Like many businesses, your website has evolved and grown over the years in capability and functionality.  You’ve made updates to meet the needs of your clients.  More than ever, you can tie these updates to measurable ROI.  You’ve invested considerable time and money – so new customers should be knocking at your door, right?  Well, maybe… or maybe not.

Have you tried searching for your business in Google or Yahoo (these two search engine giants account for over 75% of all searches!!)?  If you haven’t, go to Google, enter some keywords related to your business (not your company name), and hit Enter.  Did you come up on the first page of search results?  What about the second page?  What about your competitors?  Were they listed on the first couple of pages of search results?  If you aren’t listed on the first couple of pages, you are literally GIVING BUSINESS TO YOUR COMPETITION and need some help in the SEO department.  You have heard the term “SEO” tossed around, but what does this mean?  What should you really be doing, and where do you start?  

If this sounds familiar, read on for basic SEO tips that will get you started in the right direction.

Keywords:  Users will naturally search for phrases or words related to the product or service they are looking for.  Put some thought into this – place yourself in the role of the consumer and think what you would type into a search engine if you were looking for your product.  Take advantage of free keyword research tools, such as Google AdWords.  These tools allow you to type in phrases or words, and then generates keyword ideas. 

Keywords Phrases:  Creating and placing 2 – 3 word keyword phrases throughout your content will narrow search results, targeting the users you want to visit your site.  Begin by creating or editing your website copy using keyword phrases relevant to your product, service, or industry. 

Page title and description, and meta tags:  These also contribute to keyword SEO and should complement the content on each page.  Page titles should be a 60‐100 character summary of the page information, and be different for each page. The page description should be a 1 – 2 sentence summary of each page, and include the primary keywords for that page. The page description is particularly important because it is what is displayed on the search engine results page, and should persuade the end user to visit your site.

Moderation:  The ratio of keywords to content (keyword density) is very important.  Too many keywords and phrases will actually cause search engines to penalize your site and move it down in rankings.  On the flip side, if there aren’t enough keywords or phrases, your site could be ranked low.  Your ideal keyword density is based on the amount of content/copy, and should be within the 3‐7% range.

While this is a broad overview of SEO, it’s a good starting point if you aren’t currently utilizing SEO.  With a little thought and planning, you can easily optimize your website for search engines, improving your ranking, increasing site visits, and ultimately growing your business.  For more information on how you can improve your website SEO, contact Dennis Hutchinson at dhutchinson@isoc.net or 859-803-6315.