Lots of individuals and companies now recognise the importance of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for their businesses. Since Web sites are one of the most important tools in Internet marketing, having their pages rank high in Google's search results can have an enormous effect on their businesses, specifically on profitability and customer recall.
In order for your Web site to be fully optimised, you you have the option to hire a professional SEO writer or avail of the services of a company that specialises in Search Engine Optimisation. However, if you want to save on funds and are a capable writer anyway, you may also opt to do the job yourself. Here are some tips that can help you achieve a higher rank in Google, possibly even among the top 10 spots in the first page of the search results.
Tip 1: Know the right keywords
The first and most important step in writing for SEO is to know the right keywords to incorporate in your articles. This means you must do some research. Ask yourself: what are the keywords that your potential customers will type when they are searching for your particular products and services? Bear in mind that keywords may not either be one word or more. They may even be a string of words that will make up a keyword phrase. In most cases, keyword phrases are more effective, since it narrows down the specific product or service that a customer is looking for and, therefore, eliminates unnecessary search results.
The good news is, there are tools online related to SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) that lists down the keywords that come up in specific Web searches. These sites will give you specific data about how popular certain keywords and key phrases may be. Just remember that the more popular a keyword is, the greater the number of Web sites which are using it to optimize their Web content. This means you will face a lot of competition in vying for an ideal position in search engine results. Perhaps you may be better off choosing keywords that are not as popular as the others, but are still related and relevant to your site and your business.
Tip 2: Position words strategically in your content
After determining which keywords will work for you, the next important step in SEO is to incorporate them effectively in your content. This can be tricky, because you have to 'convince' Google that your content is relevant to the keywords that you selected. It is not just a simple matter of repeating a keyword over and over again in your article. There are rules that you have to follow when it comes to spreading around keywords or keyword phrases in your content.
Some of these basic rules are as follows:
- Put your keywords in headings and assign them at the very beginning of these heading
- Make your keywords features at the top portion of your page
- Bold letters and italicisation are very effective tools; hence, apply these to your keywords whenever possible and appropriate.
- Linking keywords - another important rule is to link pages using your keywords. Instead of using the common phrase "Click here to read more," you can use text that includes your keywords as a link. In this case, you can say, "Read more SEO tips" if, say, your keyword was 'SEO'
All this may sound a wee bit tedious for those doing SEO for the first time, but rest assured that it will pay big dividends once your optimised pages land on the top ranks in Google searches.