‘goals’

If you think that search engine optimization – or more commonly referred to as SEO – is all about keywords, then you might want to make yourself comfortable in front of the screen and continue reading this article. Although keywords have a very important role to play when optimizing a website, there are many other factors that have to be accounted for. This is especially true if you want to enjoy the monetary privileges websites holds in store for their owners.

If you are a business owner who are about to have a new website created from scratch, then you need to make sure that your website is ‘search engine friendly’. Suffice to say that the best way to go about creating a new website is by making use of the services of a company who has the proper know-how and experience in both website designing and SEO, such as iLead Online. If you have an existing website it can be used and optimized to your advantage. One factor that Google pays attention to though is the age of a website, which is why newer pages on an older website will definitely get faster recognition as a new website’s pages.

Now, say for instance that you are about to have your new website designed which will be optimized, the first thing you need to ask yourself is what it is that you want your website to achieve? Do you want readers to purchase your product, request your services, fill in an enquiry form, or simply contact your business directly? It’s only logical that you need to set up your goals at the very beginning so that you will know in which direction to steer your online marketing strategy. Once you have established your goals it will be necessary to evaluate your site, as well as your competition’s, to see what route should be taken to achieve the highest results.

Optimizing a website requires labour. So if you think about taking all kinds of short cuts you will learn that, although it may show some kind of success, the only way to achieve real results is by investing precious time. Moreover patience is a virtue when it comes to optimization as you may very well not see the fruits of your labour within weeks since you began. This is why you need to think of it this way – SEO is a long term investment. And seeing that more and more things are happening online, this is the place you want to be.

Apart from properly doing your research and planning for your website, the following factors will need to form part of your SEO campaign:

• Design – It is human nature that we use our senses in everything we do, which is why it is important that your website is visually appealing. Easy on the eye is always a good thing.
• Keywords – As mentioned before, keywords do play a significant role when it comes to search engine optimization. Be sure to find the keyword phrases that aren’t as sought after, but still attracts the right kind of readers to your site.
• Domain Name – Choosing the right domain name is vital as it can be used as part of your keyword strategy.
• Meta Tags – The Meta tags consists of the title-, description- and keyword tags. Properly optimized websites will always have Meta tags that are created (written) in a specific manner best suited for your website.
• Content Pages – This is where the services of specialised SEO Copywriters are needed. They will provide you with high quality, informative, optimized content pages. These pages can really make or break a website, as it will be bad for your business if the content is of no use to your reader, while good content can act as bait to achieve your goals.
• Navigation (Internal Links) – An efficient tree-like structure is a must.
• Link Building – Link to good sites with good rankings, and be sure to avoid link farms.
• Website Speed – Google recently decided to include ‘site speed’ into their search ranking algorithms.
• Freshness – It’s always good to keep on adding fresh content and changes to your website as Google likes fresh pages.

The abovementioned are merely a quick description of some of the things you need to do if you want your search engine optimization strategy to be successful. And as you can see this is not so much for dummies but will require a keen eye, passion, dedication, knowledge and experience – something we at iLead Online can proudly offer you. So without further ado be sure to begin your SEO process today by contacting us.