Search engines are the web's most used means of driving traffic to
websites, and knowledge of search engine marketing is essential to anybody
wanting to succeed online. However, knowledge of blogging techniques is also
instrumental in gaining you a high position in the search engine listings for
your chosen keyword.
Sure, you can promote your
site in many ways and there are more ways than a top listing on a
search engine to drive traffic to your website, but there is nothing to beat a
top ten listing on Google or one of the other major search engines such as Ask,
Yahoo or MSN to provide you with consistent sustained traffic day after day
after day.
It is not difficult to get listed in a search engine, but it's not so
easy to be listed in that all-important top 20 position. The top 10 is the
ideal, but if you are listed on one of the first two pages of a major search
engine, then the traffic will come to you. That is guaranteed. Naturally, the
higher you are listed the better, and you will do an awful lot better on the
first page than on the second, but if the best you can do is page three then you
are going to need a lot more than search engines to help you attract business.
So what are the main essentials of search engine marketing? You have two
objectives, the first being to get listed and the second to reach the top 20. It
is easy, as I stated earlier, to get listed on a search engine. Many design
their site, submit it to Google and then wait for the Google Dance, when Google
carries out its World Wide Web search for websites.
Forget that: do not submit your site to Google or any of the other search
engines because that can delay your listing. Instead do one of two things. The
best is to write a few articles on the topic of your website and submit them to
the top article directories. If you can't write, or if English is not your main
language, then use an article ghostwriter. There are plenty people online
offering article services at good rates.
Google and the rest frequently visit the higher ranked article directories and
will pick up on the link to your website in your 'author's resource', or bio.
When they find your site, you get listed, and that can happen in less than 24
hours. That is the main way, but the other is blogs. Add a blog to your site,
and it will soon be listed. Google, especially, likes blogs, particularly if it
is a Blogger blog, since Blogger is owned by Google. You are virtually
guaranteed a listing. If you are not too keen on Blogger, you can switch once
your site has been listed. Wordpress is arguably the most versatile blogging
software available at the moment, especially if you are running it from your own
web space.
Don't forget that search engines list each page separately, and so each
page should be optimized separately. However, you should initially focus on your
index page, since it is that page which almost invariably gets listed highest.
Once your site does have a reasonably high listing, it is possible that another
page could get listed higher than your index page, although this is not
generally the case.
You can then post a blog on the topic of the page and add new postings on a
regular basis. You should also include a link to your blog from your web pages
and a link on your blog sidebar to your website. This will enhance the
probability of your home web page being listed, as it also will your blog, since
your blog can also be listed on Google and other search engines.
There are some simple things that you can do to make your index page more
attractive to the search engines. Bear in mind that your listing is for one
search term only, as used by someone seeking information related to the topic of
your page. You can receive another listing for another search term (or keyword)
on a different index. So, what you must do is to determine the best keyword for
which to optimize your index page.
Once you have decided that, include it in the title of your page and place the
title in 'title' tags. Try to make the title a bit longer than your keyword, so
if your keyword is, say, 'lock design', make the title 'The History of Lock
Design', for example. The main heading for the page need not be the same, but
should also contain your keyword. A good heading, for example, would be 'Lock
Design from the 18th Century'. Place that in H1 tags to tell the search engine
algorithm that the heading contains important text relating to your web page.
There are many other ways in which you can optimize your web page to make it
more relevant to the search term, and the more relevant the search engine deems
it, then the higher the listing in the index for that specific keyword. Blogging
can enhance the effect of your SEO, and not only improve your listing position,
but also be listed itself, thus providing even more traffic to your website. Search engine marketing
involves a good knowledge of search engines and how they work, but if you get it
right then the rewards can be very high in terms of traffic highly targeted to
your product. The problem is, unless you know how, or have the right advice from
people who know what they are talking about rather than trying to sell you a
service, then it takes a long time to learn.
