Many people have said to me that they can't afford to employ a SEO company, but they would still like to get better search results on Google, Yahoo and MSN searches. Are there any basic rules that they can follow to improve their ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs)? In response to this question, here are some basic things that people who have coded their own web sites can do to make the web pages more spiderbot friendly and so more attractive for search engines to crawl.
Let's start with the actual information on the home page of the web site. What is the first thing that a spiderbot will see when it crawls your web site - complex graphics, tables of information that do not directly relate to your products or company, or does it see some well-written, grammatically correct text? We have found that the first 100 words on a web site are of particular interest to spiderbots, and a lot of emphasis is now placed by them on what is found there. This is the place to put your key words, what search words and phrases do you want to be found under.
But what about key words in the Meta tag statement? This was a great idea, but unfortunately became abused by people doing key word stuffing. Look at you own site, what keywords do you have there. We would suggest that you consider putting up to 10 key words in the Meta tag, and these words should re-enforce the key words that you use in your actual text. I saw a site for buying property that repeated the words house sales a hundred times; do you think that fooled Google? Search engines are now trying to ensure that the content and key words the actual web surfer sees, relates directly to how the page is ranked.
On a similar theme, have you ever been to a web site that is very difficult to navigate and you end up giving up because it's just too difficult to find the information you require. Well, think how the spiderbot feels when it hits such a site. Do you think it will spend time and effort trying to build a complex navigation map, or will it out the site it the too difficult pile and move on. Make your site easy to navigate; on a small site being able to access any page from any page is a useful concept.
This brings us nicely on to the whole question of Inbound Links (IBLs). Some sites have very few external IBLs, but still do well because of the structure and linkage of their own pages. Unfortunately, this can mean a fairly major redesign and re-write of a site but if you can do this, you will improve your visibility. Other ways of getting IBLs are link farms, reciprocal links and one-way links.
We believe that link farms are a dangerous way forward. Search engines do not like this idea as it cuts across the major concept of searches that they should reflect the true popularity of sites. Either now or in the future, sites using link farms will be penalised and maybe sandboxed, a bit like being sent to the sin bin for 6 months and not recommended.
Reciprocal links can again be seen as a false way of increasing the popularity of sites. Many high ranking sites use this idea and to date have not suffered. However Google and other search engines are starting to take the relevance of the linking site into account. So if you are a property company and you link to a frozen food supplier and vice versa, yes I've seen this one, then the search engines will ignore it as an IBL. We are aware that more sophisticated companies are using a 3-way reciprocal link procedure that is far more difficult to track. So 3 property companies work together, company A links to company B that links to company C that links to company A. So at the moment, the search engines probably cannot see the 3-way reciprocal links, although this may change in the future.
Update on Reciprocal links. The latest Google Dance (update) is taking place (end of October 2005) and many sites with lots of reciprocal links are saying that their Google search rating has disappeared. This leads us to believe that such links are definitely not a good idea.
By far the best way of getting links is by having a quality site that other people want to link to. So again, we are back to content. If you provide quality information, over time, more and more sites will link to you, and if they are in the same business sector as you, so much the better.
Finally, we would like to stress the need to write the cleanest and most error-free html code that you can. Again, it is fairly obvious if you think about it, spiderbots want to be able to crawl a web site quickly and efficiently. If you have bad html, links that are broken or tables that don't have the correct number of entries, then spiderbots will struggle to classify your site. We have invested in a very sensitive html validator that picks up lots of errors and potential errors. To date we have not found any web sites that validate 100% error free using this validator, except our own. When I mentioned the validator in a previous article I was inundated with requests for information on the product, so if any one wants to try it, I have put up a 14-day free trial copy at http://www.seo-gurus.co.uk/csesetup.exe. Don't be surprised if it throws up lots of errors, I have seen 200+ of many web site home pages, often with the same error replicated many times.
In summary, good clean readable text backed up by clean html programming and some good solid inbound links will give you a far better chance of good search engine rankings. So, if you do all of this, will you need a SEO company? If you can achieve all of the actions above, we believe you will have done about 40% of the work we would expect to do for a client. Maybe that will be enough for you, if not feel free to have a look around our website.
And now a poem
Written by my partner, reflecting Search Engine Optimization for Dummies.
Dummies are everywhere,
They are dotted all about,
Sometimes they are within,
Sometimes they are without,
Sometimes in shop windows,
Looking sleek and tall,
Sometimes in the living room,
Sometimes in the hall,
But most of our dummies,
That we deal with every day,
Are very much like you and me,
But just stranger in a way,
For they are now on the net,
Their 15 hours of fame,
They lose their sensible marbles,
And are all soon fair game,
For unscrupulous and devious,
Those twins of guile and charm,
Who in the blinking of an led,
Soon strip off leg and arm,
Thus a dummy is so created,
Whence can they become whole?
Already minus arm and a leg,
To those who own their soul,
And flailing blindly in a net,
More binding by the hour,
With money leaking from cards,
All too sadly in their power,
Yet just as the worst seems likely,
When hope seems yeste rdays dream,
Yes, Seogurus Superbeing appears,
Almost serenely on the scene,
"What seems to be the problem2,
His booming voice proclaims,
"I will rid you of your demons,
Cast them out in your name,
And take you to a better land,
Where everything works well,
And where your website flourishes",
You see, he tells a few as well,
Yet he's not such a bad guy,
Though he needs spell-check advice,
In fact compared to some,
He's actually very nice,
We may be slightly biased,
We may just overemphasise,
But he really is a good guy,
And he really truly tries,
To put you on the right path,
Primarily to help yourselves,
He doesn't use a witchdoctor,
Or consult with toads or elves,
He just uses simple tools,
And a common sense approach,
He knows you can do most of it,
And just acts as your coach,
And advises now and then,
Of tools or websites to try,
And he isn't ever dodgy,
And he isn't ever sly,
He just tries to help you,
In an age where others abuse,
So why not trust the Superbeing,
What have you got to lose?
He's related to the Ferrits,
And cousin to the Stiffsteiffs Bears,
And reportedly the Frankfrogs,
Though mad as March hares,
But though they seem a rum bunch,
Above all this motley crew,
Are beavering away on your side,
trying hard to help you through,
And this month a free trial,
You can use to help yourself,
Has been offered for a while,
Just download it from its shelf,
And for zero pennies outlay,
You can begin to see just why,
The Seogurus Superbeing came,
So gloriously from the sky,
And should you ever need him,
Should your efforts be not enough,
Fear not for he will be with you,
Once emailed hell strut his stuff,
And though he's a bit cocky,
And a bit "I've been here before",
There are others out there lurking,
Who would hurt you for evermore,
And make you pay for nothing,
Over and again quite dearly,
For getting you "quite close",
For endless results of "nearly",
So on balance a flawed superbeing,
With aging but true good intent,
Is infinitely preferable to those,
That would help you spend your rent,
Though our cape flaps annoyingly,
And our colours are almost luminous,
We are honest to goodness superbeings,
And you can trust in us.
About the author:
John Fowler trained as a Mathematician and has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, much of the time in sales related functions. He now spends his time between being a partner in SEO Gurus and as a sales and management trainer for ICT companies. John can be contacted via http://www.seo-gurus.co.uk
Provide an additional channel for reaching your customers
Increase the ROI of your marketing investments
Significantly reduce your customer acquisition and marketing costs
Allow you to easily measure the impact of your marketing campaigns
Increase your customer participation and retention rates
With ongoing postal and telemarketing pressures impacting marketing
budgets for many organizations this year, email marketing could become the
"silver lining " for many marketers. But how do you create a successful
email marketing campaign if you do not have a substantial email database?
That question may be one of the largest Internet related challenges facing
companies this year.
Research shows that the majority of organizations have email addresses
for less than 10% of their postal files. So how do you level the playing
field and start to add quality permission - based email addresses to your
database?
Here are some tips that you can use to cost effectively build your
email address database and increase your customer participation and
retention rates:
START TO ASK FOR IT!
Every communication or touch point with a customer should start or end
with a request for an email address. By utilizing the four points below,
you should be able to add email addresses for 5% to 10% of your postal
file over the course of one year.
1. Direct Mail Collection
Think about how much time and money you spent for copy and design on
your last new direct mail piece. Most companies have started to ask their
customers for their email address information within these mailings. This
is a great step forward. However, companies need to look at one major
improvement if they want to increase their email address collection
rates.
To date, most requests for email address information have been pushed,
shoved or jammed into whatever white space remains. It should be no
surprise that the success rate has been less than stellar.
To improve on these efforts, you need to provide your members with a
reason to release their email addresses to you. E-newsletters, purchase
confirmations, petitions, and special discounts and offers are but a few
of the benefits that will encourage your members to come on board.
2. Web Page Collection
Many companies have an email address collection function in place via
the web. To improve your sign-up rates, add text below the email request
box that informs your visitors of the special email benefits that they
will receive (i.e. e-newsletters, purchase confirmations, delivery
updates, etc.) upon registering. You can also utilize a pop-up link to
inform users of these special benefits.
Finally, your email address request function should be available on
your home page. Don't make your users go and look for it. Every click
away from your home page reduces the chances of your users taking an
action and providing you with their email address information.
3. Existing Email Database Collection
Don't forget to ask the members of your existing customer base for
email addresses of their friends, family and associates. Viral marketing
is a powerful tool to use and is extremely cost effective! You could ask
them either to provide you with additional addresses or simply to pass on
your newsletter, email specific offers, or other information to others
they feel have similar interests.
4. Telemarketing Collection
Don't assume that your telemarketing agents are asking for email
addresses from potential customers. Ensure that your agents have an
updated script, which outlines the previously described benefits to
potential customers of providing their email addresses.
The suggestions above are a great start! Yet they really should be
viewed as a secondary plan for building your email database. To
exponentially and expeditiously grow your email database, please read on!
EMAIL APPENDING
Utilizing an email appending service enables you to add email addresses
for up to 25% of your postal file, all within 3-4 weeks.
Email Appending - is the process of adding an individual's email
address to that individual's postal record in side your existing
database. This is accomplished by matching the postal database against a
third party, permission based database of postal and email address
information.
Best Practices - Email Appending is not a prospecting tool. The DMA
(Direct Marketing Association) and its interactive arm AIM (Association of
Interactive Marketing) have guidelines in place that dictate that email
appending only be used to append email addresses to your existing opt-in
postal record house file.
The Process - Your opt-in postal file is securely transferred to an
email appending provider, who will do an initial gross email address match
of your file against its opt-in database of postal and email address
records. Your appending provider will then send these matches a
permission-based message prepared by you. All bounces and opt-out
requests will be removed from the list. At that point a valid
permission-based email address file of your customers will be delivered
back to you.
Cost - Less than the price of a postal stamp!
IN SUMMARY
The first step of any successful email marketing effort is to build a
permission-based email address list of your customers. The simplest,
quickest and most cost-effective way to do this is through email
appending, which will enable you to add email addresses for up to 25% of
your postal file. Secondary efforts of email address collection via
focused direct mail, web, viral and telemarketing practices are also
important and will enable you to add email addresses for an additional 5%
to 10% of your base on an annual basis.
Best of luck in building your email address database. As many
companies have already learned, the ROI and cost savings to be achieved
will far exceed your expectations.
Bill Kaplan
CEO
FreshAddress, Inc.
FreshAddress, Inc., The Email Address ExpertsTM, provides a
comprehensive suite of industry leading database and email deliverability
services to help companies increase their e-commerce revenues. For more
information on how we can help "Build and Update" your email list, visit
http://freshaddress.com/biz or email
biz@freshaddress.com.
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