The Agony and Ecstasy of Marketing Your Website in Google: Part 2 – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Read Part 1 of the series – The Agony and Ecstasy of Paid Search Engine Marketing.

The aim of optimising your website for search engines is to appear high up in the organic results in search engines like Google.

3 Key Aspects of Search Engine Optimisation are:

• Web Development – The way your website is set up
• Web Copywriting – The keywords used in the copy on your website
• Website Popularity – The number and quality of links from other websites to yours.

The Ecstasy of Search Engine Optimisation

Free traffic to your website

Generally speaking, if your website is set up to be search-engine friendly, you have web copy that includes well chosen keywords in the right places and enough high quality inbound links*, your website can make it to page one of Google.

The amount of traffic that this generates will be relative to the number of people who search on your chosen keywords and what position your website appears in (the higher up the better).

*The links you need are relative to the number and quality of links that other websites optimised for the same keywords have.

Getting the traffic is just the beginning though.  A well optimised website makes it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for and has prominent Calls to Action to motivate visitors to act.

Free and low cost resources to help you get you the free traffic

If you’re interested in learning more about SEO, there are a lot of high quality, free resources available, including blogs from Hubspot, Interleado and my partnership, Grassroots Internet Strategy.

And if you’re serious about keyword research and finding out the competitiveness of your chosen keywords, try this cool tool that comes with online video training; Market Samurai.

Implementing a Content Marketing strategy

Content Marketing, which involves regularly writing and sharing valuable new web content (for example via a blog) can be the path to SEO and website success! And when it’s done right, you’ll get results quickly.

Along with establishing your credibility, by implementing a Content Marketing strategy, you are optimising your website by:

• Giving visitors and search engines a reason to visit your website regularly
• Making your website bigger by adding new pages, that contain new keywords
• Encouraging other website owners to link to your content.

For this strategy to work, the content needs to be valuable to your target audience. If you have time and writing skills, you can implement this strategy yourself. Or, if you decide to pay someone, the costs are much lower than traditional forms of marketing like print advertising or trade shows.

The Agony of Search Engine Optimisation

SEO is not for impatient people

SEO takes time and ongoing commitment, so don’t expect it to be a “quick fix”.  It can take up to four weeks or more for a new website to even appear in Google.  The age of your domain is also one of the ranking factors, so older, more established websites will often rank higher than new websites.

More and more companies are optimising their websites

Your ability to rank on page one is relative to

• how well your competitors have optimised their websites
• the keywords that you select
• and your target geographic area.

If you have an online product that you are promoting globally, it’s likely to be more difficult to rank high in Google than for a pizza shop that wants to rank highly on local searches, such as “pizza delivery Fitzroy”.

Not all SEO agencies are created equal

Depending upon your own level of knowledge of SEO, and how competitive your market is, you may choose to work with a SEO consultant or web copywriter to get specific advice.

If you are planning to work with a website company that provides SEO services, before committing to working with them, find out exactly what you are paying for and what results that will bring.  If anyone guarantees you a first page ranking, ask them what keywords you will be ranking for and find out what the search volumes are for those keywords in your target area.

Having a search-engine friendly website doesn’t have to be agony

Setting up a search-engine friendly website doesn’t need to be expensive or painful.  The Grassroots Internet Strategy team can create a customised website using WordPress for only $947. And all the extra features you need to plan an effective website, optimise the copy, share the content on social media and monitor your results are included. Find out more.