Search Engine College

Do you want to receive exclusive discounts for Search Engine College courses?
Do you want your site to achieve a higher ranking in the search engines?
Do you want to know the answers to commonly asked questions about search engines?
Do you want to know the secrets to increasing your web site traffic and improving your conversions?

Then subscribe to our FREE search engine newsletter below*

*Please do not subscribe with an auto responder email address! Also, please don’t enter a Yahoo email address as there are known issues with Yahoo bouncing messages from our list managers, AWeber.

View past issues.

Every month, we will provide you with discount offers, articles, FAQ’s and tips on how to improve your search engine ranking, as well as the latest news from the search engine industry.

The Search Engine College newsletter is edited by respected search industry expert Kalena Jordan. Kalena teaches the SEO and PPC courses at Search Engine College and supervises all other online classes.

Subscriber Feedback:

“I’d recommend reading The Search Light by Kalena Jordan, one of the speakers at the [Search Engine Strategies] conference and a close watcher of all things search…”

Danny Sullivan
Editor
Search Engine Watch

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I love your blog! It’s helping us to learn more about the activities and needs of users, advertisers and website publishers in Australia and New Zealand. Keep it coming!”

Debbie Frost
Google Australia
“Hello Kalena,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just a quick note to acknowledge the fact that your “thank you for subscribing” note is the BEST I’ve seen yet. VERY, Very well done!!!”

Dan Porteous
Startup Internet Marketing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I read your blog most days, great coverage, especially the Australia/New Zealand focus”.

Andy Beal
Marketing Pilgrim

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hi Kal

“Great newsletter!! Really excellent!”

Chris Dimmock
Cogentis

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hi Kalena,

I wanted to comment on your article “What SEOs Expect From Their Clients”. It is so on target, thank you for writing it. I could identify with everything you mentioned in your article.

I liked the article so much I’ve included the link to the article in my monthly maintenance reports to my clients. Thanks again for the great article.

Best to you.”

Daria Goetsch
Search Innovation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hi Kalena,

I found your article on “How To Get Your Web Site Content Syndicated” extremely useful. We’ve used it to set up our own RSS feed at MarketingExperiments.

Thanks!”

Brian Alt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“How To Get Your Web Site Content Syndicated is a Dec. 2002 tutorial by Kalena Jordan and Dan Thies from which I drew inspiration to get my own newsfeed going”.

Danny Sullivan

Author
Search Engine Watch

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hi Kalena,

Loved the article! I even set up my own RSS to test out your tutorial.

Good stuff”.

Robert Clough
Search Engine Guide

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hi,

I love your newletter and look forward to reading it whenever I get it”.

Lara Forchuk

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The article by Kalena Jordan is a very readable and practical piece on pointers to a user-friendly website, and there are a few ideas in here for us. I love the plain language and sensibleness of her writing.”

Brenda Gray

Information Officer
Fletcher Challenge Forests

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Kalena,

Excellent report. And just exactly what I expected to see. There’s lots of good SEO advice in there. Hugs, kisses and in true NZ style, lots of tongue waggling”.

Mike Grehan
Author, Search Engine Marketing: The essential best practice guide

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Some great stuff coming from your neck of the woods the past several weeks. It’s MUCH appreciated. Thanks to you and your team for all the hard work. You’ve become one of my daily resources for info. All the Best to you”.

Kimberly K. Krause
SEO/UI/Usability Consultant
Cre8PC

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Kudos on a good article.

As a 13+ year SEO SEM veteran, I agree with much of what you said.”

Andrew Arenson
Equity Marketing Solutions

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hello Kalena,

When visiting your site today, I was impressed with the articles and tutorials that you have authored.”

Michael Bloch
Team eDevCafe

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Kalena,

The newsletter looks great! Congrats!”

Amy Hooker
Maven Communications

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Kalena,

Just read What SEOs Expect From Their Clients. Very well written article. I’m sure all legitimate SEOs appreciate it.

Best of luck.”

Tom Roeder
Manager of Marketing
Keyword Ranking

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Thank you for your articles where you say it so clearly as it should be! Thank you.”

Daniel Foster da Silva
Real Estate Practice

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Newsletter recipients, please note that you will ONLY receive this newsletter if you have:

1) Subscribed directly via our email sign-up form (double opt-in).

2) Downloaded our free SEO lesson.

3) Submitted an online enquiry our online contact form.

4) Submitted a free ranking report request.

If you have subscribed by mistake or no longer wish to receive the newsletter, simply hit the SafeUnsubscribe link at the bottom of any newsletter.

SEO Careers

kalena — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:07:25 +0000

Are you a student or graduate looking to start a SEO Career? Or would you like to learn how to market your own web site via search engines?

Would you like to start your own freelance search engine optimization business? Or would you like to learn how to optimize web sites in preparation to apply for a job as an SEO (search engine optimizer) or SEM (search engine marketer)?

Could this be the year you launch your SEO Career?

If any of these scenarios suit you, then you are an ideal student for one of our online SEO courses. Click here to learn more.

Download a Free Lesson

Like to try before you buy? Download a free sample lesson taken from our SEO Starter course. No catch!

SEO Classes

kalena — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:23:50 +0000

Do you want to take SEO classes to market your own web site via search engines?

Do you want to take SEO classes to promote a company web site via search engines?

Do you want to take SEO classes in preparation for starting your own freelance SEO business?

Do you want to take SEO classes so you can apply for a job as an SEO (search engine optimizer) or SEM (search engine marketer)?

Could you benefit from taking SEO classes online in your spare time?

If any of these scenarios suit you, then you’re an ideal candidate for one of our online SEO courses. Click here to learn more.

Download a Free Lesson

Like to try before you buy? Download a free sample lesson taken from our online SEO 101 class. No catch!

SEO Tutorial

kalena — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 13:12:57 +0000

Do you need a SEO tutorial so you can market your own web site via search engines?

Do you need a SEO tutorial so you can promote a company web site via search engines?

Do you need a SEO tutorial in preparation for starting your own SEO business?

Do you need a SEO tutorial so you can apply for a job as an SEO (search engine optimizer) or SEM (search engine marketer)?

Could you benefit from taking a SEO tutorial online in your spare time?

If any of these scenarios suit you, then you’re an ideal candidate for one of our online SEO courses. Click here to learn more.

Download a Free Lesson

Like to try before you buy? Download a free sample lesson taken from our SEO Beginner course. No catch!

Learn SEO

kalena — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 12:44:52 +0000

Do you want to learn SEO so you can market your own web site via search engines?

Do you want to learn SEO so you can promote a company web site via search engines?

Do you want to learn SEO in preparation for starting your own SEO business?

Do you want to learn SEO so you can apply for a job as an SEO (search engine optimizer) or SEM (search engine marketer)?

Could you benefit from learning SEO online in your spare time?

If any of these scenarios suit you, then you’re an ideal candidate for one of our online SEO courses. Click here to learn more.

Download a Free Lesson

Like to try before you buy? Download a free sample lesson taken from our SEO Beginner course. No catch!

Making Sense of Trademarks in AdWords

sarah — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:17:14 +0000

By Kalena Jordan

I was talking to a small business owner the other day, who was complaining to me about how difficult it is to run Pay Per Click ad campaigns on Google when you are faced with conflicting information all the time. I asked him to elaborate and he said:

“I talked to my Google AdWords rep recently and he said that using company names in an ad violates Google’s terms. Also, in some of your blog posts, you seem to suggest bidding on common brand names is also a violation. But I was under the assumption that this was common practice. Is it not? I’m sure our competitors are doing that and I’m wondering if I could report that to Google?”

It did seem like a confusing issue, so I decided to research it a little more.

Use of Your Company Name or Trademark in AdWords

Putting your own company name or trademark in your ad is certainly not a violation, it’s encouraged, particularly if yours is a well known brand/name. In the section of AdWords Help called Use of Trademarks in AdWords, there is an authorization form you can submit to be able to use your brand / trademark throughout your account.

Use of Your Company Name or Trademark by Competitors

The use of your trademark by competitors is where things get complicated. It differs between region and differs again between ad text versus keyword bids. Google actually opened up trademark keyword bidding two years ago, however AdWord’s trademark policy is now dependent on the region your trademark is registered in and the region/s your billing account is located in.

This is a crucial change and one that has likely gone unnoticed by many advertisers. So here are the main regional trademark policies:

AdWords Regional Trademark Policies

In certain regions, Google allow some ads to show with a trademark in ad text if the ad is from a reseller or from an informational site. There is covered by a separate trademark policy for resellers and informational sites.
For regions that are NOT included in Google’s trademark policy for resellers and informational sites, if their investigation finds that the advertiser is using the trademark in ad text, Google will require the advertiser to remove the trademark and prevent them from using it in ad text in the future.
In most regions covered by the Trademark policy (250+ countries including UK, USA and Canada), Google will investigate ad text only. They will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint in these regions. Furthermore, their investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google rather than those served on partner sites.
In EU and EFTA regions, Google does not prevent the selection of trademarks as keywords. However, in response to a complaint, they will do a limited investigation as to whether a keyword (in combination with particular ad text) is confusing as to the origin of the advertised goods and services.
In some limited regions, Google may investigate the use of trademarks in ad text, in keywords, or in both ad text and keywords. These regions include:
- Australia
- Brazil
- China
- Hong Kong
- Macau
- New Zealand
- North Korea
- South Korea
- Taiwan

Because Australia and New Zealand are included in the above list (and these are the countries in which I operate), I have witnessed a few keyword trademark infringements and represented some clients who lodged complaints procedures based on this policy. I have also been following closely a landmark case playing out in Australia about this very issue:

Landmark Test Case

In 2005, Australian telecommunications company Telstra found themselves in legal hot water when an online publication owned by one of their subsidiaries purchased Google AdWords blatantly using the names of competitors in their ads.

As a result, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched legal proceedings against the Trading Post Australia and Google Inc. in 2007.

In their Federal Court case hearing earlier this month, the ACCC challenged the use by Trading Post of the keyword phrase “Kloster Ford”, which was the name of a car dealership in Newcastle, as misleading conduct in breach of the then Trade Practices Act. When “Kloster Ford” was searched for using the Google search engine, this advertisement appeared:

Kloster Ford

www.tradingpost.com.au New/Used Fords – Search 90,000 + auto ads online.

Great finds daily!

The ACCC argued that Trading Post’s use of “Kloster Ford” in its sponsored link was misleading and deceptive as it represented that there was an association or affiliation between Trading Post and Kloster Ford and the ad suggested that information regarding Kloster Ford or Kloster Ford car sales could be found on the Trading Post website, when it could not.

The ACCC also alleged that, by publishing the results pages with these AdWords, Google had itself engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct. In response, Google raised a defence that it was engaged in the business of advertising and did not know that AdWords purchased by Trading Post amounted to an infringement of consumer legislation.

On 22 September 2011, the Australian Federal Court held that the Trading Post had engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct under the Trade Practices Act 1974. However, they dismissed the claim against Google, stating that while Google provided the technical facilities that permitted the relevant advertisement to be seen, it did not follow that they had endorsed the information conveyed. Consumers would understand that the message being conveyed to them was an advertisement from the advertiser, they stated, rather than the publisher. A settlement between ACCC and Trading Post has since followed.

This case is significant for all Australian businesses that place advertisements through Google AdWords and other pay per click models, because it means that use of competitor trademarks, business names, brand names and URLs could potentially breach Australian consumer protection laws.

Navigate With Care

So the upshot of all this is that unless they have your explicit permission, your competitors generally aren’t allowed to use your brand/name in their own ads, but if you’re located in the US or other areas outside the limited regions mentioned above, they ARE allowed to bid on your brand/name as a keyword.

But it’s not all bad news – it means that you are allowed to bid on their brand/name as well.

However, as with any legal issue, tread carefully when using trademarks in your ads. Accidental or not, a violation of AdWords policy can result in the closure of your account by Google and possibly even land you with a lawsuit.

Using Facebook Marketing Strategies For Online Business Success

admin — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:42:58 +0000

By Celene Harrelson

Almost everyone has a Facebook account these days. Are you using yours in a way that will help grow your business or diminish it? Are you using the right Facebook marketing strategies that can significantly increase your online business? If you are using your Facebook page to play FarmVille and games you are missing an incredible opportunity.

Facebook is second only to Google with well over 500,000 visitors each day. It only stands to reason that you should be using Facebook marketing to improve your online business. What an incredible opportunity to connect and interact with like-minded people. The problem is, many new to social media are confused by the choices Facebook offers. Should they have a personal page, a fan page or perhaps a group? Let’s talk about that.

You first must have a personal page. Only after you have built a personal page can you build a fan page or have a group. You can have up to 5000 friends on your personal page. Because your page is personal and requires a user name and password to access it, the search engines do not index content on these pages. Obviously you want your content indexed by the search engine. Here’s the rub, most people who” like” your fan page never return. It’s much easier to get responsive interaction on your personal page then it is on your fan page. Therefore I recommend you actively post on both pages.

A fan page has a few things going for it. Not only do the search engines index the content on your fan page, the look of your fan page can be customized as well. You can carry on with your branding seamlessly. It’s a good idea to include an opt in box for your giveaway to bribe fans to subscribe to your mailing list.

A FB group is a great way to interact with a specific groups of people. Because it is private, only those within that group can see or access it, therefore it is great for a forum type environment for clubs and organizations. To join a group you must be invited. Google does not index content from groups.

Regardless whether you use your personal page or your fan page for your business you must build relationships, connect with people. engage and interact with them. Be an encourager; inspire others to be all they can be. Share your blog posts, give them helpful tips and hints. If you’re posts reflect a giving nature; that you truly care about others you will fill your stadium with friends and fans.

While it is important to interact with friends and fans throughout the day on a consistent basis, you can’t spend your entire day on social media. Sites like HootSuite, TweetDeck, SocialOomph and Posterous will help you organize all of your social media networks in one place, allowing you to view your streams and walls, sort and view your lists and schedule your tweets and posts in advance. This means you are free to be productive in your business, but still be highly active on social media. You will then only need to pop in and out for just a few minutes a few times a day to respond and interact with others.

Facebook makes it easy to tell your story. You can share photos, audios and videos with your friends and fans. Scheduling an event such as a teleseminar, webinar or contest is easy.

In conclusion are you using Facebook marketing strategies to improve your online business? Don’t underestimate its significance. You should be using Facebook to increase your visibility, create brand awareness and instill trust, allowing you to take your business to the next level.

Editor note: Article courtesy of SiteProNews.

Web Site Usability Course Content

kalena — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:46:29 +0000

WSU 101

What is the point of making your site compatible with search engines and optimized for your target keywords if your visitors don’t bother to stick around?

Your site has to be user friendly and have site “stickiness” in order to retain visitors and turn them into customers or long term visitors. That’s where usability comes in. Our Web Site Usability course will teach you all the most important aspects of usability, including logical navigation usage, broken link checking, custom error messages, functional feedback forms, design and layout consistency, intuitive ordering and shopping cart processes etc.

Why not give your site the best chance possible of converting visitors to customers by making it as user-friendly as possible? Our Web Site Usability course will give you all the knowledge necessary to design your site with users in mind.

Your tutor for Web Site Usability 101 is well-known industry expert Kim Krause Berg.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Topics Studied During This Course:

Lesson 1 = What is Usability?

What is Usability?
Why Usability?
What is So Important About Usability?

Lesson 2 = Web Site Requirements Gathering

Business Specifications
Setting Objectives
Business Requirements
Functional Requirements
Who Are Your Web Site Users?
Planning Now Will Pay Off Later

Lesson 3 = Information Architecture and Navigation

Information Architecture
How to Find the Emerald City
About Navigation
How to Make Usable Navigation
Mental Models
Taxonomies and Ontology’s
Context, Organization and Findability
Required Assignment

Lesson 4 = User Interface Standards: A Useable User Interface

User Interface Standards
Standards and Elements
User Interface Elements
Guidelines

Lesson 5 = Credibility and Authenticity

Web Site Abandonment is Tied to Persuasion
Why Are They Leaving? Don’t They Believe Me?
Why Should Web Sites Be Concerned With Credibility and Authenticity?
How to Make a Convincing, Credible and Authentic Homepage?
Build it So Search Engines and Users Love It

Lesson 6 = User Friendly Forms

If You Fill This Out, I Promise Not to Confuse You
Types of Forms
Shopping Cart Usability
Contact Forms
Buttons
Errors Are Human
Courtesy Counts
Do You Need Help?
Go Forth and Be User Friendly

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two Versions to Choose From:

1. Certification – This course is tutor-supervised with a tutor assigned to guide students through the lesson material and review their assignments. Students who want to receive industry-recognized SEC Certification for Web Site Usability must take the Certification version of the course under tutor-supervision and make a 70% overall pass.

2. Self-Study – Students who take the course via self-study do not receive tutor-supervision, do not submit assignments and do not qualify for SEC Certification.

To learn more about the differences between our Certification and Self-Study course versions, please see our FAQs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Course Format:

Online
Login to course area

Course Duration:

Self-paced (no set class times)
Twelve months access to course materials

Course Fees:

Certification course = USD $295
Self-Study course = USD $195

Course Content:

6 interactive online lessons (72 pages in total!)
6 downloadable PDF lesson versions (72 pages in total!)
6 interactive online review quizzes
4 Assignments
1 interactive online exam

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What You Will Learn:

How to create logical and intuitive navigation menus.
The importance of requirements gathering.
How to create usable forms and shopping carts.
How to develop and implement functional feedback forms.
How to ensure your site design and layout is consistent on each page.
How to elicit trust in your visitor.
How to implement user interface elements that improve overall usability.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Who Should Take This Course:

Web site designers wanting to learn how to design web sites that are more user-friendly.
Marketing executives entrusted with the responsibility of promoting their company’s or clients’ web sites.
Small business owners wanting to learn how to make their web sites convert more site visitors into customers.
Webmasters wanting to know how to make their web sites more user-friendly and effective.
SEOs wanting to ensure they optimize web sites in a user-friendly fashion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Students Will Receive:

12 months access to our online classroom area
Downloadable Adobe PDF lessons to keep.
12 months worth of lesson updates.
Permanent access to our Search Engine Wiki, containing extensive search engine marketing resources.
12 months access to our exclusive industry discounts area.
12 months access to our online quizzes and final exam.
Permanent membership in our Search Engine College Facebook Group.
Permanent access to our Search Engine Marketing Jobs Forum listing employment opportunities in the search industry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Certification Graduates Will Receive:

Search Engine College Seal of Certification in your chosen subject.
Search Engine College Certificate of Training (hard copy certificates) for display on your wall or in your resume.
A personalized Certification Status page.
Permanent membership in our exclusive Search Engine College Facebook Alumni Group.
A discount coupon towards future courses.

Not ready to enroll yet? Tell Us Why.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Order Here Risk Free

Our Satisfaction Guarantee: If you are not 100% impressed and satisfied with any of our online certification courses, simply contact us within 7 days of purchase and WE WILL REFUND YOUR MONEY, no questions asked!

What have you got to lose? Enroll right NOW via Secure Credit Card / eCheck / PayPal by ticking the check box and clicking on the BUY NOW button below:

Yes, I want to enroll in the course/s of my choice now. I understand I am entitled to a guaranteed 100% refund if I am not completely delighted with my course/s.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Web Site Usability Course (Certification)

NOW $295

2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA) is an authorized retailer for goods and services provided by Search Engine College.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Web Site Usability Course (Self-Study)

NOW $195

2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA) is an authorized retailer for goods and services provided by Search Engine College.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.

Sales Support:

Purchasing multiple courses? Then use our 2Checkout Shopping Cart.
Need sales support? Contact us with your questions.

Please note – When paying for courses via credit card, your statement may show payee as one of the following: “Search Engine College”, “2CO.COM* SE College” or “Web Rank”.

*2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA) is an authorized retailer for goods and services provided by Search Engine College.

The 10 Week SEO Diet

kalena — Sat, 21 May 2011 07:56:11 +0000

By Kalena Jordan

[Click here for YouTube version]

So you’ve noticed that your competitor’s site ranks higher than your site on Google for *yellow widgets*, even though you are the premier widget provider in your area.

So what are you going to do about it? You’re going to take back control of the search results, that’s what!

You don’t need to be proficient at SEO or hire a Search Engine Optimizer to make a difference to your search engine rankings. There are several easy steps you can take that can make an immediate difference to your site’s visibility.

Here’s a 10 Week SEO Plan that will quickly put your site on the path to higher rankings:

Week 1 – Verify Your Site With the Big 3 Search Engines

If you want to understand how search engines interact with your site and find potential issues before they impact your traffic, you really need to verify your site and sitemaps with the big 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) and monitor your stats regularly.

Start by registering your site with Google Webmaster Tools. This is easy. Simply create an account and verify your site by uploading a small piece of code to your server for Google to find. Then create a XML sitemap of all your site pages and upload it via your Webmaster Tools account.

The amount of information this gives you about how search engines interact with your site is truly mind-blowing. Once you’ve gone through this process, you’ll be able to check:

- how many pages the Google has indexed and how often

- what errors Googlebot found while indexing

- what keywords your pages are being found for

- how many incoming links each page has from external sources

- how many internal links each page has from other pages on your site

- how well your site is optimized for target keywords

- how fast your site loads

- how many broken links are on your site, where they point to and on what pages etc.

It’s a similar registration / reveal process with Yahoo Site Explorer and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Week 2 – Research Your Target Keywords

It’s easy to assume that because you sell “yellow widgets”, your customers type “yellow widgets” into Google to find your products, right? But the truth is, you don’t actually know what your customers are searching for unless you research it. They might be typing in “gold whatsits”. One of the biggest mistakes online businesses make with SEO is targeting the wrong keywords.

Start by creating a seed list of keywords. Basically, this is a brain dump of all the keywords and phrases you think your potential customers might type into a search engine to find products and services like those you offer. You need to get inside the heads of your potential visitors/customers. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute and think what would YOU type in to a search engine if you wanted to find a site like yours? Then pass that list around the office, to family, friends and customers and get everyone to add the keywords *they* would use to find those same products and services. Keep going until you’ve got at least 50 keywords/phrases. That’s your search term seed list.

Now take that list and enter it into an online keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery, WordTracker or even the Google Keyword Tool. These tools show you how many searches each keyword/phrase attracts each day. Use this information to narrow down your choices. Don’t bother with keywords that generate less than 20 searches per day. Look at the most popular keywords in your list and choose the ones that relate specifically to your site content. Revise, streamline and revise some more to come up with your final list of target search terms.

Week 3 – Integrate Your Keywords into Your Pages

Contrary to popular belief, sticking your keywords into your meta tags is NOT sufficient for Google to find your site a relevant match for related search queries. For a search engine to find a site relevant, it MUST find the keyword within the visible text on your pages and in link text pointing to your site.

Take your final streamlined keyword list and allocate your chosen keywords to the various pages of your site. This is a pretty straight-forward exercise. Usually the content of each page will tell you what keywords will be the easiest and most logical to integrate into the body text and other content.

Now, rewrite your content to incorporate your keywords naturally into your pages. Try not to repeat a keyword phrase more than 3 or 4 times in a single page. Re-write your page titles and META tags, alt tags and headings to include your new keywords. When you create new pages, make sure you include logical keyword in your file names e.g. instead of www.mywidgetsite.com/page36%$2.html try www.mywidgetsite.com/shiny-widgets.html

Week 4 – Create Tailored Title and Meta Tags

How many sites have you been to where every page has the same META tags? That’s a lost search opportunity. Every page on your site should have a different Title and META Description tag, tailored to the content of each page. Take your new keywords and create optimized titles and tags for each page you want the search engines to index. This indicates to search engines AND visitors what each specific page is about.

Week 5 – Install and Utilize Google Analytics

Have you installed Google Analytics on your site? If not, then do it today. Google Analytics is a free site statistics package that provides insights into your web site traffic and marketing effectiveness. You may already have access to a site metrics package courtesy of your hosting company or web designer, but I guarantee you that it won’t be as powerful or easy to use as Google Analytics. The program lets you see and analyze your traffic data in new ways and learn how your visitors interact with your web site over a specified time period.

With benchmarking tools, you can find out whether your site metrics under-perform or outperform those in your industry and more accurately measure your web site’s Return on Investment (ROI). Google Analytics synchronizes directly with Google AdWords and other PPC services too, so you can set conversion goals and track visitor pathways from the entry page right through to the purchase receipt. Google Analytics features a wide range of graphical report options, enabling you to prepare web site performance reports for stakeholders right across your organization.

Week 6 – Add Fresh Content

What keeps a search engine coming back to your site? Fresh content. By adding new pages and information to your web site on a regular basis, you’re sending a signal to both search engines and visitors that you have lots to offer and they should come back regularly. The more content you have, the more entry points you are providing to visitors as a way of finding you in the search engines. Think of your site as a reverse pyramid, where your additional content pages are providing more and more doorways to your site at the top level.

Week 7 – Revisit Your Internal Link Structure

A lot of webmasters spend too much time looking at external links pointing to their sites and forget about their internal link structure. The way you link between your own site pages can have a huge impact on the search rank of those pages. This is because Google and other search engines are influenced by the keywords that are used in the links themselves. This *anchor text* tells search engines what the page is about.

For example, if you are linking to your page about *leather widgets* from your home page, instead of having the link read “Click Here”, change it to “Read more about our leather widgets”, with the entire snippet of text used as the link text. This signals to search engines that the page you are linking to is about *leather widgets* and they are more likely to show that page as a relevant match to search queries for *leather widgets* in their search results. Try to integrate this link policy across your entire site, with all your pages being cross-linked via appropriate keyword-rich link text. You’d be surprised what a difference this small change can make to the visibility of your pages!

Week 8 – Get Social

Use social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to publicize your site content. If you haven’t already established accounts for your business on these social networks, do so quickly. Then, every time you make a product announcement, publish a newsletter or add a new blog post, make sure you cross-post the content on these social sites. This will encourage more people to share your content and engage with your site, resulting in more traffic and more incoming links.

Week 9 – Build Incoming Links to Your Site

Speaking of incoming links, these are crucial to your site’s ultimate performance in search engines. The number of external links pointing to a page is a major component of the ranking algorithm Google and other engines use to determine a page’s relevance against a search query.

If Page A has 5 links pointing to it using *shiny red widgets* as the anchor text in the links, while Page B has 50 similar links, it makes sense that Google will find Page B a more relevant match and rank it higher in the search results. Make sure your site is full of Page B’s. There is an exception to this though – the sites linking to yours need to be trusted by Google.

You need to ensure the links you obtain are from high quality sites and not spammy free-for-all link farms or else the links might do you more harm than good. A simple explanation for how this works is here: How Does Google Collect and Rank Results?

Publish a link policy and encourage external sites to link to you using anchor text of your choosing. Seek out high quality directories and submit your site to suitable categories for your products / services.

Week 10 – Monitor, Tweak, Test, Tweak

Nobody gets anywhere by standing still. It’s the same with your web site. You need to constantly monitor how it’s performing and how people are interacting with it before you can improve it. For this purpose, Google Analytics is your best friend. Set aside time in your weekly schedule to review your analytics and make note of how your SEO work is progressing. Make a note of any issues that need addressing. Plan changes to the site based on visitor activity and keyword search trends. Log into your Webmaster Tools accounts for the big 3 engines regularly to check for indexing issues and monitor how many pages from your sitemap each has indexed.

Follow these steps and I promise you’ll see results in just 10 weeks.

Editor note: Image courtesy of SiteProNews. Please also see the video version of this article.