YourNetBiz – SEO in a Recession
Going back 4 years, my online businesses used to 100% rely on Google AdWords for traffic and on an average for every £1,000 spend on advertising I could expect to see a return of £10,000. Unfortunately, with the sign of the times and the recession setting in peoples spending patterns have changed and from Google being a ‘gold mine’ of new business; it has turned into a potential business ruiner, taking money every month with no guaranteed results.
So What are the alternatives?
Many people hit a brick wall when Google AdWords is taken out of the equation. YourNetBiz is a great example; going back 12 months ago there used to be a core of marketers spending in excess of £2,000 per week and getting a very good return. As the competition got more and the sales dipped a little they actually priced themselves out of the market, couldn’t afford to advertise on Google and just disappeared! Where are they now?
SEO is key to any business which is after long term exposure and although its not as instant as the AdWords route, it means that if its done right you will get exposure 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. I must say at this point it does take a little while to get a good ranking, especially in a competitive industry, but the rewards are endless.
Knowing your SEO
I’ve seen people running round in circles ‘optimizing’ their website and getting nowhere. Before you start down the SEO route it is advisable to do your research into what helps your ranking. Google is the worlds top search engine because of the results it returns are relevant to what the user is searching for. Google use over 200 different criteria to decide the importance of your site and rank it accordingly.
Website Architecture is one of the most neglected areas yet one of the most important. I have seen people working so hard to try to get ranking on a badly written site which has ignored all of the rules. When designing your site you should always SEO is kept in mind at all times. Following are just 10 things to consider when putting together your website:
Site Map – Add a site map to your website. This aids in the crawling of the site by the Google bots. Ensure that each page title reflects the content of the individual page – do not use the same description on all the pages Ensure that you MAIN search keywords are included in your page description and title. Write your page content for the user in mind BUT try to include your main keyword or phrase as a total of 3% – 4% of the page content (keyword density) Create a Google sitemap for your site. Use keywords and phrases in your page names… eg: business-review.com. DO NOT use ONLY java or images for your site… Google can only take information from site text. NEVER NEVER use duplicate content used on another website… write original text always as Google will penalize you if it is copied! Use the tags on images… this describes your image in text and can help accessibility and ranking. Check your site time and time again to make sure there are no broken links of missing images.
Increasing your Page Rank
Page rank in essence is how important and liked your site is on the net on a rating from 0 – 10; 10 being the best. Once your site has been optimized, it will be the page rank that will push your site to the front page of Google. Google calculates this on a few different basis such as the age of the domain and backlinks. Backlinks are links from an external site back to your own, in essence a ‘vote’ or a recommendation for someone to visit your webpage.
More back links you get then better page rank you will be allocated.. although, getting backlinks from high ‘page ranked’ sites will aid you more and will help you achieve a higher page rank yourself. With this in mind, remember its about the QUALITY of the link that can really make the difference.
There are many sites where you are able to gain some of this ‘Google Juice’ to increase your page rank, however, many sites opt a ‘no follow’ tag. This means that although your link is on their website you will gain no recognition from Google. A great example of this is Facebook which has a high ranking (page rank 7) and a link from here to your website will not be counted by Google.
In Summary
If you want your website ranked high in Google then DO NOT RUSH into it. Remember, there are other people also wanting that 1st page ranking! Although this is the case, by taking your time, planning your site and consistently working on little bits to help your rank, you will get there in the end. This will not happen overnight but by keeping at it will ensure long term success.