achieve the best results possible. It’s very much like someone understanding the principle behind shoe laces and what they are supposed to do — tie together — but understanding in principle is useless if you don’t actually know how to tie the shoelaces yourself. All you are left with is a pair of non-wearable shoes.

So let’s get lacing. Here are my TOP TEN tips on how to utilise SEO and Search Engine Marketing to the fullest potential:

Keywords

• Research and define your keywords.
• Never use keywords that are blatantly general or singular such as “travel” or “shop.”
• Use research tools to compile lists of the most relevant keywords for your business.
• Teach yourself  competitive keywording – relevant phrases without too much competition.
• Consider the affects of plurals and synonyms when selecting your keywords.

Content

• Keyworded copy is important but just remember that your visitors/readers come first, the SEO a distant second. Don’t heavily keyword/keyphrase every sentence and kill the copy’s flow or composition or people won’t even bother to read it.
• Update your content regularly. Daily or weekly blogs are a great help for this. Search engines love fresh content. But understand that by default, they hate duplicate content in return. So no copy and pasting! Press releases and new product pages make a big difference in SEO too. Create as much content about your products or subject as you can.
• Link your content. This is such a crucial factor that is worth the investment of time. Build up quality links. Make your content good enough that other people will link back to it.
• Create unique title tags for each page of your site and keyword the tags.
• Use the correct Meta tags to describe your content so search engines are more likely to describe your site/pages the way you want.

Remember to avoid – designing your entire site in Adobe Flash. While it can look the bee’s knees aesthetically, search engines cannot read it and therefore it is less likely to get ranked or seen. This pretty much stops those shoe laces from ever getting tied up!

Once you adjust yourself and your business/site by learning the do’s and don’ts of SEO you’ll find that it’s ultimately about creating quality; a quality website populated by quality content that has an active online presence on the web.

Paul