To rank well in the search engines, you must either play by their
rules, or buy your way in. Today we'll do it the free way.
The Two Main Factors that Will Improve Your Ranking
When ranking sites, the search engines consider two main
factors. How many times does the search phrase occur on your
page, and how many other quality sites link to your page? The
first factor indicates how closely your page matches what the
searcher is looking for. The second factor indicates the overall
quality of your site, since other sites won't send their
customers to you unless you offer excellent content.
Create Your Keywords List
Step one is to brainstorm a list of words and phrases you think
someone would type into a search engine looking for a
business like yours. If I had a landscaping business in
Cheyenne, for instance, I might create this list: landscaping, tree
trimming, lawn care, weed control, rock gardens, ponds, garden
design, xeriscaping, flower beds, mulch, consultation,
Cheyenne. I would include my city since I only work within 50
miles of home.
Next, I would get other words to
add to my list, find out how often they were entered into the
engines in the last 60 days, and how many competing sites also
have them.
Place Your Keywords on the Page
Make sure your highest-priority keywords are placed in the title
tag of your code. Unless your business name is so well-known
that thousands of people will type it into search engines looking
for your site, leave it out of the title. Your logo will be prominent
on the page, so they will see your name there.
Many search engines also give more points to words in
headlines, so place your keywords there as well as in the body
of the text.
Now, placing a key phrase once in the title and once on your
page won't be enough to get you to the top of the charts. On the
other hand, repeating it too often can get you banned from the
engines. Ideally, each phrase you're trying to optimize your page
for should make up 1-7% of the text on the page, which should
contain 250-700 words.
Use the free Keyword Density Analyzer
(http://www.keyworddensity.com) to do the math for you.
Moving from the Robots to the Humans
OK, now, we've got the search engines covered and the visitors
are pouring in. What do we have for them?
In a word: Benefits.
Your home page must entice your visitors to linger on your site
for awhile. To make this happen, don't forget their favorite
radio station: WII-FM, or What's in it for Me? The person in
Cheyenne looking for a landscaper first wants to know how I can
make his life easier while making his home more attractive.
When he first arrives at my site he's not interested in me; he's
only thinking of himself. I'd think he was selfish if I
didn't act he same way when I'm surfing the web!
So, to write my home page, I'll take my key phrases and put them
into headlines. I'll make sure they each scream out a benefit to
my visitor. I know that he'll scan the headlines before he'll
read my text, and if his first impression is how many ways I can
help him, I've got him hooked.
Here's a partial list of headlines I might use:
Relax this summer--We've got Your Lawn Care Covered
Save Water with a Beautiful Xeriscape Garden
Your Flower Beds Can Be the Envy of Your Neighborhood
Throw Away Your Ladder--Let Us Trim YourTrees
Fall Asleep to the Soothing Sound of Your Pond's Waterfalls
Didn't those sound good? And did you notice they each contain a
key word or phrase?
Next I'd write several short paragraphs under each one, using
keywords to further explain how my services can benefit them.
Now my home page is a grabber both for the search engines
and my new customers.
The Next Step
Now that I've optimized my home page, I'll use similar
tactics on each additional page. These will still feature the
appropriate keywords in the title, headlines and text, but the
content can move a bit away from the benefits and more toward
solid information. I hooked my visitor on the home page, so now
I need to reel him in with helpful free information, testimonials
from satisfied neighbors, and a bit about my background and
experience.
Conclusion
Your home page is arguably the most important in your site. First
it has to be found by visitors using the search engines. Then it
must show them enough personal benefits that they will click a
link to go further into your site instead of clicking the back
button. Follow the guidelines I've presented here and you should
be off to a good start. Good luck!
Related Articles:
Optimize Your Search Engine Ranking
How would you like to get more people to your web site without spending an extra penny? In spite of the recent trend of search engines making you pay to get in, there are still several excellent ones out there that will list you for free.
A Word of Caution on Search Engine Positioning
Search engine placement is by far the best way to generate traffic to your web site. A top rank in just one of the major search engines for one keyword can bring in thousands of new visitors to your site. However, before you embark on optimizing your site for the search engines, I would like to put in a word of caution.
Creating keyword rich pages for the search engines
Once you have established the
keywords for which you should optimize your site for the search engines, it is time to
figure out how you can get a high ranking in the search engines for those keywords. The
solution is to create Keyword Rich Pages - pages which provide good content and in
which a particular keyword is repeated a number of times so that the page gets a top
ranking for that keyword.
Creating A Web Page That Spells Out Benefits
to Customers Effectively
One of the most powerful methods of marketing your products or services on the Internet today is to create a benefits web page. Let's face it, customers are interested in knowing how they will benefit from purchasing your products or services.
