Welcome to my Bully Pulpit for December 11, 2008
This week’s issue includes:
1) Search Engine Optimization Tips
2) Quote for Today
1) Search Engine Optimization Tips
As you know if you have been reading my columns for a while, I am a proponent of the Veretekk marketing system. There is simply no system anywhere that is as powerful for promoting any business online.
One of the powers of the Veretekk system lies in its ability to take advantage of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to propel your small business website onto the first page of Google in record time. In this article I’d like to answer some of the basic questions that new marketers often have about SEO.
What is SEO?
SEO is a collection of strategies that can be applied to a website to increase its search engine ranking. Search engine ranking is the position that your site occupies on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) when a search is done using keyword phrases that are relevant to your website and your business.
Why is search engine ranking important?
The higher your site’s position in the SERPs, the more people will see it. Many of these people may click on your listing, especially if you appear in the top 2 or 3 positions, thus bringing you more traffic. Google lists 10 search results per page. Most searchers never look beyond the first or second page of search results. If you can get your site listed in the Google top ten for your search terms, you will get significantly more traffic than if your listing shows up on any subsequent pages.
There are two broad categories of SEO techniques: on-page factors and off-page factors.
On Page SEO factors
On page factors are all the things you can do on your website to increase SEO. These usually revolve around keywords, and you use these techniques to let the search engines know what your site is about. On page factors include things like the use of TITLE, KEYWORD and DESCRIPTION meta tags, the use of the ALT tag for images, HTML header tags, keyword placement, and so on.
Off Page SEO
Off page factors revolve around backlinks. Keywords are important here as well. Backlinks are the links placed on other sites that point to pages on your site. Backlinks are also known as “inbound links”, a term which is often easier to understand. Inbound links are those links pointing to pages on your site.
Steps You Can Take To Improve SEO
1. Always use TITLE, KEYWORD and DESCRIPTION meta tags
For every page on your site you should have meta tags unique to that page.
Here’s a good reference for using meta tags:
http://www.freelancedesigners.com/tools/meta_tags.cfm
The TITLE tag is what will appear on the top of the browser window when someone views the page. It should be keyword-specific, and no more than 60 characters in length. The search engines use this tag as well.
The KEYWORDS meta tag is a comma-separated list of keywords that are relevant to your site. Keywords don’t have to be single words - you can and should use keyword phrases relevant to the content of that page. Do not use too many keywords or keyword phrases in this tag; I usually recommend using no more than 6. More than that and you will run the risk of having Google designate your page as keyword spam and thereby not indexing the page. Also, try not to repeat any single words more than 5 times.
For the DESCRIPTION meta tag write a short description of your site that would make someone want to click your link. The recommended maximum length is 150 characters. This tag is used by Google as the text description of your site. So it is not just for the search engine’s benefit, it is also likely to be seen by a person and it may be the difference between that person clicking on your site’s link or another site.
2. Wherever you have images on your site, always include an ALT tag for each image
The HTML code for including an image in your page has an optional attribute called the ALT tag, short for ‘alternative text’. It was originally intended as a text description to aid viewers surfing with images turned off or using a screen reader so they could get an idea of what an image was about, since they couldn’t see it. But search engines also use the ALT tag to find out more about your page.
The ALT tag should contain keywords relevant to your site and the image they are describing. Instead of just putting “header” in the ALT tag for your header image, use the opportunity to tell the search engines what your site is about, with something like “Puppy Training Header”, if your site is about puppy training. Don’t over do it though, you want this description to be concise rather than stuffed with every keyword relevant to your site. Here’s a good reference for learning more about image tags:
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/html/article.php/3478181
3. Use header tags wisely
The header tags such as H1, H2, and H3 are used by search engines to figure out what the important keywords for your site are. You can easily change the appearance of the header tags by using stylesheets, so try to use the standard HTML header tags instead of custom styles for your headers. Then just make sure you’ve got relevant keywords in the headers. The H1 tag should contain the primary keyword for your page, the H2 tag should contain the secondary keywords for your page, and so on.
4. Get backlinks with relevant keywords
Get backlinks. Lots of them. This should be an ongoing part of your SEO campaign. The more backlinks the better, but you want to grow your backlinks naturally. It looks a lot more natural if you work on getting a handful of backlinks every week than if you suddenly got 10,000 backlinks overnight because you bought them from a link farm. The search engines are watching for these unnatural patterns, and you are likely to be penalized for engaging in such practices.
There are many ways to get backlinks:
- You can develop relationships with other webmasters to get reciprocal links from other related sites.
- Participate in forums related to your topic and be sure to have a link to your site as part of your signature.
- Write articles for article directories which include a link back to your site in the bio box.
- Create Squidoo lenses or HubPages with a link back to your site. If you have a blog submit your RSS feed to RSS Aggregator sites, and add it to your Squidoo lens or HubPage.
- Use Social Bookmarking services to bookmark your pages and encourage your visitors to do the same.
- Use Twitter to send out a ‘tweet’ when you post a new article.
- And by far the most powerful technique: get yourself a Veretekk Gold system and configure it to target your keyword phrases. You will be able to generate hundreds of quality backlinks from many different domains very easily. For more information on Veretekk, see my information site at
http://www.squidoo.com/whatisveretekk
This is just to get you started, it is not an exhaustive list by any means.
Now that you have some ideas for where to get backlinks, it is important that you choose good anchor text for your backlinks when you can. The anchor text is the text that turns into the hyperlink (it is often blue, sometimes underlined). The search engines also use this text to figure out what your site, or page, is about. So always specify what the anchor text will be, if you can. Use your main keywords, and variations on your main keywords. Keep in mind that the keywords you use when you are linking to a specific page are not necessarily going to be the same as when you are linking to your homepage.
In some cases you don’t have the option of specifying the anchor text. But don’t miss the opportunity to specify it where you can. If you trade reciprocal links with another site, specify what you want your anchor text to be. The other webmaster will probably appreciate it because it saves them time having to decide what it should be. When you create Squidoo lenses and HubPages, or for your forum signatures you have total control over your anchor text. Use it wisely.
In this article I have covered just a few basic, but very important, aspects of SEO. This is a very good place to start if you want to improve your sites search engine optimization. Keep applying these techniques until it becomes second nature and you should see an improvement in both your search engine rankings and an increase in the traffic to your site.
2) Quote for Today
It is not giving children more that spoils them; it is giving them more to avoid confrontation.
- John Gray
Would you like free inspirational messages like this
for your website? Just go to
http://brincom.dailymessageonline.com/
to get the code.
That’s a Wrap for this Week
That wraps up another week’s newsletter and I hope you enjoyed this issue.
Don’t forget to send me any comments or questions you may have. I would be only too happy to help you in any way that I can.
From time to time I’ll send you important updates that will provide information that has the potential to greatly improve your online business… and of course your profits!
However, you can rest assured that I will only ever recommend products that are considered to be of HIGH value and will provide indisputable benefits to help you grow your business.
Have a great week!
Until next time,
Bill Brine-Lead Generation Master
Brincom Internet Business Services
PO Box 121, Amherst, NS B4H 3Y6
Ph: 902-667-0511
Fax: 760-280-8685
Office Hours: M-F 8-5 PM EST
Skype: billbrine
Email: jwb@brincom.com
http://ItsGoodBusiness.net
P.S. If you know someone who might find my newsletter
useful, send them to
http://www.brincom.com/weekly-marketing-tips.htm
