What are the most effective methods and tactics for Search Engine Optimisation? More often than not, it is the simplest online marketing solutions that provide the best return on investment, and despite the attempts of many people to make online marketing seem like a complicated and mysterious process, SEO is actually founded on some very basic principles.
The ITT and AITO Agents conference that I attended last week was a real eye opener for a number of reasons. It reminded me again what an interest and appetite there is for travel marketing solutions online, but also how much misinformation there is out there. For this reason, I’ve asked Tim, one of our Copywriters, to run through the 5 essential steps for an effective SEO program. They may be basic steps, but as we’ve shown to our clients time and time again, it is the basics that still produce the best results.
1. Clean up your site structure
Before you can worry about achieving good rankings for your website, you’ve got to make sure the site is fully visible to search engines. This often involves making a few structural changes to the code of your site, removing any (usually unintentional) barriers that prevent search engines from seeing all the pages and all the content of your site.
Plenty of clients get alarmed when we talk about making structural changes to their sites – they are afraid that all of their lovely features and attractive graphics will be lost! But most of the time the changes made are almost invisible. The site looks the same, and it is usually a one off job that may only take a few hours, but getting a clear site structure is essential before you can do any serious SEO.
- Remember: Just because you can see all your pages and the content of each page, does not mean that search engines can see it.
2. Keyword research, keyword research and yet more keyword research
- Remember: Research numerous different kinds of key phrases, and for each one consider how frequently it is used, how appropriate it is for your business, and how competitive it is i.e. how many other people are trying to optimise for it. Narrow it down to 3-5 different key phrases for each individual page on your site.
3. Develop your landing pages
One of the essential principles of SEO is to create many relevant landing pages. Often, this simply means devoting a page to each product and service that you offer, but you should consult your list of key phrases to see exactly what people are searching for. We’ve had clients who have expanded their businesses and offered new products on the basis of some excellent keyword research.
The main benefit of using targeted landing pages is that it provides visitors to your site with relevant answers to their search queries. If someone types in “holiday in Istanbul” into a search engine and you offer holidays all over Turkey, it is much better to direct them to your Istanbul page rather than your homepage. If they see a generic page, they may well go straight back to the results page and try another site. Give them a precise answer straight away, and they may well stay and become a customer.
- Remember: Don’t focus all of your attention on the homepage. Providing a range of relevant landing pages is great for users and great for search engines.
4. Use your keywords (almost) everywhere!
Once you’ve researched and created a list of keywords and mapped out your landing pages, it’s time to put the two together. Keyword Enriched Content, or KEC, is the process of using your keywords naturally throughout the content on your site. The important thing is to use the right key phrases on the right pages, and keep each page targeted and relevant. If you have an Istanbul holiday page, you want to use phrases like “luxury holiday in Istanbul” and “Istanbul hotels” rather than “Turkey holidays” and “Turkey hotels”. It’s a simple, but very time consuming process, especially if you have a large site, but we’ve found it produces great results in the long term, particularly when combined with a link building campaign (see step 5!)
Enriching your written content with key phrases is just the beginning. Meta tags, alt tags for images, the anchor text for any links you have on the site – these are all additional good places to place your juicy key phrases.
Use your key phrases as much as you can, but don’t be spammy! If any content on your page doesn’t read naturally then you’ve pushed it too far. Not only is it no good for search engines, it is off putting for users. People are getting smarter every day in how they use the internet, and excessive key word stuffing indicates a spammy and untrustworthy website. Compare these two snippets on a search engine results page:
“Holidays in turkey, luxury turkey, turkey holiday, turkey vacation, turkey hotels – TurkeyHotels.com”
“Luxury holidays in Turkey from TurkishDelight.com, providing the finest bespoke Turkish holidays.”
The first sounds like spam, the second like a serious business. Which one do you want to be?
- Remember: Use your key phrases consistently but naturally throughout your entire site. When writing anything anywhere on your site, write it first and foremost for people, not search engines. If a piece of text sounds overstuffed, then it probably is.
5. Build up your links
Great links are like gold dust in the world of SEO. Structural improvements and thorough KEC are great first steps, but to really achieve significant, long terms changes in search engine rankings, a link building campaign is essential. Your site needs links, but they have to be the right kind of links. Say no to reciprocal linking – this used to work, but it won’t do you any good. Google are also seriously starting to crack down on paid links, making this an expensive and risky strategy. What you need are one way, relevant inbound links from quality pages.
The best way of getting these nuggets still remains the same: provide great content. Create newsworthy press releases, interesting articles, videos, pictures, widgets, Firefox extensions, or anything else that people are likely to find useful, funny or interesting, and people will link to it…and to your site! We’ve had great success with our viral articles, which we write and syndicate around the internet. Each article has an embedded relevant link back to the client’s website, and the more they spread the more links are generated. Online press releases achieve a similar effect, and also have the chance of being picked up by one of the major news sites, leading to top quality links from authority pages. Any great content has the ability to generate links, but it is the simple, effective written content that can bring you the most links – and links with more staying power.
- Remember: One good link is worth a hundred poor links. Content is king – create and promote good content, and the links will come to you.