Frustrated User

When was the last time you thought about your site beyond adding content? It is probably time to take a look at how things are organized. When you started the site you had certain goals, ideas and experiences, now as time has passed it is a good idea to take another look at those goals and see what’s new. Below are 3 website SEO tips that everyone running a website needs to analyze frequently, especially with changing times and trends.

How to Structure a Website

Take a look at your homepage and ask yourself a few questions from the perspective of a new user. Is it easy for you to access different pages and find the information, products or services that you are looking for? What is the formatting like, is it search engine and user friendly? Does the site deliver the right message and target the key points you are looking to communicate to readers? These three basic points will help to determine how effectively the website is structured and are good questions to ask to find ways to improve. Let’s take a closer look at each in turn.

The first thing to look at is website format. You will want to be appealing to people, and have a aesthetically pleasing layout, but also consider being search engine friendly. Do you have the right words in the right places? Too many images, videos or animation with nothing for a search engine to grab on to? Consider having an SEO company take a look at things if you are not sure what you can improve on.

Ease of navigation can be a big stumbling point for users. It must be easy to find what you are looking for quickly, and if your internal navigation is subpar things can get tricky. Put popular pages in an easy to find spot with good labeling. Consider having broad topics on the home page and then being more targeted internally. The goal is to get people clicking through and avoid creating a high bounce rate.

Making sure you have a clear message will let people know they have come to the right place and encourage them to stay within your site to find what they have come looking for. Along with having a clear message, include key points of your site. Key posts, special deals or discounts and current information should be readily available immediately. If these three aspects are combined, you will find that you have a much more effective site, increasing traffic, lowering bounce rates and generating more sales.

Pick the Right Keywords

One thing that is constant in life is that things will always change. If you haven’t taken time recently to go over the keywords on your website, now is the time. Trends in your niche, new sites targeting the same keywords and changes in search patterns can all disrupt your keyword targeting aspirations. Staying current is imperative; ranking #1 in Google for a keyword that gets no searches is not going to bring in much traffic. Frequent research and development on this front will help you stay ahead of the game. Plus this kind of research could give you deeper insights into your niche. Check this out for more information on how to choose keywords.

Taking Charge of your Purpose

If visitors to your site are ever saying to themselves, “Umm, so what do I do?” something is wrong. A website should have a strong purpose and it should be obvious what that purpose is when someone arrives at your site. No one will be asking what to do because you will be telling them up front, this is what you’re here to see and this is how you do it. Whether it’s signing up to a newsletter, finding a link to buy your product or asking a question on the forum you can help guide people to where they want to be. If you can answer the questions, “What is the purpose of this page and what am I going to get from it?” then you are on the right track.

It’s important to stay active in running a website. Content is important but there is certainly more to it than that if you want to be successful. For more information right from the source, check out the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

Happy User!

 

Have some more SEO tips? Personal strategies that you used? Let us know what you think in the comments!

About The Author:

George McConnell is the head writer for Traffikd.com and totally likes social media! He is a full time internet entrepreneur and currently writing “That Social Media Book”, focusing on the history and effects of social media on internet and real world culture since its inception.

The first stop on the journey of how to choose keywords will be The Google AdWords Keyword Tool which will provide you with the data from those millions of searchs we were talking about. The first thing you will see that we now need some keywords and phrases to query.

Picking Your Keywords

Although there is no exact science to keyword research there are some tips that you can keep in mind while brainstorming. First of all, try to think like someone who knows that they are looking for your product and input those results, then move down the spectrum. Think like someone who might have a looser idea of what they want, or not know the name of the product. If the first example person is searching for “hammer”, the second person might search for “nail installer”, another person may search for “how to connect wood together”. This may seem far out, but in the keyword analysis stage more is much better, as you might come across a search term that is a little off kilter that no one is yet targeting. A great feature of the Google Keyword Tool is that it provides you with a list of search terms that it thinks are similar to the keywords you’ve specified. This can be another great way to expand your thinking when picking your keywords. In addition to the Google Keyword Tools similar search terms list, you can use the Keyword-Finder.net keyword finder which will take one initial keyword which you provide and reward you with a number of related keyword ideas which you can use with the Google Keyword Tool!

Narrowing Down the List

Now that you’ve compiled a list of keywords and plugged them into the Keyword Tool it’s time to analyze the results and pick the ones to target. There are some things that you will have to look at and decide for yourself which route you want to take. Some keywords will receive millions of searches, some others thousands and some hundreds or even none. Very broad or basic keywords probably get millions of hits and will probably be very lucrative and target by a lot of companies, probably some with large advertising budgets and teams of people working to get to the top. If that scene is for you then by all means go for the big fish term and attempt to get to the top rank, however that may not be a viable option for everyone. A great way to go is to look for on topic, longer keywords that are getting moderate amounts of searches and go after those. Do some Google searches for these keywords and see what comes up on the first page, is it strong websites with relevant information that are already providing a good service to people making those searches or shoddy turnkey sites or other off topic sites? Look at what you find when making a decision on what to do with each keyword. Remember, “long tail” keywords comprise the majority of the searches on the internet and so provide a way for you to get a foothold in your market with some careful research.

Keyword Testing

So you’ve done your research and now it’s time to test what you’ve picked. If you have time to wait and see how things go you can just go ahead and optimize your site for your chosen keywords and wait a few months to see how things play out organically. On the other hand, if you are looking for results a bit faster, consider running an AdWords campaign for your keyword for a short period (long enough to get some realistic data though, anywhere from days to a few weeks depending on the traffic they keyword is getting). With the test data on your keyword you will have a lot of new data. You’ll see updated impressions showing you the most current search data, how many visitors you received from your keyword and also how many of them convert to sales, if that happens to be your thing. You can take that data and run with it. Maybe you’ll find that most of your searches are done on the weekend and that people coming from a specific keyword are converting better than another. Any data you get from this will help you, even if the keywords you’ve chosen aren’t working you’ll have a better idea of what to look for in the future.

Keywords are always evolving and many search terms will fluctuate in volume over time. It’s important to stay up to date and always look at what keywords you are targeting. If you make a lot of posts, make sure you are taking the time to do some research on what to cover and if you have a mostly static website make sure that it is optimized and your keywords are still relevant to your brand. Remember, choosing good keywords can propel you forward while choosing irrelevant ones will leave you in the dust, so always do your research BEFORE you start your project.

Do you have experience choosing keywords? More questions on what to do or look for? Write a comment and let me know!

About The Author:

George McConnell is the head writer for Traffikd.com and totally likes social media! He is a full time internet entrepreneur and currently writing “That Social Media Book”, focusing on the history and effects of social media on internet and real world culture since its inception.

You may notice that some of your blog posts are drawing search engine traffic for particular search phrases and keywords (especially if your blog has had some time to establish itself with search engines). Even if you are doing keyword research prior to writing posts, you’ll almost definitely see that some of these phrases that are producing traffic are not something that you had intentionally targeted. While this is a nice surprise, it also means that there is likely more potential if you’re willing to make some small, but significant, tweaks.

If you’re drawing search traffic from a phrase that you’re not targeting, it probably means that you could be ranked even higher, and draw even more traffic as a result, if you make some changes to optimize your post accordingly. Just because a post was published at some point in the past doesn’t mean that it can’t be modified and made to be more effective.

In this post we’ll look at a few simple changes that can be made to improve upon these unintentional rankings. By taking a relatively small amount of time to recognize these opportunities and act on them, you could be setting yourself up for significantly more search engine traffic on an on-going basis.

First of all, you’ll need to find the keywords and phrases that are already driving traffic to your site. These are the search terms that you know are already producing results, so making a small effort to move up in the rankings is well worth your time. If your post is ranked 5th in Google for a particular phrase without even attempting to optimize the page, you may be able to quickly improve to the 1st or 2nd spot and see a noticeable increase in traffic. Repeat this process for a few different posts and the results will add up.

As an example, I have a post on my primary blog that has steadily attracted search traffic for the past six months or so. It’s not a ridiculous amount of traffic each day, but it does come from some fairly competitive search phrases and it is consistent every day, which adds up over the span of a month. I recently spent a few minutes to look into which search phrases were sending traffic to this post and I was surprised to see that I was ranked 4th in Google for a phrase that didn’t seem to be optimized. I made a simple change in just a couple of minutes and within a few days the post had moved to the #1 spot for that same phrase. Since then search traffic has been up consistently for that phrase.

To find these opportunities for your own blog, look at your stats from Google Analytics (or a similar program) and see what search phrases are sending traffic to your site. Most likely these phrases will be leading traffic to a particular post rather than to your homepage, which means you can simply optimize that post to more effectively target the phrases that are already sending traffic. Just look through the phrases that are sending traffic and you’re sure to find some that could be more productive. Personally, I start with the ones that are sending the most traffic since they have potential for the best results.

In addition to looking at Google Analytics, you can also use Google Webmaster Tools. Webmaster Tools will show you some valuable data under “Statistics” and “Top Search Queries.” This will show you 20 phrases where your site is ranking well, and 20 phrases that are sending the most traffic to you. You may find some items on this list that surprise you a little bit. If they surprise you, it probably means that you weren’t intending to draw traffic from these phrases and there should be some room for improvement.

So now that you have identified a few phrases to work with, what should you do? Here are a few simple suggestions.

1. Page Titles

Page titles are the most significant on-page factor for search engine rankings. If your post is ranking very well for a particular phrase that is not exactly used in your page title, you should be able to see some improvement in the ranking if you change your page title to include this phrase. If you’re using WordPress and the All-In-One SEO Pack Plugin this is very easy. From the example that I used earlier, I didn’t remove anything from the existing title, I simply added a two-word phrase that was already producing the search traffic. As a result, with no other effort, that was enough to jump a few spots in the rankings.

2. Add New Internal Links

By adding more internal links to a particular post you will be indicating to search engines that the post is important. This is a pretty simple process, but one that most of us don’t take the time to do. If you’re blog has been around for a while you have plenty of places where you can add internal links. Go back and find posts on related topics and add a link in the content of the page or at the beginning or end of the post. Also, look for opportunities to link from any significant pages on your blog.

3. Change Anchor Text

Another factor that will influence search engine rankings is the anchor text that is used on links that point to that post. You can obviously control the anchor text used on your internal links, so take a few minutes and see what anchor text you are currently using on these links and see if it could be optimized to match the phrase that you are now targeting.

The anchor text of links from other sites to this page will also be significant, but you may or may not be able to change that. In most cases the best you could do is to contact the other blogger or website owner and ask them if they mind changing the anchor text on a particular link. I know some people do this, but I can’t say that I have ever asked someone to change the anchor text on their site for me.

4. Meta Description

While meta descriptions are not going to make a big difference in terms of rankings, an effective description is capable of improving the click-through-rate from the SERPs. For example, if your page is ranking 3rd in Google for a particular phrase, you could enter a description that will do a better job of attracting clicks from those searchers and you may find a 10% in traffic without moving up in the rankings. Again, this is something that you can easily do with the All-In-One SEO Pack Plugin.

5. Add to the Content of the Post

One of the best ways to help a post draw more traffic on an on-going basis is to make the post more useful. Most of us don’t take the time to improve our old posts, but the time can be a good investment in some cases. By making adding new or updated content you will be making the post more useful and hopefully it will attract more links in the future because it continues to be valuable. And more links mean possible improvement in rankings.

6. Write a Follow Up Post

I rarely write posts to target a specific word or phrase, but I did so about a year ago with a post on my primary blog. After a while the post attracted some links and moved up to the number one spot for the targeted phrase. After that I thought it would be nice if I could get a second post to rank well for that phrase, so I published a follow up. Since my site was already recognized by Google as a good source of information for this phrase it was pretty easy to get a second post to rank for the same phrase. Before long I had the first two spots in Google for the phrase pointing towards my two posts.

If you have a page that is ranked very high, this is a very achievable way to grab an even higher share of the traffic for this phrase. However, most of us (including me) rarely think to do this. Take a look at your posts that are ranking well, most likely you’ll find some opportunities where you could write a follow up post to target the same phrase.

Reminder:

One thing that should be pointed out here is that any changes made can also affect your rankings for that post and other search phrases. So if the post is already ranking well for your targeted phrase and you see another phrase that also is sending some traffic, you won’t want to abandon the targeted phrase by making changes that will be counterproductive.

What’s Your Advice?

What simple SEO changes do you make to your blog?

Search engine visitors are probably more coveted by bloggers than any other type of traffic. Sure, social media gets plenty of attention (including in my own articles) but most website owners and bloggers would strongly prefer search engine traffic if they had the choice. The problem is that many bloggers don’t feel that search traffic is realistic, because it takes time to develop, and patience is a difficult thing when you’re trying to build a blog.

We’ve probably all read our fair share about the Google sandbox effect or how it takes time before your blog will start seeing significant search engine traffic. I was aware of that too, but seeing the results of sticking with a blog on a consistent basis has been a rewarding experience.

My opinion after about a year and a half of blogging is that most bloggers give up, or at least lose consistency, before any real benefits can be earned through search engine traffic. With so many bloggers desiring elusive search engine visitors, many get discouraged and give up, when if they had been more patient and kept working it could have happened with time.

While my blog still gets a considerable percentage of its visitors from social media, organic Google search traffic is now the number one source most months (unless there is a big rush from StumbleUpon). During the month of September the site received over 62,000 search visitors, mostly from Google. Considering just six months earlier the best month was 17,000, that’s a pretty substantial increase.

The graph below shows search visitors from July 2007 (when I started actively posting) to the end of September 2008.

My opinion is that this is probably not unusual for any blogger that maintains consistent posting and focus on providing content that will attract links. I have a few minor changes that I’d like to make to the site to increase search traffic some more, but for the most part this is just an example of what can result from some persistance.

I know there are other bloggers with far more significant numbers, but in most cases the graph will follow a similar trend, with search traffic steadily increasing over time (the slight decrease that you may have noticed in the graph at the end of 2007 was a result of changing hosts and having some duplicate content because of going from www URLs to non-www URLs. Once that was cleaned up things got back to where they had been). Over the summer Darren Rowse posted a similar graph of his search traffic.

Drawing search engine traffic is not easy, but it’s very achievable with some effort. My approach to drawing search engine traffic has been pretty consistent from the start. While I’m not an SEO expert, I do understand the importance of building a search engine-friendly website/blog, and that is a necessary foundation. I don’t dedicate much time to things like keyword research and on page optimization once the site has been built. Those things I’m sure could help, but most of my time with the blog is spent developing content, some of which is intended to draw links and boost search engine rankings. Social media has of course been a critical factor in this as well.

If you’re a new blogger that’s frustrated with a lack of search engine traffic, I hope the graph of my search engine traffic trends (and Darren’s graph) can serve as some motivation to keep working.

This is a guest post written by David Brown.

Within a month of submitting my Portland search engine optimization website to Google’s local business listings, I was pleased to find myself at the top of the rankings for the phrases, “Portland Web Design,” “Portland Search Engine Marketing,” and “Portland Search Engine Optimization.” However, these rankings quickly faded due to my lack of understanding toward local business optimization.  Having identified this as a source of confusion for the majority of the search engine marketing community, I’m pleased to present some tips for moving up in the local business listings.

Offsite Local Business Optimization

• Get free listings in as many local directory websites as possible. I seldom recommend reciprocating or paying for links in directories. However, if they offer a free, nonreciprocal option you should definitely take advantage.
• Include your phone number whenever you write a description of your company on a third party website. My research suggests that Google uses your phone number to improve your local business listing rankings, similar to the way they use links for improving your traditional organic search engine rankings.
• Make sure your local business listing is complete. For instance, include pictures, coupons, a full description, pick your categories, etc.
• Work keywords into your local business listing description and make it as long as Google allows.
• Look at your competitors’ local business listings. If the number next to the link titled, “Web Pages,” is greater than one, click on the link and try obtaining listings from the same websites as your competitors.

Onsite Local Business Optimization

• Include your business name in your title tags, description and throughout your website.
• Include your address and phone number at the bottom of every page.
• Include the name of your city and state in your website’s content, titles, descriptions and page headers.
• See which phrases the local business listings pop up for, and optimize your site for those phrases.

As mentioned above, there is a high level of mystery behind local business search engine optimization.  When mastered, it has the potential to be very lucrative, generating large amounts of targeted traffic, within a short amount of time. Please feel free to comment with more tips and resources.

David Brown is a search engine marketing consultant with Westhill Media.