7 proven ways to get organic search visibility – and one that was overlooked
Image: Danard Vincente
This was a sponsored session with Shawn Moore from ThinkProfits.com, a Vancouver SEO and web design firm.
Google has been quite open about what they regard as relevant in a website and what’s needed to get good search engine visibility. Here are the 7 proven ways Shawn spoke about:
1. Domain name strategy
It is a good SEO strategy to have the keyword/s you’d most like to be found for in the domain name – or at least in the urls of interior pages of the site. If you have a domain name with no keywords, you can register and host other keyword rich domains and forward them to your site or build microsites..
2. Content is King:
Use as rich a mix of text, images and videos as possible. Universal search demands many digital assets. Make sure they are keyword rich..Create excellent content based on keyword research.
3. Pay attention to your navigation and architecture.
Use a language that can easily be indexed by Google’s bots. They still have problems with Java but are getting better at Flash. A June 30 post on the official webmaster central Google blog lays out how they index Flash now..
The best plan is to keep your code clean and simple. If your site is built in frames or tables, it’s time to upgrade!
4. Blogs:
Start a blog, but bear in mind that it takes time and effort to keep it up. For a blog to be successful it must have good content on a regular basis. Wordpress has some great SEO plug-ins now. Or if you require a robust enterprise platform with great reporting tools and a quality report each week, use MyST Blogsite. (This blog is on Blogsite.)
5. Keyword-rich inbound links
Google places high importance on the number and quality of inbound links to your site. You can find out who links to you using Yahoo site explorer or Google’s webmaster tools. MarketLeap link popularity is another tool you can use to get an indication of how many links you have in contrast to the links your competitors on page one have. Instead of linking with the full url make the keyword the link – this is called anchor text linking. And pursue links from high traffic sites with a good Page Rank. Find influential bloggers and send them some good content to blog about. .
6. A database of content.
While a database can give you lots of content to pull from and make it easier to add new content, be sure you avoid the pitfalls – like long strings of queries in the URLS. Site Reference has a good article on what to avoid in a database of content.
7. Optimize Press Releases for online distribution
As more and more people go online to read their news, news search become more important in SEO. And now that blended search is here, news can be seen on web search result pages too. It’s vital to add your news content to the mix. A well optimized press release can show up on page one in Google even though your website does not. And if you add links to the release, when it gets picked up on other sites that link will add weight to your inbound links.
Here are 10 reasons you should optimize a press release
And then there is another proven strategy – and this one was not mentioned in the SES session : RSS feeds.
RSS feeds are a method of content syndication. It can help you achieve page one visibility in Google because you add fresh content that contains links. This content gets spread across the web and brings you new niche traffic and inbound links.
Helpful Tip
If this seems like an overwhelming task, a system like PRESSfeed, a social media and SEO tool, can help you get most of these strategies in place. It makes it simple to create an RSS feed and add the content to your site. It has a database for the content and it’s already properly coded and tagged. You can add links and images. If you produce video or podcasts you can add a media RSS feed that helps you optimize and add text and tags to the page and syndicate the content. You can use it to add articles and press releases to your site. Best of all it syndicates the content and reaches new audiences.
Case study for a local outdoor living company in LA County
Case study for a skin care product that was launched using this method
