If you have a website, chances are your goal is to use it to generate more business. One of the most effective and affordable ways to do so is to market your business via search engines using search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a technique used by webmasters to get top placement on Google and other search engines for keywords that their target market are using to locate businesses like theirs.
Whether or not your website gets top placement is determined by two factors, the first being the relevance of your website as it relates to the keyword search. Your relevance is determined by the following items on your website, which should be addressed during your website design. If you don’t have them, you’re killing your website chances of getting top placement on the search engines, and garnering qualified traffic that could generate leads and sales for your business.
1. Your website has no page titles or the page titles don’t have any keywords included in them
Websites, that say “untitled” or the name of the page such as “Home”, “about us” in the web browser, or simply list the name of your company is not helping your website, it’s killing your chances of getting top placement on Google. It is one of the most important things on your website that Google and other search engines evaluate to determine what your page is all about, you must add keywords or phrases to be relevant to Google. When creating your page titles keep it short, about 70 characters.
2. Your page url does not include any keywords
Including keywords at the end of your page url is just one of the ways Google and other search engines determine the relevance of your webpage. Therefore it should be setup in this format www.yourwebsiteaddress.com/keyword-phrase translation www.captivatedesigns.com/professional-website-design.
3. Your website pages don’t have page descriptions
Your website’s page description is its sales copy when someone finds your website online. It is the first two sentences that you see when a website shows up on the search engines. It is what will determine whether someone clicks on your link or your competitors, depending on whether or not they like what they read. Therefore each web page should have a unique page description.
4. Your website headlines don’t have any keywords either
Much like newsletter headlines are important to sell newspapers, your website headlines tells Google what your webpage is all about, and whether or not it is relevant to the search. Therefore it is important to include the keywords that you want to come up for in search engines in your website headlines and make sure you make it bold using h1 tags.
5. Your page content has no keywords
By adding keywords in your website content, it also tells the search engine that your website is relevant to the search. It is said that you should repeat keywords as often as you can, keeping in mind your readers as well. You should add one keyword for every fifty (50) words in your website text.
6. Your website is image based
Images are great for making your website look attractive but if your website is only image based, it’s another sign that you are killing your chances of getting found by the search engines. If you are going to use images on your website, ensure that you optimize them by adding an alt tag, which describes the image so that Google and other search engines can read it.
7. Your website is 100% flash based
Search engines cannot read flash, so if your website is flash then you at a disadvantage to your competitors’ right from the start. If you must use flash in your website, try a flash header, this will allow the rest of your website to be html based so that search engines can read your text to determine its relevance.
If you are looking to get new business from your website and anyone of the above signs are present, you need to get it fixed right away, some content management systems will allow you to do it on your own, or you may need to have a web designer handle it for you, or in the case of a 100% flash based or image based website you might want to consider a website redesign. Getting found on Google could mean big boost for your business.