SEO isn’t a blinkered process. Or at least it certainly shouldn’t be. There’s no textbook answer for every problem. You can’t just optimise a site based on your assumed words and phrases either. A website is there to appeal to targeted visitors; therefore, it isn’t too much of a stretch to assume that you first have to target those visitors.

As a website owner or a search engine marketer you sometimes have to bow to a higher power. In any instance, the highest possible power is always your next potential customer. Therefore there are a number of things that you have to ask yourself when it comes to optimising a site; these include:

What are my visitors actually searching for?

It’s all well and good having your own specialist terms to describe your business, but if searchers have something else in mind, you’ll find yourself barking up the wrong tree. In SEO terms, that means a distinct lack of traffic, regardless of decent rankings.

For this reason, doing in-depth keyword research from the outset is a must. If your jargon isn’t going to pick up traffic, then don’t use it (or at least avoid optimising for it). Make it easy for your visitors to find you, even if that does mean going against your gut instinct.

What do my visitors actually want to see?

The written language is subjective. One person’s Shakespearian masterpiece is another’s confusing nonsense. Not all your visitors will be as knowledgeable as you are about the products and services you offer. By using phrases they don’t understand, you could be alienating them from the outset.

Therefore you need to write in a manner that can be universally understood. Don’t complicate your language or structure for the sake of it. If complicated terms are necessary, then provide straightforward explanations nearby. Content is there to provide search engines with context and visitors with comfort. People need to be reassured online that you can be trusted. To do this they need clear information and straightforward instructions – ‘Click here to buy’.

How often should I be using keywords?

Keywords are the poisoned chalice of SEO. In the past, rankings were almost entirely decided by a high keyword density. Not anymore. Search engines can gauge the context of a page from just a few keywords and synonyms. By going overboard you will disrupt the flow of your content, making it difficult for visitors to understand.

When writing content for a website, your primary objective is to make it both readable and emotive for visitors. Remove the shackles of SEO momentarily and write naturally with just a cautionary eye on your keywords. The frequency with which you use these terms might just be a few percent, just get one in early and allow the others to slip in where needed on each page.

How can I get visitors to convert?

A call to action is a valuable part of any page. It provides a clear instruction for visitors to follow, should they wish to contact you or make a purchase. The clearer this is, the better your chances of converting. Sometimes this is done through a simple ‘Call this number for more information’ or ‘click here to buy’; on other occasions you can use text links to guide them through your site to the money pages.

Anchored text links are perfect for SEO. They give more context to the page and also show the visitor what to expect. If you want people to visit your money pages, you have to make it as clear and simple as possible. Don’t populate your page with confusing or contradictory links. Just use them where needed and ensure that they are in-keeping with the rest of the page, particularly when used in the body copy itself.

What more can I do to optimise?

Search engine optimisation doesn’t have a cut-off point. There is never going to be a stage where there is no work left to be done. Even if a page is converting, it can always do better. Keywords need to be regularly researched to ensure that the site is in line with current search trends. Content can always be refreshed to make it more user-friendly and search engine friendly. If some pages didn’t have your full attention at the outset, revisit them and make improvements.

What more can I do for my visitors?

Well, even if your site appears to be complete, there can still be small issues that could be deterring visitors. Split testing is a good way to highlight any such flaws. This simple process diverts half your traffic to one version of a page and the other half to a revised option. Using analytics you can then see which version converted better. This way you can test changes without ever having to entirely restructure your site; therefore you won’t be affecting usability for your visitors.

Ultimately, SEO is about improving search engine performance. But this should never be done to the detriment of usability. Visitors are the lifeblood for any site. Ignoring them in the pursuit for rankings would be self-defeating. Conversions outweigh rankings every time, but you do need visibility.

Therefore you have to follow SEO best practices to get yourself positioned on the search engines. But make sure that the site has plenty to offer when visitors do find you. Be open to change and don’t be afraid to test, even if everything seems fine. It’s a continuous process of refinement and improvement, so don’t be perturbed if things change at a glacial pace.

Author Bio

Steve Logan is a Copywriter for leading Hampshire SEO Company Impact Media. They offer a full range of search marketing solutions including expert SEO services, PPC management and of course website copywriting services.

It will be interesting to see what site (if any) appears on this in the coming weeks. I think this would have been an excellent buy for one of the mid level players. Not one of the main networks, but one of the bigger resellers with tv/newspaper exposure such as Dialaphone etc.

One thing about the auction – I think it was a particularly poor idea to have the auction ending at around midnight UK time – surely Sedo should have put the auction forward/back to end in the middle of the business day in the UK?

These 5 Tools will help you efficiently use your web marketing time and achieve SEO success in a manageable way:

1. Open Site Explorer The SEO masters at SEOmoz.com launched this site in January of 2010 and instantly made a splash. This tool was clearly made by SEO-ers for SEO-ers. You can gather expert analysis on your own page, as well as collect data and info on your competitors in a side-by-side format.When looking for new directories or links to pursue, I check with my competitors to see where they found links…and then go get ‘em. You can build your overall domain authority, while neutralizing your competitor’s advantage. But be aware, they’re probably doing it too.
2. Google Alerts My work load is cut in half by Google Alerts. I can monitor my link acquisition as well as valuable news to Tweet through a daily sampling of well-organized emails from Google. Get creative with this well-organized email service and you can have most of your daily research waiting in your inbox before you get your morning cup of coffee.
3. TweetDeck SEO is all about staying organized and connected. TweetDeck is perfect for both of these goals. By parsing out your followees into different columns, you can digest your daily stream at your pace and will more relevance. I keep my celebrities and sports figures in one column, and my work contacts in another so I’m able to keep my focus as the day goes on.
4. WordTracker (Free version)When starting your SEO campaign, it’s important to collect a reasonable and relevant list of keywords to target. These keywords will dictate your activity over the next few months. From which anchor text to use, to which directories to submit to, your target list of keywords is vital to a successful campaign. This tool can help you find relevant keywords around a service or product you offer. WordTracker can also be used to build upon your campaign after your satisfied with the rankings of your initial list. Keep focused on constantly optimizing your campaigns.
5. BlogPulse.com This web application helps the SEO pro track the pulse of the web. By partnering with the polling giant Nielson, this tool can help you write blog posts and tweets to attract the coveted attention of the “Linkerati” on the web. Enough of this attention evolves into link exposure and link-juice.

Ultimately, your daily SEO efforts need to be organized and measureable. By relying on these suite of tools, you’ll be able to track your SEO impact and show clients the tasty fruit of your labor.

This may sound a little confusing at the moment, so allow me to clear it all up for you.  Many people (If that’s what you can call SEO’s) believe that varying anchor text like “France holidays, Holidays in France, Holidays to France” all represent the same term.  However when you search for these terms you will more than likely find your site ranking in different positions.  So how can these terms all mean the same thing if where you appear in Google for each of these terms varies?  In truth the answer is relatively simple; the competition for each of these terms is much stronger and more aggressive for select search terms. 

At this point in time however, we have not truly established if there is a difference between terms like these (only that some sites go after others more aggressively).  In essence they do mean the same thing, so Google must be able to associate them with each other.  Several terms with fillers like “in, on, to” do not really mean anything unless they are connected to other text, and when used with other text, most of the time mean the same thing.  Google however is very good at spotting Spam (some believe not) and can track anchor text in Links.  If a pattern starts to occur, sometimes our websites can be punished for this, so using varied anchors could show Google that your page is generating more natural back links.   

When SEO’s Link build they concentrate time and power on one term, this could in time become a mistake.  Links like these are very easy to track, if they are all the same they are usually being created by the same person (although this may not apply to Brand names, but that is a different matter).  Using different terms suggests that others could be linking to your website (just as many people would normally link to your site using the standard URL format). 

You can get yourself a highly trusted link from a site with a pagerank 8 homepage for absolutely no cost – and you get to support a charity whilst doing it.

Sounds good? Well all you need to do is head over to Kiva.org and sign up for an account. Kiva is an organisation that partners up with entrepeneurs in the 3rd world, giving them loans to set themselves up in business.

This is where you come in – you just need to create a profile, choose one lender and give them a minimum of $25. Once you have done this, you will be able to add a backlink to your profile.

This money will go towards setting someone up in business. Whether its to set up a fruit stall in Liberia or to help fund a flour selling business in Togo, you will get the cash returned to you in full once the person you are helping is in profit.

Its an absolutely brilliant system – you make one small payment which you get back later anyway, and you know you have helped make a massive change to a families quality of life.

You can check out an example profile with a link in it here.

So why not do a good deed today, head on over to Kiva and get a little thank you backlink into the bargain!

If you are interested in getting more details, please fill in the contact form below.

We decided to list our site on business.com (listing page here). Seems they have ever so helpfully decided to change our listing title from optimiSation to optimiZation – even although the correct version is in our url.

We are a UK Company, we offer optimisation, not optimization. I don’t think its fair for someone else to change the spelling for us.

Maybe its just an oversight. If someone from business.com sees this and wants to clarify whether this is policy or not, I will be happy to update with their thoughts.

The BBC currently seem happy to let spammers over run their blogs, and will happily give them dofollow links to absolutely any site they want.

It looks awful, and its discouraging real chat on their blog posts.

The thing that really annoys me, with it being the BBC, is that my licence money pays for all the high quality content that generates all those links and pagerank, to have it potentially flowing back out to my competitors who don’t care about etiquette and will happily just drop links wherever they know they aren’t going to be moderated.

Lets take a look at an example, on Zane Lowes pages.  I’ll quote some comments below. The links will be coloured blue but of course not live links. The last thing I want to do is give them more credit

This album of Kano is astonishing and awesome. This album release cannot be claimed as a conventional single full scale release. More than one way can be termed as a winter warmer release to keep us better in this beautiful season. For many people Kano would be new, he has to get into more of the music lovers heart with his wonderful music and albums. This music would help to be a soothing tone for our ears. Its one of the hottest songs in radio. Regards Swing Sets | Call Center Manager| Masters Tickets

Someone sets the ball rolling with 3 completely unrelated commercial links.

Delivering another passionate stream of consciousness that fans have come to know and appreciate. Check em out. Online biology degree AND Online cyber crime degree AND Online Teaching Assistant degree
Online adult education degree AND Online university

(yes, that one was 5 spam links with AND between them!)

aMAZING
Associate Degree Psychology

Wow, a lot of thought went into that aMAZING comment.

I love Kano usually n im American. but im not feelin this that much. the 2nd verse is hot though. he needs like a DaVinChe track. I wanna hear the shyt that was on 140 grime street. Voucher Codes | FM jobs | Seo Company

Multiple links to commerical sites? Nice.

Really interesting articles.I enjoyed reading it.Are these genuine images or has the artwork been touched up they are truly .Thanks for sharing a nice info viagra

This commentor above goes on to spam the exact same comment but with “viagra” switched out for “levitra”.

This album of Kano is astonishing and awesome. This album release cannot be claimed as a conventional single full scale release. More than one way can be termed as a winter warmer release to keep us better in this beautiful season. parks and recreation season 2 episode 16 | the office season 6 episode 16 | 30 rock season 4 episode 13 | the vampire diaries season 1 episode 14 | supernatural season 5 episode 14

Another person trying to break the record for most spam links in a post.

The page in question is a pagerank 6 page, so I can see why it attracts the spammers like flies to shit moths to a lightbulb, but its extremely unfair that BBC are allowing this to go on.  Its not like it would be hard to deal with – simply nofollow links, don’t allow links in comments, or moderate them.  The first and second option would take absolutely no man power on the BBC’s part.

So what do you think, fair game to spam BBC’s pages, or should this be stopped?

There is really no excuse for not keeping proper backups of your site – relying on your host to be carrying out suitable backups is not a solution either.

This plugin gives you 50mb of free space – more than enough for the average blog.  Its extremely easy to use:

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For the 5 minutes to install and set up its definitely worth the peace of mind!

The largest previous sale for a .org domain was engineering.org for $198,000 (and is currently 301′ing to what could be called a low value .info domain!)

It will be interesting to follow the site development on poker.org, as well as its journey through the rankings to page 1 in Google for “poker”.

I would expect them to follow the design and link building of their other similar properties, blackjack.org and craps.net.