Guide to Search Engine Marketing
Introduction Whether you’re new to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or would like to further increase your knowledge, our guide will take you through the do’s and don’ts of successful search engine marketing & optimisation to ensure your website has the best chance of attracting more targeted visitors and generating new customers. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Guide Here is a step-by-step guide on successfully optimising your website to achieve greater visibility in the search engines and convert quality targeted visitors. • Make sure you do sufficient keyword research Finding out the keywords visitors are typing into the search engines to get to your site is very important, this way you can ensure that these keywords and phrases are incorporated into your site and push you further up the search rankings. A useful tool for researching keywords can be found at http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/zone/tools.html
•
Give your customer what they want to see
It may sound obvious but many websites fall down when it comes to delivering content to a visitor. If you have a site that sells wooden fences then make it obvious to the customer and give them options, such as contacting you for a quote or buying online etc.
•
Make your web pages search engine friendly
When a company advertises on search engines (pay per click) you can send visitors through to a specific page, which will normally be as far in to the transaction as you can get them. However with natural listings the search engine decides which page the visitor should go through to, therefore it is important that each page is rich with relevant content and keywords. If a page is about ‘plastic blue fences’ then make the page title (H1 tag) ‘plastic blue fences’, include ‘plastic blue fences’ in the meta description and meta title. Search engines read all of these, the customer only needs to see the title to know they are
Have a question? Want to talk to us? E-mail us at info@sitevisibility.co.uk or give us a call on 01273 467560
on the right page. It is important that each page contains unique meta data, such as keywords in the title and description which are relevant to the page, Google will often penalise you if you don’t. The images within a web page should also be given a suitable alt tag describing what it is, and preferably containing a keyword or two. • Make the site easy for your visitor to use
There are several ways to make navigation around your site easier: 1. Include a sitemap on your website – this will list all your pages and make it easier for a visitor to find a page relevant to them 2. Make sure there are no broken links – A visitor will get frustrated by this and the search engine will penalise you. 3. Use breadcrumbs – This shows the visitor where they are in relation to the homepage, for example if they typed ‘buy wooden fence’ into a search engine and land on your ‘wooden fence’ page the breadcrumb may look like this: Home>fences>wooden fences (home and fences link back to relevant pages) 4. Use links within the text - Ensure that these links are labelled as what they actually are. E.g. to create a link through to your metal fences page and special offers page you could do it like this: For our range of metal fences click here, or for more special offers click here. But, a better way would be to do it like this: Take a look at our range of metal fences or browse our special offers. Doing it this way will ensure that the sentence reads naturally plus search engines find it easier to read. Also, more and more disabled people are using the internet using screen readers (which literally read out what is on the page) this will also read the links on the page so if there are 5 links which simply say ‘click here’ you are more than likely going to confuse and then lose this potential customer. • Build quality & relevant in-bound links
Long gone are the days when you could exchange links with any old site and storm up the search engine listings. Nowadays the search engines will favour the number of in-bound links to your site from relevant sources. So how can you get these links?
Have a question? Want to talk to us? E-mail us at info@sitevisibility.co.uk or give us a call on 01273 467560
1. Simply make your site so good and informative that people want to link to you! 2. Submit articles to online article banks. You can do this by writing a relevant piece with a link back to your website. Not only do the search engines like this but it give you a chance to promote your site and services to a wider group. 3. Submit press releases. If you have something new to say then say it with a press release. These often get placed on websites and linked back to your site.
•
Don’t cheat when it comes to SEO
The web is full of businesses and individuals offering advice on how you can cheat the search engines and get to the top of the rankings – Don’t listen to them. Whilst in the short term you may well see your site climb the rankings, you can be sure that the likes of Google, Yahoo etc know what’s going on and more than likely working on changes to their algorithms to stop these practices. The likely outcome for your site is that Google will ban you from appearing in their site (BMW are a recent case of where this happened). Can your business afford not to be listed on Google? Probably not. Remember that SEO should not be something which is put in place as an afterthought. The reasons that web sites come high up in the likes of Google and Yahoo is generally because the site is going to give the user what they requested when they typed in their search. Therefore if you make your site easy to use, give the visitor what they want to see, optimise relevant keywords and phrases into the relevant pages and build up a number of high quality in-bound links, the search engines will be happy, and so should your visitor. NB. SEO is by no means a quick fix in getting your website up the search engine rankings, there are a number of factors search engines wants to see that you have no control over such as the length of time your website has been live. It can take months to see any positive change, but if you approach and implement SEO correctly in the long term you will see the benefits.
Have a question? Want to talk to us? E-mail us at info@sitevisibility.co.uk or give us a call on 01273 467560
Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing Guide Pay per click (PPC) marketing involves running small text ads in the search engine results. Payment is made only when users click onto your site. It’s a targeted form of web marketing, as you determine the search phrases which then show your advert. Take a look at our guide to building, implementing and measuring an effective PPC campaign. • Select your keywords carefully
In order to keep your costs down and visitors targeted it is vital that the keywords you select are relevant to your business. There are likely to be keywords which generate a lot of clicks but few conversions and those which perform well for your business and convert well. A few tips for selecting good keywords. 1. Research PPC networks There are 3 main PPC networks, Miva, Google and Yahoo. It is important to research which of these you want your adverts to appear on. Often PPC networks also supply other search engines with their sponsored listings, i.e. Ask.com listings are supplied by Google, so it is worth factoring this into your decision. 2. Use keyword generator software allowing you to input a keyword, it then searches through engines to find other relevant keywords to your business 3. Target niche keywords – if you sell sports equipment in Brighton, then use the phrase ‘Brighton sports equipment’, this ensures the visitor is pre-qualified as it is a fair assumption that they are looking for sports equipment in Brighton. Targeting keywords such as ‘sports’ is likely to be a highly competitive & expensive keyword that will send nontargeted visitors to your site who probably won’t convert. 4. Think hard on the description of the keyword – your keyword will have a small description under it when displayed in the search engine listings, make sure this is relevant and really pulls the customer to your site, this will increase your click through rate (CTR) which can lead to you appearing higher in the listings even if you are paying less per click than a competitor as the search engine will see your link as trustworthy and popular.
Have a question? Want to talk to us? E-mail us at info@sitevisibility.co.uk or give us a call on 01273 467560
•
Set up landing pages It’s very important that once a visitor clicks on your PPC link, they are taken through to a page in your site which is relevant to them, this will take out any unnecessary steps for the visitor to go through to reach their goal and therefore maximise conversion. For example, if you bid on the keyword ‘ladies badminton racquet’ then send them through to a page about ladies badminton racquets, sending them through to the home page will only increase the number of stages they have to go through to reach their goal and increase the possibility that they will leave and look elsewhere.
Having the luxury of choosing the page your visitor lands on is one of the main benefits of PPC. In the organic listings, the search engine will try and select the best page for you based on the search, but with PPC you can easily control where people land on your site and therefore measurement of success is much easier. Which leads on nicely to the next point…
•
Measure the effectiveness and constantly refine your campaign
So you have refined your keywords, set up your landing pages and you have seen more visitors to your site and more customers, job done! Well, actually not quite. It is vital to measure, as deeply as possible, the effects of your campaign right down to individual keywords, this way you can root out the keywords which are performing well and more importantly which ones are not. From the data you get from this research you are able to further refine the campaign and finely tune it to maximise ROI.
The potential of PPC is great, if managed correctly and effectively it can have an almost instant effect on the success of a business.
Have a question? Want to talk to us? E-mail us at info@sitevisibility.co.uk or give us a call on 01273 467560
Integrated Search Marketing Services
Our integrated search engine marketing
service involves developing and implementing a Search Engine Marketing Strategy for your business. The resulting strategy is designed to help you to achieve higher search engine visibility for specific high value keyword searches. As a direct result of such improved visibility, you can expect greater volumes of better qualified traffic visiting your website and more customers.
Our Approach
Our approach is based on the premise that there are three variables at work in implementing a successful search engine marketing campaign. These variables are:
1. Your online objectives: What you hope to accomplish online through search engine visibility. 2. Your website: What content and information you put online in conjunction with the design, usability and appeal of the website. 3. The market: How people search, the words they use and what size of a market exists for your products & services.
The challenge is to bring these three variables into perfect, overlapping alignment. However, this is not easily done. As a business, you are only in control of two of these variables: Your objectives and your website. You are not in control of how the market searches or behaves. Therefore, our methodology focuses heavily on assessing the market, specifically how it searches and what the resulting behavior is to help re-shape your objectives and your website in order to bring about alignment and the search engine results you desire. A successfully implemented program will help you to focus your online objectives on achievable goals and to develop a website that meets the expectations of how the market is searching as well as how the search engines evaluate sites. The net result is not only increased search engine visibility, but visibility for key phrases that deliver meaningful traffic to your website & help you succeed online.
Keyword Research Search Engine Optimization Pay Per Click Advertising Link Building Visitor & Search Engine Reporting Search Marketing Integration
To request a quote please contact SiteVisibility on: 01273 467560 Or visit www.sitevisibility.co.uk or email us sem@sitevisibility.co.uk