Search Engine Strategies
In April, Louise Desmarais, President of Sandbox Creative, was among a handful of copywriters who spent two days in Toronto immersed in the world of optimization at the Search Engine Strategies conference. She came away from this amazing experience with some valuable information and would like to share it with you.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
A few years ago, I was introduced to Search Engine Optimization or SEO, and I’ve been fascinated by it ever since. SEO is the process of making a website search-engine friendly — thus improving its rankings with the likes of Google and Yahoo. Higher rankings on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) increase the chances of your site being found by prospective customers. Did you know that the average web user never goes past the third page of search results?
SEO is about having the right keywords or keyphrases woven through web copy, title tags (the grey bar at the top of each web page) and background coding. The search engines “spider” through a site’s content looking for a specific phrase a searcher has typed into its search box. The more strategically a site uses that particular phrase, the higher its rankings on the SERPS may be. You can learn more about it at http://sandboxcreative.ca/docs/SEOforCEOs.pdf
Winning the website popularity contest
Another way to attract search engine spiders to a site is to have numerous links leading into it. This is accomplished through well-written online press releases, articles and blogs that incorporate your keyphrases, as well as a link back to the site. They will get picked up, read, used in publications, and passed along to friends and co-workers. Chances are these readers will click on the link to the originating site, and presto, the number of links back multiplies! The more links coming into the site, the more “popular” it is deemed to be by the engines!
So, what did I learn?
Plenty! But, here are just a few nuggets:
» Keywords are key! The words you use to describe a business may not be the ones prospects use to search for its site. Check product or service reviews, visit competitors’ sites, analyze web logs, talk to customer service reps, or use www.wordtracker.com to develop a strategic list
» Include at least 250 words per page — this balances search engine and reader needs — both of which crave content. It also makes it easier to include more keyphrases without the copy sounding silly
» Each page of the site needs to be optimized — users don’t always land on the home page first
» Avoid flash animation and graphic headlines. The engine’s spider bots cannot search these, and they may create a barrier to other pages on the site
» Put the important stuff above the fold line (the bottom of the screen — before the visitor scrolls down)
» Lay down a good “scent” — use persuasive architecture and control how visitors move through the site
» When optimizing press releases, make sure the keyword is in the headline, and in the first paragraph more often than in the remainder of the release
If solid web content and search engine rankings are important to your business or to your clients, I can help.
Call me for customer-centric web content complemented by optimization services. I can be reached at 519-442-4185.