The typical customer starts their shopping experience by looking
on the Internet. You need to be where they look. And for the
majority of customers, that means search engines -- Google, Yahoo,
Bing and the rest.
So how can you ensure that, when they look for the products and
services you offer, you are there? Optimize your website for search
engines.
Search Engine Optimization is a set of practices that raise your
organic (non-paid) search results. Organic results are gathered by
search engines and ranked by relevance to search keywords. This
relevance is calculated by criteria such as keyword match,
popularity, and number of links into that website. Ranking in the
organic search results is better than paid search engine ads. Why?
Not only is it free, but research shows that people click on
organic results 75% of the time and paid results only 25% of the
time.
StoneHenge Partners can give you specific, targeted measures to
improve your organic search results, and we can execute those
measures for you as well. Our recommendations, customized to fit
your site and your customers, may include:
- Analyze keywords. We choose keywords that your
target market is using to search for your products and services. We
also consider your chances for ranking on the first page of Google,
Yahoo & Bing for your top keywords. We look at the sites ranked
in the first 10 results, their authority and relevance to search
terms, and gauge the effort needed for you to overtake them to
secure a spot on that first page.
- Build keywords. We recommend how you can place
your targeted keywords in the page title, URL, headings, and page
text. We show how to optimize your page description for maximum
click-through-rate when your site ranks in Google searches. And we
show how to place keywords in "invisible" places on your site,
including meta-title, meta-description and alt-text on images.
Specific steps include:
- Create unique, accurate page titles
- Make full use of the Description metatag
- Build a descriptive URL structure
- Make your site fully searchable and navigable
- Improve keyword density on targeted pages
- Write better anchor text
- Use headings tags to communicate page content hierarchy
- Optimize image tags
- Make effective use of robots.txt
- Build popularity. We recommend how you can
build more inbound links from other sites into yours. We recommend
links to trusted websites, which will raise the quality of your
inbound link rankings.
- Register your site. We show you how to
register with the Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo Local and Google Local
Business Center, Business.com, Yellowpages.com, and similar
business directories.
- Measure, analyze and evolve. Finally, we show
you how to analyze your website metrics to
understand what your customers are actually doing. We analyze
inbound links, keyword rankings over time, conversion rates and a
variety of other metrics. And we advise you on incremental steps
you can take to evolve your website to be more and more responsive
to your customers.