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Search engine Optimisation is ranking your website well in the free path of the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and NineMSN. In Australia, Google dominates the Australian search market and it has over 80% market share. Our tests also revealed that Google searches almost always convert into inquiries or sales much more often than searches by other major search engines. So in other words, Google generates more high quality search traffic. That’s a pretty good reason to focus your search engine strategy on Google.

With a high rank on Google, you’ll normally find that you rank pretty well on the other search engines, too. So, let’s go through a three step process to do search engine optimisation. It’s fairly complex, and many companies spend literally thousands of dollars to get this done for them. However, it’s pretty simple to explain it in this three-step strategy.

Step 1: Perform Keyword Research Establish keywords and phrases that are relevant to your services or your product so that you can focus your search engine optimisation efforts on those particular keywords or phrases. For example, if your business operates within a local area, your keyword research is normally going to be pretty easy. It’s likely to be that your keywords and keyword phrases will simply include what you do and then your area. For example, if your business is as a carpet cleaner and you operate in Sydney, your keyword phrases likely to be something to the effect of “Carpet cleaning Sydney.” You can also use keyword and search tools like inventory.overture.com, which is free, or keyworddiscovery.com or wordtracker.com; the latter two are paid search tools, but they’re also somewhat more sophisticated than inventory.overture.com.

Step 2: Optimising on Page Optimise your webpage content. For the best search engine optimisation and rankings, you have to make sure that the right keywords appear on your webpages. This is part of the story, true, but it’s just part of what you have to do to optimise your webpages. Here are some other things you should do to make sure you optimise effectively.

1. Make Sure Your Title Includes Your Keyword(s). At the blue bar on the top of your web browser, your title label appears. It’s also the title of your webpage in the organic search results for Google. This title should be concise and short, and have keywords or keyword phrases in it. Put the most important keywords first, and any secondary keywords afterward. For example, if you have your carpet cleaning shop in Surry Hills in Sydney, you can say as your title: Carpet Cleaning Sydney - Carpet Cleaning Surry Hills Sydney.” There’s some repetition there, true, but it’s got a lot of keywords in it and it doesn’t sound strange.

2. Have a Keyword Rich Description. This is properly called the Meta Description Tag. It is the part of your website code that describes the content on the page. Your descriptions should be keyword rich and written in complete sentences. For our digital printer, the description could read: Digital Printer in Surry Hills, Sydney. Providing Competitive Colour Digital Printing and Binding Services. Print Business Cards, Flyers, Brochures and Menus, Postcards, and More

3. Look at Your Headings. Search engines place great importance on headings because they seem to find important page content. Ensuring that your headings and subheadings are keyword rich is a good start. For example, Full Colour Digital Printing Services in Sydney

4. Address Your Page Content. You should ensure that you have at last one keyword rich paragraph of text on each page. Keywords used in your headings may be repeated again in you content. Try to use a mix of related key phrases. For example, Digital Printing, On Demand Printing, 60 minute Print Service rather than the same phrase over and over again.

5. Links Matter, Too. Links, too, indicate page content to search engines, importantly. Avoid using generic links such as, “Click here,” or “find out more.” Instead, make your links keyword rich by using such phrases as, “Check out our carpet cleaning services here,” with “carpet cleaning services” as the hyperlink.

Step-3: Optimise Off Page, Too Optimising off page, or using linking strategies, is the third and final stage of what you want to do. When you have incoming links, these are considered by Google to be a vote for your website content by other websites. Many business SEO efforts fail because they’ll use keywords on webpages but don’t have a linking strategy. Here are some ways you can use linking strategies to make your site go up in search engine listings: 1. Try to Have People Use Keywords inside Your Incoming Link. If you have someone supply a link to your website and you know the going to do it, such as a supplier or client, ask them to use keywords that are going to fit with your site, such as, “Affordable carpet cleaning services,” instead of your company name or a directive such as “click here.”

2. Put Your Site on So-Called “Authority Directories.” These website directories, called “authority directories,” are highly respected by search engines and can help improve rankings. This can help you improve your own rankings, too. Many of these sites charge a few to list there, but this helps keep out lower quality websites. Three of the most important ones are: botw.org, Yahoo.com.au, and business.com. Be advised that this isn’t about those scams that say they’ll submit your site to countless directories for $49 or so. Only submit your website to these well regarded directories.

2. List Your Sites on Authority Directories. Listing your website on website directories which are well regarded by search engines can help to improve your rankings. Most of these so-called authority directories charge a fee for listing. A fact that serves to keep out lower quality websites. Three of the most important authority directories are: Yahoo.com.au, botw.org and business.com. Please note that I’m not talking about email scams that offer to submit your site to 34 million directories for $49. You should only bother submitting your website to directories that are well regarded by search engines.

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