Search Engine Optimisation Archives - Page 2 of 7

Farhan Fawzer

May 1, 2016

Why Good SEO is so Important

I thought that for my first post for the month of May, I would write about why SEO – Search Engine Optimization is so important for all websites. My goal is to make things as simple as possible for new site owners to understand.

Image Credit to searchengineland.com

When people do a search, they’re usually looking for specific information.

Less than 10% will look beyond page 1 of the search results returned so your goal should always be page 1 and then continue to build towards a top 5 ranking which is above the fold (seen without scrolling down).

Whatever niche or market you are in there is going to be competition so don’t limit your efforts to just a keyword, also target 3-4 word key phrases. A common request by many Sri Lankan website owners, who has asked me to rank for a single keywords like jewellery, mobile phone or apartments. Key phrases are much easier to rank high for than one or two word keywords.

So, if you wish to run any form of online business, your primary role is to get recognized by the major search engines. SEO is really the only way to do that.

Something else to consider is that Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask account for over 95 percent of all global internet searches. Google is by far the largest and accounts for roughly 70-80% of all searches.

Good SEO is not only about ranking high and getting traffic, it’s about ranking high, getting traffic and having exactly what the user is looking for.

SEO is an ongoing process and it starts the second you decide to register a domain. Domains that are keyword rich will be much easier to rank for.

Don’t try and take shortcuts. Take your time and do things the right way and you will be rewarded in due time. 99% of SEO services out there aren’t worth using. Read and research and do it yourself. It will take time, but you’ll know it was done right.

SEO is NOT about cramming your website with every possible keyword. If anything it will get your website penalized with Google.

Make sure your website is clear, easy to read and easy to navigate. I see many new webmasters using white text on dark backgrounds and while that may work for some sites, they do not for most. Think about this, when was the last time you saw a newspaper or magazine with white text on a dark background? Never!

Use a free tracking tool like Google Analytics to see how your site is performing for your main keywords and phrases. You’ll also be able to see any errors that Google may be having while crawling your site.

Don’t ever stop working on building your site’s popularity. Take at least one day of the week and devote it to adding fresh content. If your homepage doesn’t change much, you can still add content with a news feed or by submitting articles to article submission sites. As your site grows, so will your Page Authority and your rankings will go up in the SERP’s.

Looking at various website’s of reputed companies, hotels and businesses in Sri Lanka, a BIG question I have is “Why don’t you do Good SEO?“

Farhan Fawzer

October 2, 2015

Creating a SEO friendly website

focus-on-the-basics The basic step in internet marketing is setting up your website. In order to properly execute the numerous strategies associated with web marketing, which include a roster of SEO and SEM techniques, you need to have a place in the vast World Wide Web. You must understand, though, that it is crucial to make a good website that will effectively reel in your target audience and establish yourself in the tough online marketing arena.

Know your audience

First and foremost, you should tailor the contents of your website by defining your target audience. You cannot risk being too general when it comes to internet marketing. Even if you have a non-niche business, you still have customer needs that will likely fall under your category.

You must understand the nature of your business in order to define your target audience. There are also several factors you need to keep in mind, which include gender, age, income, location and others.

If you’re looking to create a SEO friendly website make sure you follow the above tips or consult an expert in the field.

Farhan Fawzer

May 11, 2015

Is your website helping you capture new business?

Within one second of landing on your website first impressions are made. You have the next 3-5 seconds to capture the interest of visitors to convince them to stay long enough to determine if you might be the firm that can help solve their problem and/or improve their life.

When was the last time your website had a check up?

Be sure your homepage communicates who you are, what you do and whom you serve. Your headlines, your tagline, the text and keywords you use should combine visually with the photos and videos to convey this message. Critical information needs to be “above the fold,” meaning a visitor does not have to scroll to see it. Graphics and contact form that start above the fold does encourage people to scroll to see the rest.

The top right corner is a top-viewed location of a homepage that can be used to attract eyeballs and prompt action. Do you want people to call you? If so, this is the ideal place for your phone number.

Does your website help build trust?

People want to do business with people they trust. Stanford conducted the Web Credibility Guidelines study to see what generates trust online. They found that seeing real people behind the organization and highlighting their expertise and credentials are big factors. Visitors will contact you when they know, like, and trust you. Help connect with website visitors know and trust you by taking extra care with the “about us” page and the hotel or business profiles. Provide more than just your experience and years in business. This is your opportunity to tell people what you want them to know about your business be it a hotel or travel services. Sharing the company’s history and showing that there are great people on your team takes some of the mystery out of booking a hotel room or submitting an inquiry.

Is it easy to find information on your website?

You want to make it easy for visitors that come to your site to find the information they want and to view pages you want them to see. Is the navigation on your site clear? Is it easy for people to find the pages that help them understand the significance of what you do? Tabs should use terms the general public use and understand not legal terms.

Long paragraphs are not user friendly. Use bullets that link to a page or section that discusses that term or area of practice. Bold, highlighted and underline text helps the visitors and the search engines determine what is most important on the page.
Make it easy for people to land on the page of interest and make sure people see the information you want them to see.

Implement steps today to improve your website with SEO. Regardless of your efforts to optimize your site and make sure it is seen, if people don’t like your website they will not contact you.

Farhan Fawzer

April 1, 2015

Mobile friendly Google Algorithm update

As most you may know by now and expect the next major Algorithm update to roll out by Google by around the 21st April week.

Let’s take a closer look at what Google’s trying to accomplish by rolling out this update.

This is Google’s much awaited step towards providing primarily mobile friendly sites in mobile search.

The update will impact mobile search results globally in all languages, and Google says it will have a “significant” impact.

To make sure your site is mobile friendly or not on Google’s mobile search results, run your site through the mobile-friendly testing tool. If you get through, you have nothing to worry about.

There are many websites in Sri Lanka that are not Mobile friendly and needs immediate action in order to keep up to speed with Google.

Farhan Fawzer

February 6, 2015

Old School SEO

So, last week I was approached by a prospect (now new client) that had been working with another SEO company to improve their website’s rankings. The strategy they were employing was to purchase multiple keyword loaded domain names and deploy them as landing pages in the hopes of attracting traffic to those pages based on the keywords contained in the URLs. Thus far, the client has never seen any benefit from this whatsoever.

Old School SEO

Now… this was a strategy employed some years ago with fairly high success (at least in terms of attracting eyeballs). However, as I explained to my new client, this strategy is very, very old school. Here’s why…

Begin first of all by thinking about what Google is trying to accomplish through its search rankings. The answer is simple: it wants to provide the best, most satisfying results to the searcher so that the searcher will continue to use Google as their search engine of choice, thereby ensuring its continued dominance of the Internet. Obvious…

Now, ask yourself how Google makes the determination of what searchers are going to like in terms of search results. The answer to this should also be somewhat obvious: really good websites! So, when Google is looking at and figuring out where to rank websites it is essentially analyzing them on the basis of usefulness to the searcher based on the keyword(s) they just searched for.

So, what do you think makes a website valuable to you? Well, obviously a site that reflects the keywords you just searched for in terms of the words on the page, the topic the content is about. But, beyond that, what else? How about videos also tagged with those keywords. Or a blog also full of that sort of content. What about podcasts? Or if it’s a retail site, a well designed and secure shopping cart system, with a secure payment system. What about good, simple navigation? And fast loading pages.

Getting the idea? Right. Google is becoming very sophisticated in its ability to analyze websites. And it is using these sophisticated algorithms to not just look at the text on a page, but also how valuable the site is to a user based on a wide variety of criteria. So, with this in mind, why does anyone think that Google would place high value on a single landing page that’s keyword loaded simply to try to attract search engines? Is there any value there? I think we all know the answer to that.

So… want to be in Google’s good books? Think like Google and start making great websites that people will love.