SOFTWARE FULL VERSION 2013

This article is to give you a very basic understanding of search engine optimisation and what it actually means to get your business on page one of Google.

Google is the ultimate way that businesses can find new clients and for new clients to find businesses. Let us say for example that you are a plumber in Cheadle and when someone types in the query ‘Cheadle plumber’ or any other variation to this, you want to make sure that your business is listed on page one. This is because if your site is appearing on page two, three, four and so on, you stand very little chance of finding any new clients as less than 15% of searches go beyond page one. Search engine optimisation is all about getting you on page one.

You might be asking yourself the question what did other businesses do to get on page one whereas other businesses are appearing on page five? Are the plumbers on page one better at plumbing than those on page five? The answer to this is no, but what has most likely to have happened is that the businesses that you find on page one have implemented what we call a search engine optimisation or SEO campaign.

Now there are a lot of factors that go into SEO and getting onto page one, but I will not be able to cover them all in one single article. But I will go over some of the basics. Firstly your website needs to be optimised for Google. When it comes to a website, there are certain things that Google will look for. This will include page titles, use of keywords and a good description tag. These are the basic areas that need to be covered and are quite straight forward.

There are some things that people tend to forget about and the main one is the importance of content on your website. You need to be engaging the viewers of your website. Your content needs to be relevant to what they are looking for. Google has actually started paying attention to various metrics on your website such as how many times people comes to your website and leave without going onto a second page. This is known as bounce rate, and if yours is high then it will prove more challenging for you to rank on page one.

So let us say that someone has typed in ‘plumber Cheadle’ and they visit your website but 70% of people do not go past page one; this means your website is not really relevant for that particular keyword that you are hoping to rank for. As a result of this, Google will push your website further towards the back. Your website needs to be highly relevant and it needs to be compelling. You need users to come to your website, read one page and to visit as many other pages as possible. My message to you is to content and to add it constantly.

The next part is all about building links to your website and your content should hopefully be good enough where users will be linking back to you from their website. Link building is what will tell Google just how important your website is. If you have a lot of other websites linking back to you, your website will be considered highly relevant and Google pays attention to this.

It is also very important that you are in the social media game. This means that you have accounts with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc and you are frequently using these sites as well. Google is taking all of this data to generate information on businesses and in particular which businesses are relevant for particular searches. If you are not utilising these free services then you really need to as the impact on your SEO campaign can be dramatic.

What does it actually means to be on page one?

             Well just imagine potentially hundreds or even thousands of free leads every single month. The businesses that are listed on page one of the organic listings are receiving free traffic. Just imagine a high traffic key phrases that is driving potential customers to your site and remember you do not have to pay for this traffic. In the long term you are generating more leads, more business and more revenue than any of your competition on page two and beyond.

This was just a sample article covering SEO and the essential key elements that you must take on board if your aim is to be on the first page of Google and to also stay there.

 Optimize the below three for better SEO:

• Meta Tags
• Navigational  links
• Rich Content

Meta Tags:

Meta Tags are very important for your website's visibility. Many search engines read them from your site when you submit it to them .Major meta tags that you can use:

Meta Title,
The only resource type that is currently in use is "document" This is the only tag that you need to put in for indexing purposes.

Meta Description,
Depending on the search engine, this will be displayed along with the title of your page in an index. "content" could be a word, sentence or even paragraph to describe your page. Keep this reasonably short, concise and to the point.

Meta Keyword,
Choose whatever keywords you think are appropriate, seperated by commas.

Navigational  links:

             At the right or at the bottom, but not on the left, of the page.  When the search engines "read" your site, they read from the top left to the bottom right.  Search engines place an emphasis on the first 100 words or text on the site.  You do not want these words to be navigational links or Javascript.  Ideally, you want to have your heading tags with your keywords in the beginning of your page.  This being said, placing your links/JavaScript on the right or bottom of your page ensures the search engine spiders get to the text first, giving more weight to what's important on your page.


Rich Content:

             The more content you have on your site the more likely someone is to find what they're looking for when they get there. Keep your site very content rich. Have a lot of pages.Update the site even twice a day if you have the time. Updating your site does not mean that you copy paste content from other sites.That will only push your rankings further down. Don't have any duplicate content. At the same time ,dont spam multiple content across the same website. When a search engine views or reviews a website, which they do at least every few months, it looks for specific characteristics found in the content of website landing pages.

This intense desire to generate more clicks makes virtually any online entrepreneur easy prey to many of the traffic schemes and scams that pervade the Internet like conmen on a carnival midway.

Promises of fast traffic and big bucks often separate even the most savvy business person from their money because they want to believe the promises made by these traffic hucksters.

However, rather than thinking "complicated equals better" in the traffic game, the best website traffic sources rate extremely easy to separate from the useless garbage traffic.
That means the visitors come as a result of desire to find out more on a specific, niche topic, not as a result of "exit" traffic or membership in a "safe" list where members simply pitch each other in an incestuous spam fest.

Good traffic comes from people clicking links on topics targeted to their interests and getting directed to a website containing information they want and expect as a result of clicking the link.

Bottom line, when you get right down to it, the best, most dependable sources of targeted traffic come from links that people click.

So, next time you're considering spending money on a traffic source, understand that unless it involves a targeted link that a targeted visitor can click to get to your website, think twice before opening up your wallet.

To my knowledge, only three ways exist to get a link to your site:

• Buy it
• Voodoo it
• Grow it

** Buy Links** 

Buying links actually rates the fastest way to get traffic to your website.

You simply sign up for Google AdWords at Google.com or you open an account with Overture.com.

You then run ads with a link on those sites and any time someone clicks the link, you pay for the click through a relatively straightforward bidding process based on the popularity of the keyword.

You can also buy links in ezines, newsletters, and on other people's website either on a per-click basis, for a period of time (a week or month), or in exchange for paying them a commission if a sale gets made as a result of a click on the link.

** Linking "VoodDoo" **

Linking "voodoo" refers to attempting to manipulate the search engines into displaying links to your website.

You can find a large number of automated software programs online at any given time that will claim to help you get more search engine traffic.

Depending on the intensity of competition in a specific market and the fact that search engines change their rules frequently, pursuing search engine links this way can quickly turn into the online equivalent of Alice chasing the rabbit down the hole.

** Grow Links ** 

I personally prefer this method to get links to my websites: growing them.

The best type of link to get involves one person telling another person, either explicitly or implicitly, they should click the link and visit the site at the other end.

One way to do this is simply to exchange links with another site which targets the same audience as your site.

You can manage this process manually or use one of the many software packages that will mange the process for you.

A search on Google for "reciprocal link manager software" yields a good start.

The easiest way to grow a link is through using articles other people post on their websites which link back to your website.

The reason articles work so well for "growing" links involves the numerous ways in which articles get distributed online, each of which can create dozens, hundreds, even thousands of different links back to your website by publishing a single article.

In fact, the following represent only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the places you can grow links by publishing articles online.

Blogs:
Your articles can not only appear on your own blog, but get posted by others on their blogs with surprising ease.

The links in these articles can point directly back to your website.

Article Directories:
Submit your articles on the Article Directories.

They not only provide an easy way to display your articles to allow others to pick them up for posting on their websites, but also in and of themselves attract readers searching for content.

OPS (Other People's Sites):
Popular websites like WebProNews.com attract repeat visitors by offering targeted content to their readers.

Since they can't produce all the content themselves, they publish articles created by others. Links from these sites can bring a steady stream of targeted visitors by giving you targeted exposure.

Ezines:
By getting your articles published in other people's ezines, you can get a link on the most valuable real estate online, a targeted prospect's email "inbox."

Many ezine publishers run articles written by others to their targeted readers, and your link in the resource box can bring you a veritable avalanche of targeted site visitors when hundreds, even thousands of people receive your article at the same time.

**Final Thoughts**

Whether you choose to buy them, "voodoo" them, or grow them, getting targeted links to your site posted on the Internet represents the absolute best way to get steady traffic to your site.

Though not as fast as buying them or as exciting as trying to manipulate the search engines, growing links with articles gives you a long-term, dependable presence online.