Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Strategies For Your Website!

 
Although the concept of search engine optimization can be somewhat complex, there are a number of basic search engine optimization techniques you can use to improve your organic search results. Keep the following in mind when trying to achieve top rankings for your website.

1. Meta Tags.

Meta tags are simple lines of code at the top of your web page programming that tell search engines about your page. Include the title tag, keyword stag, description tag, and robots tag on each page.

2. Create and update your sitemap.

Developing a site map is a simple way of giving search engines the information they need to crawl your entire website. There are plenty of free software packages on the web that can help you generate a sitemap. Once you create a sitemap, submit it to Google and Yahoo.

3. Ensure that all navigation is in HTML.

All too often, navigational items are in the form of java script. Even though navigation technically still works in this format, it’s not optimized. Create your navigation in HTML to enhance internal links throughout your website.

4. Check that all images include ALT text.

Your image’s alt text is spidered by search engines. If you’re not including your keywords in alt text, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity for improved search engine result placements. Label all of your images properly.

5. Use Flash content sparingly.

Content generated through java script or flash is a big no-no. Some webmasters like to use flash because of the presentation. If you must, use it sparingly, but only after your site has been properly optimized with basic search engine optimization in mind.

6. Make sure that your website code is clean.

Keep in mind when optimizing a web page crawlers are basically only looking at your source code. When programming your web pages, having W3C compliant code can make all the difference. Run your code through a W3C validator before promoting.

7. Place keywords in your page content.

Search engines scan your website and web pages for keywords. Shoot for a keyword density of between two and eight percent. Google likes your page to be at the lower end of this scale and Yahoo at the upper end.

8. Submit your website to search engine directories.

It’s always a good idea to let large search engine directories know that you’re out there. Submit your website URL to directories like Google, Yahoo, and DMOZ.

9. Build links to your website.

Consider building a link exchange program or create one-way links to your site using articles or forum posts. All major search engines value the importance of your website based on how many others websites are linking to it.

10. Learn the basics.

Learning to optimize your website for search engines takes time and patience. Start by applying basic search engine optimization principles. If you’re new to website optimization, or even a well seasoned veteran, begin by prioritizing which pages are most important to you and go from there. Soon you’ll find yourself moving up the rankings

 

How to Make Effective Landing Page

Here are some basic step to create an effective Landing Pages

Landing pages are like sales person, your product can be one of the best in the industry but if you have a poor sales man your product will not succeed.

So its always better to spend some extra time to get a Good landing page instead of coming back and correcting your landing page.

So here are some simple step to design a effective Landing page and please remember its not a Rocket Science

1. Repeat the search term on the landing page

Reinforcing the words a visitor has used in his search right on the landing page seems pretty obvious, but it’s not that simple. First, it takes custom coding, which means getting on the site technology or IT priority list.

Worse, you can’t simply grab the actual search term from Google or Yahoo!. Imagine a prospect looking for a new pet door for her German Shepherd puppy. She types “sale pet door puppy” into Google and clicks through to your webpage which says “Sale Pet Door Puppy” in the headline.

Campaigns must be mapped to normal-sounding headlines. So, for example, any search containing “pet door” might be mapped to the headline “Pet doors for all pet sizes and shapes.”

If this is not easily accomplished with your existing resources, consider focusing on only your 10 highest-volume search landing pages or look into hosted solutions that offer this capability.

2. Products should relate directly to the search term(s)

The most visible item or offering on a landing page should relate directly to the search, or the visitor feels a sense of disconnect and is likely to bail.

Consider the pet door example:

First, you have to decide if it’s better to link to a single pet door or to the existing category where pet doors are kept. Of course, if “pet doors” is its own category, the choice is simple. But if your pet doors are kept in the “other pet products” category, what then? The first product your visitor sees might be flea powder or pet insurance. If any of these are the primary image, say good-bye to your prospect.

Again, you’re required to nail down some time from IT to make a custom landing page happen. But it’s worth it — imagine the visitor’s face when he’s looking for a pet door for his Great Dane and instead finds an image of a fluffy poodle sweater. Not good.

3. Include elements of your home page

Many companies feel that if a visitor reaches your site through a targeted keyword like “pet door,” that visitor will automatically understand who your company is and what you offer.

That assumption is a mistake. In fact, by ignoring the branding elements that you instinctively include on your home page, you miss the opportunity to deepen your relationship with (perhaps) a brand new customer.

Include at least some of the elements that help visitors understand who you are and what you do.

4. Add security and returns policy

Again, think of the content on your home page. What makes new visitors feel comfortable? You might put “Our Returns Policy,” “Member of the Better Business Bureau,” “As Seen in Architectural Record,” “Company Information” and more to remove fear and build confidence.

When a visitor enters your site from a PPC advertisement, they’re essentially arriving for a visit through the back door. Make them feel at home — and willing to spend — by adding some of the feel good content.

5. Feature promotions

Even the most brand-focused company (“we’re not promotional, we’re all about brand”) engages in some sort of promotional activity.

When running promotions, you’ll get better response if you feature them on your landing pages. That’s because an advertising-sourced prospect is probably going to look at more than one ad and/or landing page. In the few seconds when they have just entered your site, you need to be especially relevant and compelling.

Giving a little more prominence to whatever promotions are currently available will draw more of the visitors in, even if you do not make the promotion the most important element on the page.

Bonus tip: Continue to use these tactics on subsequent pages.

Remember, very few visitors convert on the landing page. In some cases, a visitor will look at 10 or more pages and come back two or more times before signing up or making a purchase.

The more steps they take, the lower the impact of the landing page. If you’ve gone to the trouble to create one that’s relevant and compelling, carry some of that work through the subsequent pages as well.

Free shipping draws people into your site, but if they spend 20 minutes looking around and never see free shipping mentioned again, its impact is diminished.

Similarly, the “pet door” person may click on New Arrivals, On Sale, Advice from Our Experts or more before remembering (or forgetting) that they wanted to buy a pet door.

Try using some space on the category pages, product pages and even the checkout page to continue to show pet door-related products or information to keep the whole site feeling relevant.

Some of this may seem like black magic or high-priced solutions only available for wealthy companies. But, like good health, small steps can make a big difference. Start customizing landing pages for your 10 best-performing PPC terms or campaigns and see how it works.

You just might find that the little bit of extra work keeps your online advertising in tip-top shape for years to come

 

Web Analytics and PPC Tools

Omniture Search Center (www.omniture.com)

Omniture Search Center Helps Search Marketers:

• Automate keyword strategies and processes
• Target keyword marketing by demographics, behavior and lifetime value
• Maximize keyword performance with integrated Web analytics
• Improve cross-channel marketing results
• Improve overall effectiveness

A single intuitive user interface helps marketers manage keyword campaigns by avoiding the time-consuming process of managing multiple search engine tools. Among the features developed to ensure an easy-to-use experience include:

• An easy 3-step get started wizard
• A configurable interface with simple navigation
• A campaign wizard
• Online help resources

Coremetrics Online Analytics Features

(www.coremetrics.com)

Acquire, convert, and retain high-value customers through comprehensive online analytics. Coremetrics Online Analytics has the features you need to be successful.

• Marketing Optimization—Gain a 3D view of the effectiveness of your marketing programs across marketing channels and across time, including which marketing programs drive new visitors to your site, which ones trigger action, and which ones influence along the way.
• Merchandising—Increase initiation and decrease abandonment of key activities (such as adding to shopping carts, booking travel, starting an application, or completing a registration) by automatically mapping product and promotional categories to analytical reports for rapid insight into creative, placement, and cross-sell effectiveness.
• Content Analysis—Improve site navigation, content, and tools by understanding page real estate value and content and promotional effectiveness based on any site goal.
• Scenario Analysis—Identify bottlenecks, improve site navigation, and increase customer satisfaction by visualizing how customers are moving through the site.
• Profile Mining—Define and analyze specific visitor segments to identify the size and value of market segments, to understand product and content affinities, and for integration with targeted email campaigns.
• On-site Search—Understand search preferences and effectiveness to improve the customer experience and search conversion.
• Multichannel Analytics—Augment LIVE Profiles with offline customer data for true multichannel analytics. Analyze any behavior across online and offline channels seamlessly within the same user interface.

WebTrends Analytics           (www.webtrends.com)

• Get the most out of your Web 2.0 investments by measuring, testing and optimizing visitor interactions with AJAX, online video, and more.
• Optimize the online experience across all devices and marketing channels, including mobile devices.
• Identify which content, channels, partners and campaigns drive conversion, and promote the ones that keep people engaged.
• Customize reports for the way you do business and answer the most relevant questions across the enterprise using the most flexible analytics solution in the industry.
• Drive adoption across the enterprise and tie key analysis into other reporting and marketing solutions via industry-standard open access technologies such as ODBC, FTP, and web services.
• Easily schedule emailed reports from directly within the reporting interface to quickly provide one-time insight or ongoing updates to anyone in your organization.
• Optimize conversion for each page, path, and scenario on your site with complete navigation analysis.
• Run your business by the numbers with real-time performance dashboards.

WebTrends Analytics packages

WebTrends Analytics offers flexible packages that can be customized to fit the needs of your business. They make it easy to start with the level of functionality that makes the most sense for you, and increase the capabilities of your solution as your organization’s web analytics needs grow over time.

 

SiteMeter (www.sitemeter.com)

It only tracks number of visits and number of page viewed and from which part of the world the click has come. It’s just like Google Analytics.

 

 

 

 

Competitive analysis tools

ComScore Online Search Solutions:-  (www.comscore.com)

• ComScore Online Search Solutions, including comScore qSearch 2.0, offer the most extensive view of the search universe. comScore Online Search Solutions are truly global, measuring the top 50 properties worldwide where search is observed and reporting on search activity for a multitude of individual countries. comScore Online Search Solutions’ insight reaches beyond traditional search engines such as Yahoo! and Google to offer measurement and analysis for properties such as eBay, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as international search engines such as Baidu and Naver.

 

comScore Online Search Solutions answers the key questions for the search industry:
Portals and Search Players:

• What is my share and performance intensity versus the competition?
• What are my strengths and weaknesses by keyword and keyword vertical?
• How can I help my ad sales team sell more effectively?
• What is the click-through rate on my search results pages? What is the mix of paid and organic click-throughs?

 

Media Planners and Marketers:-

• How can I leverage search as part of my marketing mix?
• Who are key players in general and for specific key words and categories?

 

Investors and Financial Analysts:

• How big is the market? Who are the biggest players? Who are the quality players?
• What is the current and future commercial opportunity for Search?

 

 

Campaign management tools

PPCaccelerator:-

How it works: -   http://www.ppcaccelerator.com/Quick-Demo.html