If you are engaging an outside contractor or company for your web marketing, there is a list of questions you should be asking about how they are going to attract targeted traffic to your website when it comes to Google organic rankings.
Read the following excerpt from my book ‘The NZ Small Business Superhero’s Marketing Handbook’ and discover the importance of methods used to attract targeted traffic…
- Will my website have both an HTML and an XML sitemap?
- Will my website and all the text within it be easily accessible to search engine spiders?
- Who will be writing the copy for my website? Do they understand how to write for both search engines and online readers?
- What keyword research will be done to ensure the website contains the words and phrases my target market is looking for?
- What is your approach for keywording web pages for maximum impact in Google?
- How will you build incoming links to the website to make sure the site ranks well at Google?
- What assurances can you give me that my website will feature on the first page of Google for at least some of my main keywords phrases and will generate healthy traffic levels from the Google organic listings? Google Maps and Places
- Is management of my Google Places listing included in your services?
- Do you have any experience optimising your clients’ Google Maps and Places listings?
- What practices do you employ to ensure my Google Places listing will appear prominently in the Google search results?
- What assurances can you give that my Google Maps and Places listing will appear on the Google search results for at least some of my main keyword phrases.
If you intend to take on part or all of the traffic generation for your website, here is a checklist of action points that you need to bear in mind.
- Do use HTML and XML sitemaps.
- Don’t build the website in Flash.
- Do keyword research to find all the keywords and phrases your target market is using to find you.
- Assign a primary keyword phrase which sums up the theme of that page.
- Come up with secondary and related keyword phrases for each page.
- Create a keyworded page title for each page.
- Name your images and alt tags with appropriate, relevant keywords.
- If appropriate, use your primary keyword phrase in each page’s main headline.
- Use your secondary and related keyword phrases in the subheads and body copy.
- Include your primary keyword phrase in the page’s URL.
- Include your primary keyword phrase in the page’s meta-description tag.
- Create content on your website that other websites will want to link to, such as online calculators, or interesting or controversial content.
- Send out an email to your clients, suppliers and friends encouraging them to link to your website.
- Submit your website to Open Directory Project, as well as local New Zealand directories.
- Write articles about your business and industry, and distribute them to the article directories mentioned, including links back to your website.
- Create and distribute videos about your business and industry, and distribute them to video and social media websites.
- Set up profiles on social media sites and link back to your website.
- Write and distribute press releases about newsworthy events involving your business.
- Set up social bookmarking accounts and bookmark all the content you add to your website.
- Find related blogs and forums and “join the conversation” including links back to your website.
- Due to its importance, consider outsourcing some or all of your link building to a specialist web marketing company.
To read more, you can purchase my book ‘The NZ Small Business Superhero’s Internet Marketing Handbook’ by clicking here.
