Dos

1. Be Specific

Every page on your site should have a specific purpose. Think about the page in front of you, and try to describe it. If you're using "and" to combine multiple thoughts on this page, its time to make some new pages. When writing the titles for each of these pages, keep the specifics of the page in mind. If this is a page just about "toasters", the title should include your keywords centered around "toasters", and not a more generic keyword phrase like "kitchen appliances".

2. Be Unique

Just like every page title should be specific to each page, you should also make sure that each page title is unique across your entire site. If you're following the first rule and making sure that every page is laser-focused on a single topic, it should be extremely easy to also make sure that each page title is unique.

3. Be Compelling

When you are looking at a search engine results page, there's only three things that appear for a visitor - the page title, the page description (bonus points if you've got a unique and targeted meta description), and your page's URL. Try and treat your page titles like the titles for your blog posts, and make them compelling.

1. Links Should Always Be Underlined

I know this may sound simple and there are web developers out there pitching a fit for design reasons, but people are still comfortable with links being underlined. Make sure that yours are underlined because your site "isn't about you." You want people to click on links, so make sure that they stand out from regular content. You will notice that this point is common in a few of these tips.

2. Make Links a Different Color

Similar to #1, when people think about links they tend to think of blue for not visited and purple for visited (most of the time). I'm not saying that your links all have to be blue and purple, but they should definitely be a different color.

3. Use Descriptive Link Text, i.e. not "Click Here"

There is nothing worse than getting to the end of a sentence about product X and finding a "click here" link. Save the extra text and turn that great descriptive sentence into the link. Also enjoy the SEO benefits of descriptive keywords in the anchor text.

4. Make Links Bold

Hopefully this is where I'm starting to get you thinking. I did some email A/B testing a while back and noticed that links got a 20% higher clickthrough rate when they were bold. I'm not saying your results are always going to be this high, but it's worth testing.

5. Use Images to Help Your Calls to Action Stand Out

Now that we have the link mostly right, maybe you can add a picture to help draw the visitor's attention to your CTA? Remember a picture is a thousand words. Also make sure that you have alt text on that picture for those search engines and other blind users.

6. Use an Image With Descriptive Text Below the Image

So we've figured out a picture and descriptive text. Now let's combine the two and make them both links. I also did some email A/B testing with this and noticed a 100% higher clickthrough rate when the image was actually a link along with the text.

7. Keep Your CTA Above the Fold

People are lazy. If you want their attention, you have to catch it quickly. If people have to scroll down page, chances are that they will not see your call to action. Keep it closer to the top!

8. Links Pointing to External Sites Should Open in New Windows

This is usually done by adding the target="_blank" attribute to a link, but there are many schools of thought on this one. Let me give you the marketing reason to do it: A visitor is on your site and they click on a link to take them to another site ... they are gone. Oh wait, that link popped up in a new window (or tab). At some point they will get tired of surfing that window, close it and right then and there your site is back in front of them. It might not work for every visitor, but some of those visitors will continue to surf your site at that point.

9. Always Be Testing

Seriously. Keep testing. Now that you've optimized around the other eight tips, maybe you can swap out the most important content, or offer a different mix to your call to action to drive attention. How about that descriptive text link, maybe it could be more enticing?

In Summary

So what are you waiting for? You have work to do, go optimize your links!

But ... since you're still reading, how about some feedback?Do you know any tips that I might have left out or have any strategy that you use? Please share!

24 SEO Terms You Must Know!

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301 Redirect – A way to make one web page redirect the visitor to another page.

Whenever you change the web address of a page, apply a 301 redirect.  to make the old address point to the new one. This ensures that people who have the page saved under the old address will automatically get to the new one.

A

ALT text/tag or attribute - A description of an image in your site's HTML.

Unlike humans, search engines read only the ALT text of images, not the images themselves. Add ALT text to images whenever possible.

B

Blog - A part of your website where you should regularly publish content (e.g. commentary on industry/company topics, descriptions of events, photos, video etc.).

Each blog post on your website is a new page that a search engine sees, and therefore a new opportunity to get found online.

Bookmark - A link to a website saved for later reference in your web browser or computer.

Social bookmarking sites such as delcot users share websites they like with each other. Having links to your site in del.icio.us is a sign that your website content is interesting to people.

C

Conversion Form - A form in which you collect information on your site visitor.

convert traffic into leads. Collecting contact information helps you follow up with these leads.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) - The part of your code that defines how different elements of your site look (examples: headers, links).

D

Directory - Just like directories for people and phone numbers.

Submitting your site to a directory gives you more than just an inbound link - it helps people find you. The most popular web directories are  Yahoo

Domain - The main web address of your site (example: www.yoursite.com).

It's good to renew ownership of your domain for several years. Search engine rankings favor websites with longer registrations, because it shows commitment.

H

HTML - The code part of your website that search engines read.

Keep your HTML as clean as possible so that search engines read your site easily and often. Put as much layout-related code as possible in your CSS instead of your HTML.

I

Inbound Link - A link from one site into another.

A link from another site will improve your SEO, especially if that site has a high PageRank.

Indexed Pages - The pages of your website that are stored by search engines.

K

Keyword - A word that a user enters in search.

Each web page should be optimised with the goal of drawing in visitors who have searched specific keywords.

L

Long tail keyword - An uncommon or rarely used keyword.

Small businesses should consider targeting your keywords Common keywords such as 'software' are more competitive, making it harder to rank high for them in a search.

M

Metadata - Data that tells search engines what your website is about.

N

Nofollow - When a link from one site to another does not pass SEO credit.

Do not use nofollow when linking to internal pages in your website. Use it when linking to external pages that you don't want to endorse.

P

Page title - The name you give your page, which is seen at the top your browser window.

Page titles should contain keywords related to your business. Words at the beginning of your page title are more highly weighted than words at the end.

PageRank - A number from 0-10, assigned by Google, indicating how good your overall SEO is. It is technically known as 'Toolbar PageRank.'

PPC Advertising scheme in which an advertiser puts an ad in an advertising venue, and pays that venue each time a visitor clicks on his/her ad. Google AdWords is the classic example of this.

R

RSS Feed - RSS stands for 'really simple syndication.' It is a subscription-based way to get updates on new content from a web source.

Set up an RSS feed on your website or blog to help your followers stay updated when you release new content.

S

Social Media – Online media created by and shared among individuals. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are popular social media websites.

Links from many . It's important to have links to your site spread through social media.

Spider – A computer program that browses the internet and collects information about websites.

T

Traffic - The visitors to your site.

Traffic Rank - The ranking of how much traffic your site gets compared to all other sites on the internet. You can check your traffic rank on Alexa.

U

URL - The web address of a page on your site (example: www.yoursite.com/contact)

Stop Wasting Time on Social Media

The Following is a guest post by Dan Schawbel, recognized as a “personal branding guru” by The New York Times, he is the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, LLC, and author of the Personal Branding Blog, The 2^nd edition of his book Me 2.0, will be released October 5^th.

A lot of people are surprised that their thousands of followers on Twitter aren’t converting into leads, but I’m not. Ever since departing my social media job and starting my own company, Millennial Branding, LLC, I’ve been focusing on monetization. Basically, figuring out which platforms actually convert into cash, and which do not. The issue that people seem to have is where to invest their time, and depending on your goal and what’s working for you, you should allocate accordingly. If you aren’t seeing results in six months using a tool, then you might want to rethink your strategy, and how much manpower you put behind the tool. Aside from starting a company, I read the Inbound Marketing book by Brian and Dharmesh, which has inspired me to rethink lead generation. For instance, I used to spend two hours a day on Twitter, yet it didn’t result in enough opportunities to prove its marketing value.

Email vs Social Networks vs Blogs

Here is a breakdown of the significance of each platform as it relates to generating leads for your business. An email subscriber is worth more than a blog subscriber, which is worth more than a social network follower. This hierarchy isn’t changing anytime soon.

1. Email: An email contact is worth approximately $948, as noted in an IBM study. The loyalty of a single email contact is stronger than any social media follower (unless Oprah followers you) because users are not only opting in, but providing you personal data that they might not submit elsewhere. Typically, the exchange is a name and an email address for access to free material, and a possible lead for the company. I’ve been noticing that despite the advent of social networking, 71% of marketers believe that email will be more important this year. Email, if done right, is targeted, personal, and directs subscribers to other websites, including your own. You’ve also noticed that when someone sends you a Facebook message or adds you as a contact on LinkedIn, you still receive email notifications.

2. Blogs: A blog's value is much different than other platforms because of different benefits. The benefits you’ll have from blogging include: ranking high in search engines, becoming a voice in your industry, having a community of users that can support your future growth, having something in common with 200 million bloggers (networking), and building a list of subscribers engage your content. Subscribing to a blog takes two clicks, which is faster than it takes to sign-up for an email newsletter. This means that blog subscribers are less valuable than email subscribers, but are more valuable than social network followers. A social network follower only has to click one button to read your content, while a blog has two.

3. Social networks: I’m willing to bet that a lot of your Twitter followers are people you’ve never met before. I’d also like to wager that your followers don’t receive most of your tweets or Facebook status updates. They are simply following too many users to read all of your material, so it falls into the social media “black hole” (and the Library of Congress). For this reason, it is reported that a social network contact is worth a mere $3.50. Social networks are not marketing platforms, which means you have to start using them differently. Build relationships on social networks on a one-to-one basis and you’ll be more successful.

Marketing Takeaway

I'm not saying that you should stop using tools that you enjoy using. I'm trying to get you to think of how much time you're allocating to participating in each community, with growing your business in mind. There’s a reason why the top bloggers have email newsletters, in addition to their posts. It’s because they realize what’s more valuable and they’re making the investment to get a larger return. If you’re smart, you’ll invest in an email newsletter, and then leverage your current platform to convert your viewers into subscribers. This way, you’ll have a strong list of people, who would potentially do business with you.