80% of first time visitors arrive on a website by following a link from a search engine, which makes clear how important it is to appear high in their ranking. To increase traffic the website should rank top in the search engines, such as Google or Yahoo; the higher the better. In order to have a successful ranking website it is vital to optimise 'content and code' for Search Engines, now even more than ever.
Search Engine algorithms had to adjust their strategy to continue achieving a high relevance in their result pages. Because: if the user can’t find the information she is looking for she might quickly press the back button and click on a competitor’s link. Social Media websites like YouTube or MySpace have increased their popularity and now heavly influence Google and Co.
And with this - it is important that content as well as language adapt too. Real users use real words to find what they want - no marketing blurb which might work for magazines or TV advertising. The common brand jargon does not have the same effect online, so there is no need to use it!
Create a healthy balance between the needs of the company and its aims regarding to the commercial point of view. It is important not only to focus on the Google ranking, because being number one will not pay off if the website is not delivering what the user was searching for. Good SEO should actually enrich the user’s experiences but not annoy the user if she can not find on the website what was promised on the Search Engine.
The following points are guidelines for a search-optimised copy:
* Use high-volume search terms
Choose words that receive large amounts of searches per day
* Place the keywords at or near the top of the page
The start of the body tag is best. If site navigation does not allow this, try to put the Keywords/Keyphrases as close to the top of the page as possible.
* A 5% high-volume keyword density
If a web page contains 100 words, then five should be high-volume keywords.
* Include high-volume keywords in title tags and meta description tags
High-volume keywords in the body copy should be complemented by these tags.
* Body copy should include link text to similar products
Try to get at least three or four links that go to product pages with one or more similar keyword targets.
* Don’t use images when text will do
If you cannot avoid using images, add descriptive text to their alt attributes.
NMA - search marketing report 11/06
Contact Tetridia on +44 (0)20 8144 6655 for more information on how to raise your marketing to the next level using Search Engine Marketing.
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