DesignFirms Article - Here are some SEO tips

By: Robert at Seller's Bay Web Design

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2006-12-03 -- Content is King
Your web site should be updated at least monthly. Many web sites are built and then left for years before any modifications are made. Not making modifications can have several negative effects on the traffic to your web site. If you offer a service, this is even more important as most people will check you out on the Internet before hiring you. Visitors will not come back if your site stays the same and there is nothing new to see on it. Search engines can recognize if a site is being updated regularly and if the content is useful they will rank it higher. Relevant content is known to partially determine where search engines place your web site. in search results. Web sites with relevant, up to date and useful content will attract both live visitors and search engines. Make your site a place that people will use as a resource on your subject. For example if you are a law firm, then you should provide free legal advice and tips. This will draw traffic to your site and keep them coming back when they are looking for more advice on that subject. They may even bookmark your site, link to it or tell a friend about it.

Link Exchange
Every web site should have some way for other similar web sites to exchange links. The reason this is important is that search engines such as Google.com will give a higher page rank to sites that have lots of quality, relevant links pointing at it. Chances are if you type in the keywords you want to rank high under then the top ten results will have high page ranks. This is one of the most important things that need to be improved.

Directory Listing to Improve Traffic and Page Rank
Most likely you have noticed that when you enter a keyword in to Google.com’s search box the top results are usually directories of that subject. For example if you type in Law Firm, you will come up with mixed results consisting of several directories and Web sites. These directories are very good to list in because they target your audience and have high traffic. This is particularly important and useful for service based businesses because the people looking in these directories will be able to drill down to the exact area and business type they are looking for. If you are not one of the listings when they drill down to your business area then your competitors are getting valuable leads that could have been yours. Also, listing your site creates a one way external link to your web site. from a high PR web site. with a good rank under your subject which are the exact type of links you want. To find a good directory simply type in the keywords you are looking for such as Law Firm and you will find several. Always advertise in the ones that appear in the search results and not in the paid listings also known as pay per click as they could only be temporarily listed and disappear after you have paid for your listing.

Subject Specific Entry Pages
This is one of the most important things a data-driven ecommerce web site needs to do in order to maintain traffic. Most database Web sites do not list well because the search engines rely on actual content and a database site pulls all of its content dynamically from a database on the fly and it does not appear to search engine spiders. They will not index them and move on to other pages. It is recommended that you create several HTML pages that list your products and have links to all the main sections along with pages targeting your main products or you can purchase and install LinkFreeze or a similar program to make your web addresses look static.

Pay Per Click
There are many pay per click advertising agencies online who charge a fee each time someone clicks your ad. Two of the main PPC services are Google Ad Words and Yahoo’s Overture. I recommend trying the free SEO tactics first and then PPC, or a combination of both, but never just PPC as this is not cost effective.

Forum
Building a forum on your web site can help your traffic and increase repeat customers. A forum is a place where people can post messages to each other after signing up. They are normally subject specific. If done correctly they can get quite large and create enough traffic to enable the site to charge for advertisers.

Newsletter
A newsletter is normally subject specific and will attract the customers you want because they signed up for the services or information you are offering. After sign up they will receive information on the subject they chose and you can advertise in these emails and create repeat customers. For example; if a software developer has 200 people sign up for his newsletter they are probably mostly programmers interested in future updates in software and it will be much easier to sell to them than to try to get new clients/customers. It is always easier to sell to your current customers/clients than to sell to new ones. Newsletters can be a major part of any online business if done correctly and maintained effectively. You can sell updates to your products, new products or services. But make sure that the content is very useful to the reader or they will stop opening the emails as they arrive, or cancel all together.

Site Pal
Site Pal is a new service that provides animated figures that talk to your customers while they are on your web site. This can be very effective for some types of web site that have lots of pages and links on the front page. The talking character can direct the visitor to the most important features on your web site and it also is a neat trick which they will probably tell someone about.

Meta Tags
Meta Tags are not as important as they used to be it seems. However, they are still recommended for all Web sites. The title tag is very important especially on Google’s search engine. It is recommended that a professional optimize your web site as it is a complex process requiring many hours of study.