SEO TIPS (TO INCREASE YOUR LEADS AND SALES!) A Key Principles publication

199 SEO TIPS (TO INCREASE YOUR LEADS AND SALES!) A Key Principles publication

199 SEO TIPS (TO INCREASE YOUR LEADS AND SALES!) By Jackie Key, Managing Director, Key Principles Jackie Key is the Managing Director of Key Principles. She has over 20 years experience in Marketing and in Integrated Marketing, and over 10 years experience of implementing Online Marketing, SEO and PPC. She has been working with businesses of all sizes, from FTSE 250 companies to medium size businesses as well as small owner managed businesses and start-ups. Through creative, integrated marketing, she has helped companies grow with a primary focus on generating more leads and more sales. Jackie is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and has an MBA from Warwick University.

199 SEO TIPS (TO INCREASE YOUR LEADS AND SALES!) Introduction I m guessing you probably know what SEO is, as you ve downloaded this book. But just in case you don t: Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for short, is the process of improving your website s ranking on search engines natural listing. And you want to improve your website s SEO so that you gain a higher ranking, and then more people will be able to find you. When it comes to SEO, there are so many small changes that you can make to your website and its marketing. These tips have been developed with this in mind. By implementing the tips your ranking on search engines will improve and as a result you should generate more leads and sales. The tips haven t been put into a particular order but I d suggest you look at one tip at a time and consider whether you ve already looked at this for your website. If you have, then that is great move onto the next tip. And if you haven t, then consider it a little task to help your website perform better for you. One tip and time and before you know it your website will be generating more leads and sales for you.

(001-010) #006: #001: #002: #003: #004: #005: Start doing SEO now. The longer you leave it to start, the harder it becomes to rank higher than your competitors. Remember that search engines rank webpages, not websites. It s worth writing an update procedure for your website including SEO requirements. More content equates to more rankings, more visitors and more sales. Search engines will approve! No two websites are the same. You need your own unique SEO strategy. #007: #008: #009: #010: Listen to your customers and how they talk about your services or products. Be prepared to adapt. Low quality backlinks and/or low quality on-site content can easily result in your site being penalised by search engines. Relevant, quality content that people want to link to, like, share, etc is one of the keys to success with SEO. The real goal should be getting more and more visitors to your website from your target market. Optimise your website for mobile users. Your site needs to be clear and simple to use for people accessing it on any device.

(011-020) #016: #011: #012: #013: #014: #015: Test landing pages to improve conversion rates. Make sure the two pages being tested are significantly different. Embed video and audio files into your website pages where they are relevant to the text on the page. Site structure is important. Make it easy for visitors and search engines to navigate your site. Before uploading images, make sure you provide an alt tag for the image so search engines can see it. Keep your description tag to 150 characters maximum including spaces. #017: #018: #019: #020: Aim to be in the top 3, not just the top 10. Monitor and reduce bounce rates. If visitors go to your home page and leave, search engines will assume your site isn t relevant. SEO is a long term process; don t expect quick wins! Small businesses can rank higher than big businesses with the right strategy. Include key phrases in the relevant fields on YouTube and on your own website when using video.

(021-030) #026: #021: #022: #023: #024: #025: Think about what you should be measuring. Too much information is not helpful! Keep your title tags to about 70 characters including spaces. Optimise every single page of your site with a specific phrase targeted for each page. Your title tag appears on Google as the underlined headline on their page so make sure it is good! Make sure it encourages searchers to click on your listing. Don t try to trick or spam the search engines; it s a dangerous game and chances are you ll be found out. #027: #028: #029: #030: Consider using pay per click in addition to SEO. Pay per click such as Google Adwords can be useful in identifying the phrases you should be targeting quicker. Image alt tags should be used (it s actually a legal requirement in EU) as they help partially blind and blind website visitors. More than 50% of search queries are three words or longer so don t ignore the longer phrases which are often easier to rank for on search engines. Use your website to build trust and relationships. The more people trust you, the more people will talk about you and link to you. Write a unique, descriptive title for every page. You need to make the topic of a page clear to people and search engines.

(031-040) #036: #031: #032: #033: #034: #035: Using 301 redirects means people who have bookmarked your old URLs will be sent to the correct page instead of Page Not Found. The home page is the most powerful so you can target a key phrase and regions but other pages need to be more specific. SEO results are not instant! It can take weeks or even months for search engines to credit what you re doing. Create content primarily for people, not search engines. Within Google Webmaster Tools, go to Traffc and then Search Queries to check where your site is ranking for keywords. #037: #038: #039: #040: Linking between your web pages with key phrases is a good idea. Make sure you set up Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools so you can track what is happening overtime. Every page of your website should be linked to and from at least one other page. Ask customers to leave reviews on Google+, Google Places and local directories. Key phrase research - once you have a theme you can start brainstorming key phrase ideas.

(041-050) #046: #041: #042: #043: #044: #045: Your social media strategy should be part of, or should run alongside, your SEO strategy. People use search engines for research. Write content that a researcher would find interesting like reviews, comparisons and how to articles. More and more people use search engines to shop and use phrases like best price and free delivery. Include these on your pages. The page load speed is very important; it mustn t take too long to load. Using 301 redirects ensures links and PageRank for old pages are passed onto the new page. #047: #048: #049: #050: The newer your website is, the more patient you will need to be. It takes time to build authority and trust. It doesn t have to be expensive. You can get big results on a small budget with the right strategy. Make sure your website is W3C compliant - see http://validator.w3.org/ Leave comments on relevant websites and blogs. Doing so builds trust and relationships with people. Use 301 redirects to tell search engines that a page has been permanently moved to a new URL/website address.

(051-060) #056: #051: #052: #053: #054: #055: Using pay per click such as Google Adwords is a great way to check your key phrase list before starting on page SEO. A simple spreadsheet listing your pages (with a target phrase(s) against each) is a useful way of organising the optimisation. A blog is one of the best ways to add relevant, quality content. Sign up for Ahrefs, Majestic SEO or Open Site Explorer. This gives you access to extensive backlink data. Large websites and e-commerce sites with plenty of products should incorporate an internal site search. #057: #058: #059: #060: Get SEO and social working together; make sure updates to social channels include your key phrases where appropriate. Make sure you are listed in industryrelated and local directories. Most of your suppliers, partners and customers will link to your site if you ask them to do so. Include keywords in URLs, page titles, meta descriptions, header tags and image alt tags. Use of bold type and bullet points is good for search engines. People like them too!

(061-070) #066: #061: #062: #063: #064: #065: Research keywords before optimising for them. Choosing the right keywords is vital. The description tag may not help as much as the title tag for search engine rankings but it does help with click through rates. Visitors trust and search engines reward sites that are filled with lots of pages of good quality content. Get keyword ideas from current customers. You might be too immersed in your own business to know what others search for! Include your key phrase on the page in your first paragraph and in bold text. #067: #068: #069: #070: Don t just copy content from other websites. Search engines don t like it and it s unprofessional. Make your content engaging for visitors. The more engaging it is; the longer people will stay on your site. Write a unique, descriptive meta description for every page and get benefits and a call to action in if you can. Remember, you want high conversion rates and not just high traffc. High conversion phrases tend to be the longer phrases. You can check for duplicate tags with Google Webmaster Tools under Optimisation and HTML Improvements.

(071-080) #076: #071: #072: #073: #074: #075: Set-up and use Google Webmaster Tools. Google will notify you of any problems that they may find when they re crawling your site. Use Google s Keyword Planner tool. It provides a good list of words and phrases related to the keyword ideas that you enter into it. Ensure your content is good enough to be on the 1st page. Do you deserve to be there? Use Google Trends, Google s Keyword Planner and your Analytics data as part of your key phrase research. If you ve got data from Google Adwords and other pay per click services even better! Get backlinks from relevant sources. Search engines want to display relevant results for each keyword and this helps. #077: #078: #079: #080: When looking at your website on a mobile device, the key is user experience. Use header tags and include variations of your target keyword phrases in a page s H1 and H2 tags. Get backlinks from trusted sources. This signals to search engines that your site is trustworthy too. Use bold text and bullet points to help the visitor and the search engines. Your description tag is important especially as it appears below the headline on the Google results page.

(081-090) #086: #081: #082: #083: #084: #085: Don t risk Google penalties. As they have a significant share of the search market, a penalty from them can be very damaging. Use social networks to promote other people s content as well as your own. Be reciprocal! Consider longer phrases as they tend to have less competition and are closer to purchase (but will have lower search volumes). Search engines don t include pages in their results that aren t linked to either internally or externally. The key phrase list you ve mind mapped could and should be hundreds of phrases. #087: #088: #089: #090: The title tag should be no more than 70 characters (including spaces) & should have the most important key words at the front. Want to rank for video? Embed your video on your website too. Remove irrelevant key phrases and lowtraffc key phrases to get to a good list to focus on. Good content and high viewing times signal to search engines that your site deserves good rankings. The more relevant, quality content you can add to your website the better. More pages are good too!

(091-100) #096: #091: #092: #093: #094: #095: Use a reliable web hosting company. Your site s keyword rankings will be downgraded if your site is regularly inaccessible. Remember that the language your industry uses could be completely different to what your customers might use. Include your key phrase on the page in your headline or H1 tag but remember it needs to read well too. Get advice directly from Google via their Webmaster Guidelines. There s no point creating content that ranks well if it isn t interesting, helpful or likely to lead to a sale. #097: #098: #099: #100: The title tag is probably the most important tag for SEO. Dedicate one page of your website to each keyword that you re targeting. Use a simple, clear URL structure. People should be able to guess the topic of a page by just looking at its URL. Avoid duplicate content at all times! With links between your pages make sure the link is on your key phrase. Read here as a link is a no-no!

(101-110) #106: #101: #102: #103: #104: #105: The description tag should be no more than 150 characters long (including spaces) and should ideally include a call to action. Remember, you want visitors who are ready to spend money rather than those who are just looking for information. Check out what key phrases your competitors are targeting. People are more likely to share and link to visual or graphical content than to plain written text. Build backlinks to every page of your website that you want to rank. #107: #108: #109: #110: You need to do on-site AND off-site SEO to get the best results. Can you make your page more visual? Try to create charts, graphs or infographics that people would want to share and link to. The more other websites link to your site the better. Good content leads to natural links that Google loves. Backlinks affect rankings more than anything else. Make sure they re good quality and that there are plenty of them! Social media isn t a replacement for SEO but it is a vital accompaniment.

(111-120) #116: #111: #112: #113: #114: #115: An SEO strategy that worked for someone else s site isn t guaranteed to work for yours because there are so many variables. Include a range of target key phrases based on user intent; research to close to purchase. You are best using individual pages to target one phrase at a time. Make sure you market what you write. Tell people about your site! Keep up-to-date with SEO news and trends. #117: #118: #119: #120: Create videos. They increase the amount of time that people spend on your site. Target relevant keywords and words with commercial intent. The foundation of your SEO is your key phrase research. Choosing the right phrases is crucial. Page speed is relevant to mobile websites too. Make sure your pages load quickly. Engage with your SEO consultant. Make sure they know as much as possible about your business.

(121-130) #126: #121: #122: #123: #124: #125: Interact with bloggers in your industry and research who the most influential people are. Don t set backlink targets. Link building should be an on-going process. Check out paid for keyword tools such as SEOToolSet, Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery. List as many key phrases as you can; ask others what they would put in Google if they were looking for your product or service. Remember to include the key phrases that are likely to lead to conversion even if there are lower searches. #127: #128: #129: #130: Make sure you include links to your social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc) prominently on all pages. Use your Adwords information to help prioritise your phrases target those that lead to conversions first. Google Webmaster Tools is great for making sure you ve not got duplicate title tags or description tags. Develop quality content and you ll attract quality links to it. Before starting key phrase research, write down what your business and therefore what your website is going to be about.

(131-140) #136: #131: #132: #133: #134: #135: Make sure your site is hosted in the country you are targeting. Set-up and use Google Analytics. It is incredibly useful to know where your web visitors have come from! Include your key phrase as close to the start of the title tag as possible. Get keyword ideas from other people. You might be too immersed in your own business to know what others search for! Create strong calls to action to help increase conversion rates. #137: #138: #139: #140: Before uploading images, make sure they are a suitable size not too big as this reduces the speed a page will load at. Before uploading an image to your website, give it a relevant name, not 1235.jpg Include your target phrase if appropriate. Maximise your website s loading speed. Use Google s site speed tool and implement their recommendations. Make sure your website is structured in an orderly fashion. Rankings can be misleading. The number of 1st page rankings you have is irrelevant if they don t convert to visitors or sales.

(141-150) #146: #141: #142: #143: #144: #145: Want to rank for video? Put key phrases in the metadata of your video. Design your site structure around themes to enable the best SEO impact. Web pages containing searchable text are the key. Avoid flash which may be indexed but is not supported at all by Apple devices. Don t worry about PageRank. Sites with a low PR can, and often do, outrank sites with a high PR. Include benefits and calls to action in your description tag to encourage click-throughs. #147: #148: #149: #150: The number and quality of links pointing to your site will be a key factor in determining what position your site ranks. Within Google Webmaster Tools, go to Traffc and then Links to check what sites are linking to yours. Want to rank for video? Include your key phrase in your video s file name. Use key phrase research to help inform your site structure. Set-up a Google+ page for your business. Doing so builds trust with Google and improves rankings for localised keywords.

(151-160) #156: #151: #152: #153: #154: #155: Don t forget synonyms when generating your key phrase list. The thesaurus is useful here! Text in graphics won t be seen or indexed by search engines so use the alt tag for the image to say what it contains. Long-tail keywords are a great source of traffc. It s quicker and cheaper to rank for longer, specific keyword phrases. Never consider your website to be finished. If you want your site to continue to rank highly you need to add to it and improve it. Use 301 redirects to tell search engines that a page has been permanently moved to a new URL and keep your existing PageRank. #157: #158: #159: #160: Use PR & online press release distribution to increase awareness of your business. Aim for at least one press release each quarter. Remove, merge or add to pages with little content on them to increase your page view times. Before uploading images, save them under a relevant and descriptive filename. Remove duplicate content. You can be penalised for having the same, or very similar, content on multiple pages of your site. Think carefully about your social media strategy and make sure it complements your SEO strategy.

(161-170) #166: #161: #162: #163: #164: #165: Be prepared to work for backlinks. Generally, the more easily you can acquire a link, the less value it is likely to have. Diversify your traffc sources. Google is a good source of traffc but you can use social media or other referral sites as well. Make sure image files are optimised for your website. Not 300dpi but 72dpi or 96dpi to help with page load time. Claim authorship of your content. Link your Google+ account to your content to improve rankings and click-through-rate. Have direct links from your homepage to your most important pages to increase their authority. #167: #168: #169: #170: Use key phrase research to help identify new content and page requirements. Add social sharing buttons to your website. Make it easy for people to share your content. What are you about exactly? What is your website theme? This is the first step in key phrase research. To attain and retain good rankings you need to adapt your SEO strategy as search engines change and improve. Diversify your backlink profile. Get different types of links from a wide range of IP addresses.

(171-180) #176: #171: #172: #173: #174: #175: Avoid keyword stuffng. You re much more likely to be penalised than credited if you use a keyword phrase repeatedly on a page. Include ShareThis buttons on your website to encourage visitors to share and bookmark your site. Get your site into the local searches with Google Places, Yahoo! Local and Bing Local. URLs are designed to be friendly keep them that way and key phrase rich. If you want to hit the AOL search results, focus on Google as AOL uses Google s search results. #177: #178: #179: #180: Create content to post on other websites and blogs. People are much more likely to link to you if you provide useful content. Know your competition and investigate to find out what SEO they might have used. To get the best out of Google Analytics, set up your Goals with funnels so you can measure your conversions and drop-outs. Check out how often your potential keywords are searched for using Google s free keyword planner tool. Remove unnecessary outbound links. Only link to pages on other sites that you think visitors really need.

(181-190) #186: #181: #182: #183: #184: #185: Add your address and phone number to every page of your website and make sure you use the same format on other websites too. Make sure you include a site map. You can check your page load speed at https://developers.google.com/speed/ pagespeed/ Flash content is generally not advisable. At the beginning you need to decide the area you will target; local, national or international? #187: #188: #189: #190: Keep up to date with who s linking to you. More than 40% of searches are comprised of four or more words. Although not as valuable as external links, internal links still signal to search engines what pages to rank for which keywords. Want to rank for video? Host your video(s) on YouTube. Don t use hidden text or link techniques, keyword stuffng or other black hat techniques. It s just not worth it.

(191-199) #196: #191: #192: #193: #194: #195: Alt tag any images with a description of the image include your target phrase where you can. Don t get involved in link networks. The benefit is low, whereas the risk of being penalised and losing rankings is high. Add a blog to your website. This makes it really easy to add fresh content regularly. Any page of your site should be accessible within 3 clicks from your homepage. Aim for at least 300 words on a page and, if possible, 450 words is ideal. #197: #198: #199: Don t pay people to link to your website. It s both risky and unnecessary if you have good content. Regularly backup your website. If you lose your site s data then you lose your rankings as well. Moving your website from one domain to another may sometimes be required for branding and business development purposes. To ensure your old domain s authority is past to your new website, it is best to get in an SEO expert to help with the move. Start again; when it comes to SEO it is a continuous, on-going process especially if you are continually adding content.

199 SEO TIPS (TO INCREASE YOUR LEADS AND SALES!) Conclusion When it comes to SEO rarely is there one quick fix that will give you good rankings for the phrases you are targeting. If you come across an SEO consultant that guarantees you the number 1 spot on page 1 of Google, my advice would be to walk away from them. No one can provide such a guarantee. SEO generally takes time and is an on-going process but of course it is important. The higher you can rank the more people are likely to find your website and hopefully contact you and/or buy from you. Of course there are other methods both online and offine that can increase the number of visitors to your website, and it makes sense to look at these too. SEO and identifying your key phrase targets is crucial though in informing your other activity so it makes sense to invest in it. I hope you ve found the 199 SEO Tips ebook both interesting and informative, but most importantly I hope you implement the tips, one-by-one in an on-going process.

If you would like help with your SEO, Key Principles is here to help. SEO 1 PPC EMAIL @ INTEGRATED MARKETING SOCIAL From developing a strategy through to implementation, we can help you: CONTENT Get in touch STRATEGY l improve your website s ranking on the search engines l increase website visitors l increase leads and sales Jackie at Key Principles has looked after our Adwords campaign and assisted our web designer in making sure that PWR Property Consultants maintain a presence on page 1 of the Google searches for letting agents in Nottingham and Mansfield for a few years now and has also assisted in the redesign and delivery of our current website. Jackie has a very personable approach, provides good value for money and keeps abreast of changes in the SEO arena, to make sure that we maintain our online presence. I would have no hesitation in recommending her services. Simon Perkins For a FREE Website Home Page Optimisation Report (worth 50) simply call 0845 880 0202 or email hello@keyprinciples.co.uk RISK FREE, NO OBLIGATION OFFER! Connect with us for regular marketing and SEO tips KeyPrinciplesMarketing @KeyPrinciples www.linkedin.com/in/jackiekey T: 0845 880 0202 hello@keyprinciples.co.uk