Internet marketing: Search engine optimisation (SEO) part 2

To make your site findable, you need to come up with keyword phrases. If you have trouble coming up with these for your business website try some of these techniques:

1. Ask your friends and family what they would put into a Google search if they were looking for what you offer.
2. Use Wordtracker, a tool that monitors keywords people use when they search the web. It’s not a free service but worth the $10 if you want some reliable empirical data.
3. The Overture keyword selector tool shows you how many people are searching for certain phrases. It’s a free service. If you have a handful of phrases but you don’t know which are best to target, use the Overture tool to get the numbers for the past month’s worth of search (note that it’s only on the Yahoo! Network, not Google) and pick the best three. Remember don’t pick the really popular terms just because you are tempted by the hundreds of thousands of searches being done. You definitely won’t be the only one optimising for that term if there is so much traffic available.
4. Use the Google keyword selector tool in AdWords. Your data from any AdWord Pay-Per-Click campaigns is great for your SEO as well because any phrases performing well in AdWords Ads are worth targeting in your organic search marketing efforts. If you pay for a phrase and it works well, getting it for nothing from free search traffic is even better.
5. Find a competitor’s site and see what keywords they are using. In particular check what is in their title tags (that’s the name of the site in the top bar in the browser window). Don’t copy them blindly as they may not necessarily be having much success– just use the keywords for inspiration and head to Overture, Google or Wordtracker to figure out which phrases are working the best.
6. If your site has been online for at least a few months check your website statistics. Most website hosting packages come with a statistics package (if you have no idea about this, ask your IT person or website hosting company) and in there you will find the keyword phrases that people have already used to search and visit your site.

Search Engine Optimisation Techniques

Once you have selected the two to three key search phrases you want your website to target, it’s time to start putting sound SEO techniques into place. SEO is a complicated process that no-one can ever be 100% certain will provide the results sought after. That’s because search engines don’t reveal their inner workings.

SEO experts know a lot because they have tested and tested to compete their way to the top of the search engines and there are endless materials you can study online, but you should trust only those that have proven results. There are a lot of claims being made online by people without proof of results.

Top eight search engine marketing techniques

Thankfully in a sea of unverified opinions there are a handful of tried and tested techniques that work. Below are the top eight techniques you need to know in order to optimize your website for the search engines. These techniques have been proven to work time and time again and are recommended by virtually all the SEO experts.

These need to become part of your “inner knowledge” so they remain in your conscious whenever you build and market a website. They are not too complicated and if all you do is work tirelessly on these eight methods each and every month your website will get results in search engines, I guarantee it.

Want more articles like this? Check out the SEO techniques section.

On-Page Techniques

The first four are changes you make to your own website. You have 100% percent control of these elements.

1. Title Tags

2. Keyword Density

3. Site Structure

4. Internal Links

Off-Page Techniques

These are things other websites do to your website. You can’t control these elements but you can manipulate and encourage them.

5. Links and PageRank

6. Page Reputation

7. Anchor Text

8. Link Popularity

This article is part 6 of a series on Internet Marketing. Below are links to all 8 articles in the series:

Internet Marketing Part 1 – Its use as a business growth strategy
Internet Marketing Part 2 – Creating an effective business website
Internet Marketing Part 3 – Using email autoresponders
Internet Marketing Part 4 – How to use pay-per-click advertising
Internet Marketing Part 5 – Introduction to search engine optimisation (SEO)
Internet Marketing Part 6 – Search engine optimisation part 2
Internet Marketing Part 7 – The basics of blogging for business
Internet Marketing Part 8 – Breaking down technical skills barriers