7 Must Tips For Online Marketing And SEO

The primary goal of most website owners is to get found.  Once found, websites should make it easy for website visitors to find exactly the information they seek.  And, once they find this information, the site should compel people to return, or refer other web visitors to the site.

If you want to get found on Google, you need to do a lot of little things in the right way for a long-term cumulative effect.  Simple mistakes in coding or selecting a technology or method that is not conducive to search engines could actually render a website invisible to search engines.

To explain how Google works and what you need to do to ensure that your site is optimized for search engines, I have developed a concept called, “7 Must Tips For Online Marketing And SEO”

1. Crawlability

Crawlability is how easy it is for search engine spiders and robots to get inside your website … to scan the words, photos and videos; and to index that information in its archives.

Websites must have Content that is visible to search engine spiders and robots with no obstacles that may preclude full indexing of the site.  Moreover, the website must load quickly so that search engines can index it efficiently.  An efficient Code to Content ratio means that spiders don’t have to wade through massive markup language to understand the actual message within the Code.

2. Credibility

Credibility has a lot to do with what other people, bloggers and webmasters have to say about you.  For example, the more references or citations to your website, the more credibility you have.  Links to your site from other reputable websites promote the reputation of your site.  Credibility also refers to honest Content that is meant to inform readers, not deceive search engines.

3. Content

Content is the actual words, pictures, links and data you have on your site.  One way search engines determine how relevant you are vis-à-vis a search it to study the Content on your website.

Content should be naturally keyword rich and valuable to readers.  The language on the site must be written in the context of the reader, not necessarily in the language or context of the author.  For example, a doctor should use words that his patients can understand and avoid complex medical and clinical terminology that only other doctors can understand – unless the target audience is other doctors.

Having the right keyword density is a signal to search engines that your site is relevant but not overzealous.  Too high of a keyword density and a site could appear to be forcefully stuffing keywords into a page, which could hurt rather than help.

4. Code

Code refers to the extra emphasis you place on Content behind the scene. Among other things, it involves meta tags, title tags, headings, hyperlinks, bullet lists and other techniques to bring more attention to specific words.

Good Code means meaningful URLs with keywords that include the search terms of your targeted audience.  It also means more Content than Code to markup the page.  Effective use of a single Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) for example and table-less design increases the richness of the Content by reducing the density of the Code.

5. Conversation

Conversation is all about social media. How many people have bookmarked you? How many have shared you on Facebook? How many have Tweeted about you? Is anybody buzzing about your website?

When people find the Content on your website useful, they will help promote your site by talking about it, sharing links on their social media profiles, linking to it and discussing it on forums and online bulletin boards.  Those inbound links help promote a site’s reputation and its Credibility.  Viral marketing tools, such as Facebook connect and social media share chicklets helps promote Conversation, as do blogs that allow comments as do widgets that allow people to embed content from your site to theirs.

6. Competition

Competition refers to a couple of things. First, how many other websites are doing the same thing you are doing?  The more Competitors there are, the more difficult to rank on search engines…

7. Conversion

Conversion refers to a couple of things. First, it is the content within the description tag, which is appears on Google results page.  This information helps a person decide whether or not to click onto your site…

8. Compliance

I know that this page and article is about the 7 Must Tips For Online Marketing And SEO, not to be confused with the Seven Seas, but there is actually an 8th extra tip.  And, to make sure your website is running on all 8 Cylinders, you need to pay attention to the 8th new

tip: Compliance.

Compliance refers to web standards, accessibility for the visual and hearing impaired and Section 508 Compliance.  Complying to accessibility standards means that your site is visible to the blind, who use assistive technology devices to read a site’s Content out-loud.

Images with alt attributes help people with visual disabilities understand what is on that photo.  Videos with transcripts helps the hearing impaired read what was spoken in the video.

Complying with web standards helps to avoid code errors that could prevent search engines from understanding your code and content.  And, it helps to reduce the code to content ratio for faster indexing and increased Crawl ability.