Written by Fernando Maciá
Índice
Search engine marketing is a complex strategy that requires a deep and constantly updated knowledge of the evolution of search engines, the popularity of different keywords and a study of the search concepts that can bring the most effective traffic to a website. However, there are some things we can do to improve the indexability of our website without the need for specialized knowledge or programming skills. All you need to do is apply your knowledge of your market and a little common sense.
1. List of key concepts
What terms do you think your potential customers might enter into a search engine? Avoid technical terms, or jargon that may be used in your industry, if you are targeting your business to the end customer. Keep in mind that it’s not about getting traffic just to get more hits on your traffic stats. What you are looking for is to increase your sales, improve your service, increase your company’s visibility. Therefore, focus on search terms that are directly related to your activity. Don’t forget that most of the searches on the Web are performed with phrases of two, three or more words. If you are targeting a geographically localized market, form some combinations where your city, county, region or country appears. A list of 10 to 15 search terms to start with will suffice. Order them from most to least important, according to your own criteria. Example: “Spanish footwear”, “Spanish shoes”, “Spanish footwear manufacturers”, “handcrafted shoes in Spain”, “women’s fashion shoes”…
Caution: if your brand is not well known, do not include it among the most important key concepts, as there is little chance that someone will enter it as a search. On the other hand, if you are an established brand that is just starting its presence on the web, you would do well to put it at the top of the rankings.
2. List of search engines
Second, make a list of the search engines where your company should be listed. Include the three most important search engines to start with – Google, Yahoo and MSN Search – and add any others that are related to your industry, or that are important in your target market (e.g., Terra in the Spanish-speaking world).
3. Search the concepts in search engines
Next, check that the search terms you have chosen are appropriate. Perform a search for each of the concepts listed in item 1 in the most important search engines listed in item 2. Check the results that appear in the first placesDo companies related to yours appear in them, perhaps a competitor? If so, bingo. Visit some of the top pages and look for where the search term you entered in the search engine appears. Does it appear in the page title? (The page title is the text that appears in the top bar of the browser window, right next to the browser icon). Maybe it appears in the first paragraphs, in a heading or section…? Make a note of it. It will be useful for you to do something similar on your own page later.
4. Write the titles of each page of your website.
At this point, you should already be sure of the right search terms to find your website. Now choose the first keyword from your list and use it to write a title for your home page, i.e. the page that is displayed by default when someone visits your domain. The title should be between 6 and ten words long and should summarize the content of the page while conveying an attractive sales proposition.
Now consider the first pages of each section (e.g., product catalog, after-sales service, customer service, company information…). Distribute the remaining key concepts among these pages by writing titles that combine these remaining key concepts with the content of the pages. Respect the maximum length of about ten words. When writing headings, make sure that the key concept is placed towards the beginning of the sentence.
Key tip: each page of your website should have a unique title, different from the others. All of them should contain at least one of the key search terms from your list (plus some synonyms. For example, if yours is a website about shoes, include titles where generic synonymous terms such as “footwear” also appear, as well as more specific terms: “boots”, “sports shoes”, “sandals”…). A title could be: “Shoes, boots and handcrafted footwear made in Spain”.
By the way, if when browsing your website you notice that the only text that appears in the top bar of the browser window is the name of your company, too bad. Whoever searches for you by name already knows you and most likely also knows your domain name.
5. Write the description of each page of your website.
The description of a web page is not a list of what appears on it, but two or three concise sentences that summarize the content of the page. This description is only visible in the HTML code of the page, but many search engines attach great importance to it when ranking pages in their results. You can think of the description as an extension of the title where you can combine more secondary key concepts (geographical scope, synonyms for the product or service) along with the main one for that page, which should also be placed towards the beginning of the description. Continuing with shoes, an adequate description could be: “Manufacturers of shoes, boots, sandals and all kinds of fashion footwear in Spain. Export of footwear, handcrafted manufacturing. Sale of shoes in Germany, Spain, Denmark and Sweden”.
As before with the title, each page of your website should have a different description combining the most important search terms related to the content of the page. The description is inserted at the beginning of the page code. You can check whether or not your pages have a description while viewing them in a browser. Go to the “View” menu and select “Source Code”. A new window will open where you can consult the code of the page you see in the browser. Even if you don’t know how to program, don’t panic. You will see that right between the first lines of code you can locate one that begins with:
< meta name=”description” content=”Here is the text of the page description” />
If you do not find it, the page may not have a description. In any case, have your webmaster place each of the descriptions you have written on the corresponding page of your website.
6. Write keywords
Although a few years ago they had more influence on the positioning of a page, it is still interesting to include keywords. Just like the description, you can see them in the first lines of the page code, if you locate a line that starts like this:
< meta name=”keywords” content=”key concept 1, key concept 2, key concept 3…. etc. />
Introduce six or seven key concepts from your list on each page – only those most related to the content of the page – with the most important ones at the top.
7. Optimize content
Stop now and take a look at some of the pages of your website. If your website is that of a handcrafted shoe manufacturer, these terms may be repeated several times in the text. If not, you are unlikely to be found with this combination of words. Make sure that the key concept chosen for each page (for example, “handmade shoes” for the home page, “shoe export” for the distribution page, “women’s fashion shoes” for one of the product catalog sections…) is included in the title, in the description, in the keywords and in some paragraphs of text on the page. It is even possible to increase the relevance of these concepts by making them appear in bold, in the headings of the contents or in the text of a link (do not use “click here” but “Sandalias Verano Mujer 2004”).
8. Submit your pages to search engines
When you have done all this, it is time to ask the search engines to visit your site again and, if all goes well, this time they will rank your site much higher in the search terms you selected. Visit the website of the search engines you selected in point 2 and locate the “Add URL” or “Suggest a new site” option. Follow the instructions of the search engine and wait 4 to 6 weeks (sometimes even longer) to check the results. Learn more about how to register and be included in the main Internet search engines.
Conclusion
Although there are much more refined strategies to reach the top positions in search engines (also much more laborious), the steps defined here will achieve that your website is in much better conditions to be correctly indexed by search engines. Of course, there are companies that devote a lot of resources to achieve top rankings but, in any case, you will find that it is easy to achieve a substantial improvement by following these simple tips and that this improvement will quickly translate into increased traffic and more and better results.
One last tip to stay on top or go even higher? If there is one thing search engines like, it is fresh content: frequently renew the content of your pages, add new pages and always respect the criterion that each page defends a single key concept (in its title, its description, its keywords and its content). Good luck.
