User Friendly Optimisation of Your Website Content for Google Love
OK Here I want to get into some of the nitty gritty of search engine optimisation for your website, which I have been implementing little by little over the past year, since starting my blog with the help of a Judo and SEO partnership, who go by the name of Ferny and Ray of SEO Networker. (That’s this pair of masters of manoeuvrings in the picture here! Seriously, you want to listen to these guys!)
So, first off, I want to offer my linkiest love toFerny Ceballos and Ray Fongfor their no-nonsense, easy to learn approach to teaching on the subject of SEO. (Let’s face it, when I run into them one day, I want to be on their good side! ; D )
I am no techy gal – although I am working on my propellor headset in my home office work-shop daily and Ray and Ferny graduated as techy types and should probably be developing a franchise on serious head-kit!
To give some of you technophobes some comfort here, before starting my own blog, I knew basic Microsoft software applications for general office use. You know: Word, Excel, Outlook and even a bit of powerpoint. OK for some, even that is pretty advanced, but I became confident to learn new techy skills only through a history of continually learning something new over the years. I grew professionally alongside Microsoft’s evolution from about Version 3.0 (in fact I learnt about computers when they were still analogue with black screens and lovely green text in the early days!). Apple is still a mystery to me!
Trust me when I say there are still occasionally days when I want to launch my lap top out of the window. Nevertheless, it is crucial to stay ahead of the competition online if you are serious about building your business empire from your home. These days though mainly I get a lot of actual FUN out of learning something new that simplifies work I do or enhances it in some way. (Simple pleasures like getting the gap right between image and text for instance! lol) Seriously, though I am just constantly amazed at how simple solutions can be these days to do extraordinary things in terms of speaking to complete strangers on the other side of the world, just because you learnt some new tool today… I love it…even the stuff that still foxes me!
So today, I am going to start to really focus on my SEO. ( I go into the reasons why this is important in previous blogs on this site and if you need any more reasons, click the links in this blog to SEO Networker for the big picture.
Today’s blog is a lead on from my own learning about the importance of search engine optimised KEY WORDS for attracting website traffic and making Google rank you as popular and relevant with the online answer seeker. Learning the SEO of keywords was my first hook into the technical side of how our web-site content links with the spiders on Mars (Bowie was always ahead of his time, right?!) For further information on Key Word Optimisation, check out my blogs and articles on key word optimisation.
So now, let’s look at your web-pages from Google’s perspective… you need Google love as much as website crowd worship, after all if you want to rank in that top half of the search results, you need to give the Gods of google good reason to rank you as worth loving.
So your starting point for entering the mysterious nether world of technical stuff, is that you need to be aware that in the code used on your website – HTML -there are particular structures and elements of your site picked out for special Google attention i.e. it is in this structure and language that your site is broken down for Google to check over in its preferred way to see if you are worthy.
So today’s learning is about How To Use Keywords in HTML generated structures such as:
Title Tags : Definition – on the search engine results page when a seeker types in their search terms, the TITLE TAG is the BOLD heading (title) in each of the page listings which show up. ( It is also what appears at the top of your page when the seeker clicks through to you; it is situated in the browser.) It is what the searcher sees at the very top of the page, confirming the logical progression from their findings in their search, so they know they are in the right place. Try it for yourself… I would put in graphics here, but Jing just changed the rules on me, so for now at least if you see the top of this page, you might see ‘Be Do Have People’ at the very top of your screen.
Meta descriptions: i.e. your sub-heading / description / page or site big (meta) overview, which tells the seeker more of what they can expect if they click through onto your site. This sits below your title tag, described above. The point here is to make this COMPELLING with your key words. What you are aiming for is to generate interest here to get the click through. With plug ins such as AllInOneSEOPlugin, you can begin to get some more flexibility and control on your Title Tags and Meta Descriptions.
Header tags (H1, H2 and H3 Tags). The H1 is the big attention grabbing headline at the top of the page you click through to E.G. “The SIX BIG SECRETS OF SEO MY UPLINE NEVER KNEW UNTIL RAY AND FERNY THREW THEIR HEAVY-WEIGHT SCIENCE TRAINING AROUND IN AUTOMATING MARKETING ONLINE – you get the picture… Self-explanatory, then that H2 and H3 are sub headers drawing the reader into the ‘sales page’ and further into a sales funnel.
Spread key words throughout all of the above structures and over pages in articles and content. Now, this is both ART and SCIENCE. Don’t stuff your pages with lots of different terms. Each page can focus on ONE word or up to five, but NO MORE. The aim is to rank your page for that key term. Increasing the key terms to up to five spreads the risk, but also dilutes impact.
Get up to ten keywords which are relevant for your site Insert these terms as naturally as possible, spreading them into your page contents (Go after one key term per page). The point of doing this is that the flow of reading throughout your site will seem natural. If the reader’s experience of reading is not smoothly transitioning them to act on your information, Google will know how little time your visitor spends with you and your quality score is effected.
You see, here’s a little known secret, that only the geeks over at the Google HQ and their cousins at Bing and Yahoo whisper to each other about. It’s all about the LOVE! If your visitor is liking spending time with you, then their match-making has all been successful. Search Engine bots want to see you getting on with your new friends and lovers!
Fortunately, WordPress makes Search Engine Optimisation basics easy with features such as Tags and and allowing you to classify your content into subcategory of topics. WordPress developers are also romantics at heart under those sturdy anoraks you see…
Now, from listening to these gurus of Search Engine Love, my site includes All in One SEO plugin; this plugin makes putting in Title Tags and Meta Descriptions easy on WordPress blog (in fact they are not even described in these terms; the plug in is VERY user friendly. This was one of the greatest techy plugin tips I got from one training session with Ferny and Ray.
On Page Organisation: Another element of your ‘On-Page Optimisation‘. SEO Networker takes you through the steps to making it easy to navigate and link to form outside, because of your set up internally on your site. The important thing here is to organise your pages neatly always with your least techy user in mind. Make movement around your site EASY and ACCESSIBLE. People do not want to work too hard. Your website blog page categories for instance narrow the focus e.g. Network Marketing Training may be your main theme; then sub-topics can include: advertising, industry news, lead generation, companies, background or context / tools, etc.
Organise for Google spiders and your human readers i.e. Be USER FRIENDLY TO CUSTOMERS! If Google, Yahoo and Bing know your market, you will also be listed for more keywords as reward for your attention to detail here. Your website should reflect your market, so your articles and pages will show up for more terms.
The bottom line is that people will find what they are looking for because your navigation links are made easier and spend more time on your site and even send links.
The second part of your SEO learning is not just about attracting traffic, but also that all important income generation function of your web-site; you need to consider is how to CONVERT the visitor with a compelling Opt In offer once you have their attention. You want people to value your content and find it easier to take steps as they do their research on your web-site, with your well-written and connected content which gives them the confidence to then take the next step towards getting out their credit card…
Link Building: If monetising your visitor is one return on investment of time spent on SEO set up, then Link Love from fans is another pay off you are looking for. Linking is like digital voting i.e. this is how people want to link to you and so Google ranks you higher; it’s a bit like paying Google for Pay Per Click advertisements, only you are FREELY rewarded for the number of links you are granted by your fans.
Google spiders crawl links from e.g. your social media profile, article directories, website partnerships. So aim to GET MORE VOTES or TESTIMONIALS. Google thinks this is a social thing happening because you are popular and rewards you with Google love… (ranking)
Aim to get a mixture of artificial and natural votes. Google puts wight on links differentially. (Social media, other website, article directory, etc.). Consider: Where is the link pointing to? Is the link relevant to the page it points to? So, for instance at one time George Bush used to rank for a ‘Miserable Failure’ , because of external links in anchor text, but the link needs to be relevant these days, as Google now considers this. Other factors Google takes into account are: Is it a reciprocal link? Did you trade links? One way links are better than two way, but reciprocal links are still good.
Anchor Text and Destination; the clickable link should use your RELEVANT keyword and take the viewer to your relevant page. Your goal is to point to most relevant web page, as I have done elsewhere in this blog. If the subject is generic, point to your home page; this is ok. For more specific topics, point the anchor link to a specific page. Insertion of links to generate click through, without making them relevant risks click back and Google penalising you.
Quality Links: Your aim needs to be to get quality links form a related website. Partner up with e.g. an multi-level marketing news blog, i.e. so there is not competition. Agree to share content on each others sites. How this works is to perhaps publish an article onto someone’s site and then put an anchor link back to your pages.
Publish content externally on article directories, press release sites, or Squidoo. Put two or three links if possible in there pointing back to your pages. There are thousands of directories to choose from, publish on multiple directories. When it comes to MLM there is not much competition out there in this field.
Social Media Links: Aim to achieve Syndication via social media channels; this provides an opportunity to create links back. So for instance, utilise: You tube, digg.com, delicious.com. ShareThis.com Publish content and link to website. Give people an opportunity to share your content.
LEARN TO USE WIDGETS such as social bookmarks on your site. Yes this requires copying and pasting code, but for WordPress blogs it’s simple.
TODAY’S IMPLEMENTATION ACTION STEPS: Research and fix any widget issues on blog for syndication. Take a look at All In One SEO plugin or others out there which automate some of the techy processes for you. See if other bloggers rank the plugins before you install as I have learnt form painful experience that some drastically alter the functioning of your computer…
Next: Organise your content neatly. Start to set up your Categories on your WordPress Blog and Sub-Categories.
Put these tasks into some kind of schedule if you are a bit hap hazard or lacksadaisical on this front.On my ‘RememberTheMilk’ memo’s to me, I schedule ‘Widget Wednesday’ to tackle the techier side of web-mastery. That way, I remember to do something I might otherwise avoid, but giving it a user friendly name and regular slot in my week, it will get done…
Let me know how you get on : ) I’d be interested to know whether men and women favour taking on which tasks first. Try to move out of your comfort zone and do the trickier one first then reward yourself with the apparently easier one. (Having done a tonne of administrative roles over the years, tidying up is too easy for me; it’s the techier side I find more challenging!) Have Fun!If it isn’t fun yet, commit to learning from the guys at SEO Networker who know how to teach SEO in an easy to learn way!
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