SEO that works for local businesses
Search Engine Optimisation, that works and where the real leverage is

It's true, the world has gone mad and I'm about to prove it. To find out why and uncover another way to leverage your existing resources just read to the bottom of this article. Don't skip this vital document though because there is gold in here.

If you have been in business for any length of time you would have probably heard of Search Engine Optimisation otherwise known as SEO.

As soon as the internet started to get better understood and more widely used it became apparent that there were people out there searching for information, education and also buying products and services.

Providers of these products and services realised that if they could get their website in front of people there was a possibility that those same people would part with some of their hard earned cash.

This has spawned a whole new industry. SEO specialists were born who promised the earth and some even delivered it...

SEO Specialists - Good Guys and Bad Guys

The idea behind search engine optimisation is simply to find ways to improve the chance of your website getting a higher rank or position for a certain specific search term. SEO people call this SERP or Search Engine Ranking Position. The idea being that if your website can be at the front of results there is a better chance of someone clicking through to your website.

Google and others provide some useful tips on how to improve your website and therefore rank better. There are also people out there who have attempted to deconstruct or reverse engineer Googles algorithm's and in doing so will offer their services as SEO experts. Some of these hired guns are good guys (white hat) and some are bad guys (black hat).

The white hat good guys tend to work with the system and understand the importance of creating good content that adds value, being an authority and building up good relationships with associates.

The black hat bad guys will try and find ways to get a good ranking but they will use methods which are often times not helpful and will play a game with Google. These can work, at least in the short term and they may even be slightly faster but my advice is to beware of the big giant Google, lest it should find out and banish your website for a very long time!

How to get a high search engine rank?

Probably the easiest way to think about this is to see it from the search engines perspective. Google is as good a place to start as any where.

Google is a service provider who is interested in making sure they keep searchers happy. They do this by making sure that the results they deliver to people are relevant to the search. If people keep on using Google then Google can sell services to businesses who wish to advertise with them.

In simple terms and it's far easier to do it this way. If a business wants to get a better ranking position then all it needs to do is find out what people are searching for. Identify who the competition is and do a better job than they do. The great Google will then reward them with a great position when people search for a specific search term.

There are of course a lot of things local businesses can do to help improve their position and get found;

• Register their business for local search 
• Identify which keywords to focus on (a vital step that people sometimes forget) 
• On-site optimisation (title tags, description, alt tags, header tags etc) 
• Off-site optimisation (back links, articles, forums, blogs and so on) 
• Creating relevant content and becoming an authority site 

In reality getting a good search engine ranking is not rocket science and some terms are easier with less competition than other terms. Local business should sit up and take notice because fewer people are using yellow pages and more people are turning to their computer and browser.

The beauty of the internet is that so much can be tweaked, changed, tested and measured and at a pretty low cost. So getting a great return on investment is not only doable it can be accurately calculated. Things that work can be leveraged and things that don't can be dropped.

One last thing you should ponder

There is so much talk about SEO that people sometimes forget about a lesser discussed topic but which is never the less important and in some cases more important. What is that topic?

Website conversion optimisation

Just imagine that you had 1000 visitors to your website each month. Out of all these visitors you got 10 leads via email or phone call each month. This gives you 10 leads divided by 1000 visitors a 1% website conversion rate.

To get double the number of leads you would need to double the number of visitors. This may be easy enough to do or it may not and there is an alternative and easier way of looking this.

Just imagine you could find a way to improve your conversion ratio from 1% to 2% then you would get 20 leads per month from the same number of visitors. Do you think it's possible to give users a better experience, offer slightly more value and generally improved things that would get 2% or more people to contact you?

Read the article on website conversion optimisation and find out how

Read our latest complimentary report to learn more about making profits in your business.

by Steve Prior - 15 June 2009

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