The New Year is upon us, and what better time to take a fresh look at SEO best practices? No doubt you have big goals for 2013 — with that in mind, we’d like to share some of the pillars of lead generation through SEO:
By Paul Taylor, CEO, Webmarketing123
The New Year is upon us, and what better time to take a fresh look at SEO best practices? No doubt you have big goals for 2013 — with that in mind, we’d like to share some of the pillars of lead generation through SEO:
Understand Your Competition. Your competitive landscape directly affects the volume of other site results that would display in the search results for the particular term(s) you’re interested in. Greater competition for a specific term will make it more difficult to rank on the first page of the search engine results page (SERP).
To avoid being lost in the shuffle, hedge your bets with a variegated strategy that includes selecting a good mix of long-tail and short-tail keywords. By casting a wider net, you greatly improve your chances of ranking on the first page of the SERP for at least some of your chosen keywords.
How Many Keywords To Select? There’s certainly not a one-size-fits-all answer for this question. Your strategy should depend on the size of your site and the breadth of your product offering. That said, we recommend that for each page of your site, don’t exceed more than three to five keywords.
Diversify Keywords Across All Pages. Often, companies aspire to dominate one or two keywords they feel are core to their business. While this may feel like the intuitive thing to do, don’t fall into this trap as it’s a sure-fire way to confuse the Google spider and hurt your site’s ranking. Rather than hone in on one or two main keywords, your goal should be to build a content-driven theme across the pages of your site to guide the spider crawls methodically throughout your content.
Keep It Fresh! Stale content ranks poorly in search results, so it is especially beneficial to show the spiders that you update your site with fresh content on a regular basis. Blogging and sharing company/industry news are great ways to keep your web site content fresh with very little effort. After all, you’re probably doing this already and if you’re not, make this one of your resolutions for the new year.
Build A Roadmap For Web Site Content. When you’re mapping out your future blog posts and web site updates, keep your keyword cloud in mind. Make sure the content you’re developing for the web site revolves around keywords that are important to your business, and that will help you rank highly in search results. You may find that your content naturally maps to your chosen keywords, but it’s a great exercise in making sure that your web site content supports your keyword strategy, and vice versa.
Headlines Make The Difference. When creating blog content, remember that your headline serves two purposes. First and foremost, the headline is what grabs the reader’s attention and entices him or her to read on. Second (and almost as important), always include your most powerful keywords in the headline. Keyword placement makes a big difference. It even makes a difference where you place the keywords within the headline; if possible, front load your most important keywords.
Put It All Together. None of this is rocket science, but when your organization follows these guidelines, they can have a dramatic impact. You should encourage these practices within your internal team, as well as with any partners you engage to help with Internet marketing.
Follow these SEO basics, and you’ll be pleased with the results you see in 2013. Good luck and Happy New Year!
Paul Taylor founded Webmarketing123 in 2004 and continues to direct the company’s overall strategy and manage its operations. An Inc. 500 company, Webmarketing123 helps clients improve SEO, PPC, and Social Media Marketing performance, and delivers measurable results. Prior to founding Webmarketing123, Paul was a Vice President and General Manager at AT&T Wireless, and a Management Consultant with Bain and Company.
