Improving Your Website
Creating a productive website does not require more flash or more pictures. A great website requires simple navigation and great content.
Content that is interesting to your visitors, and eye catching for search engines. The challenge is to find a balance between the two different audiences.
Search engines like lots of copy, containing key words, repeatedly if possible. You readers, with serious attention deficit want you to get to the point quickly.
The key is to be sure you know the very best phases. One tool you can use to find a starting point for word selection in your copy is the keyword tool from Google Ad Words. Simply type in a phrase you believe clients will use when looking for your type of business and the tool will provide a series of phrases, and how often they are used when by consumers searching for you.
For example: I selected “small business marketing” and discovered “marketing strategy” was searched significantly more often – on average 201,000 times a month, and “small business ideas” a phrase I have never deliberately used, is searched more than 20,000 times a month. While not the most popular, it has a steady following, and would be interesting to add to the mix!
The lesson for you? Take the time to reserach the best key words, and include them in your writing. Don’t over do it with text which reads like this: Small business marketing strategy should include novel ideas for small business owners, which expand their current small business marketing activites. While the engines will love it, your readers won’t!
One great tool that i’ve found for analyzing the keywords on our corporate site is a keyword density tool such as this one. http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-density/ it really helps you see which words and phrases you’re using (or overusing). For my purposes, the ideal density for any given terms should be no more than 5%, and google will probably cut you off (i.e. blacklist your site) if you’re anywhere above 7%.
Colin,
Thanks so much for the link. I had a huge wake up call when I ran the tool for my website. I have a lot of work to do on my copy of the next few months to improve my usage. I am not over using my key phrases: small business marketing strategy. I am not using them anywhere near enough!