SEO: The Power of Your Page Title

1. According to SEO expert Brad Fallon (of Stompernet fame), one of the most important SEO “on site” factors is using keywords in your page title. This is usually a really easy thing to do (particularly if your website has a WebCare Content Management System back-end).
   
   The page title is the name that is displayed for every page of your website at the top of your browser window. Brad says that he has researched the impact of changing the words in your page title and it has had a dramatic effect on his rankings. The mportant principle is as follows:
   
   Use your most important keyword/s first in your title.
   Use your secondary keywords later in your title.
   Don’t just keyword stuff your title - it also needs to have a bit of “filler” in it.
   So, using WebCare’s home page as an example.
   
   The title used to be:
   
   WebCare Solutions: Fixed Priced Websites
   
   What are the keywords here?
   
   “webcare”, “webcare solutions”, “websites”, “fixed price” - all pretty irrelevant (and thus low quality traffic) keywords!
   
   What I really want my website to rank highly on is high traffic keywords like “web design” and web site design”.
   
   So, putting Brad’s research into practice, I have now changed the home page title to:
   
   Web Design by WebCare - Creative Web Design Services
   
   This includes the keywords “web design” (which is my best keyword and so it is right at the front of the title) and “web design services”. So there is repetition of the keyword - “web design” as well as an additional keyword phrase “web design services”.
   
   Of course, you also need to ensure that you use the keywords you want to rank highly for throughout the text on that particular page (the earlier the better and the more prominence given to the keyword the better). Have a look at the webcare home page to see how often we use the words “web design” and the different formatting that we have applied to this keyword (particularly bold).
   

SEO: Free Training Videos

Search engine optimisation (SEO - the process of increasing the ranking of your website in search engines such as Google and Yahoo) is a difficult subject to grasp - it is constantly changing (as the search engines modify their algorithms) and their are lots of myths about what does and what doesn’t work. If you want to get high volumes of free traffic, then mastering SEO is vitally important.
I came across some great free videos yesterday that I reckon are really useful. They are from the video training website Lynda - you can buy a membership to Lynda for a month or a year which gives you access to all 19,000 training videos that they have on a myriad of computer-related topics. But, back to SEO!
One of the topics Lynda has videos on is SEO. They have over 9 hours of videos on SEO and you need to join up in order to see all of them. But, you can watch 7 of these videos for free! The free titles are:
Overview
2:57
2.6 MB
What is white hat SEO?
7:19
14.8 MB
What is black hat SEO?
7:18
10.1 MB
Get inside the mind of the searcher
5:43
11.5 MB
Keyword research
7:38
9.7 MB
Hubs and authorities
8:40
10.4 MB
So, head on over to Lynda and watch these free training videos on the basics of SEO. They will give you a good head start on your journey of mastering this important internet marketing strategy. For more information, visit webcare at http://www.webcare.com.au

Welcome to my musings on internet marketing

Finally, I have manged to get the WebCare blog up and running. Woo hoo! This is one of the tasks I set for myself now that I am running WebCare Solutions full time.

The purpose of this blog is as much about recording for my benefit, the nuggets of information (tips and tricks) that I find in the course of my online day, as it is about communicating those nugget to others.

As most of WebCare’s clients are starting up new online businesses or are starting fledgling online versions of existing businesses, their learning curve is huge - search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising, blogging, podcasting, web 2.0, on-site optimisation, link building etc.
This blog will work through each one of these concepts over time and add new information as it emerges.

For more information on webcare, visit us at http://www.webcare.com.au

Find out what people are searching for

We all know about the Overture Keyword Tool to find out how many searches for a particular keyword have occurred in the past month. This sort of tool is incredibly useful for working out what to sell and how to market your product (because keywords are most definitely the key!).
Google has recently upped the ante on Overture. For example, have a look at Google Trends. This tool lets you search a keyword (eg “ipod”) and see a graph of the no of searches over a certain period of time. You can also set it to report on a particular geographic region and compare it to other keywords (eg “creative zen”). Fabulous!
Another great Google tool is its Google Keyword Tool which generates potential keywords for your ad campaign and reports their Google statistics, including search performance and seasonal trends. You can see whether a keyword is competitive and frequently searched (and obviously you want something that is frequently searched, but low on competitors. Google will also generate you a whole list of keywords (including lateral or synonyms) that you can then transfer straight into your Google Adwords campaign. The features of this tool well exceed what the Overture Keyword Tool has to offer.

For more information on search engine optimisation and SEO, visit webcare at http://www.webcare.com.au

Pay Per Click Advertising - Keyword Driven

Over the last few years, pay per click advertising (PPC) has leapfrogged free search engine listings and banner ads as the preferred method of online advertising. PPC is essentially the process of writing an ad, selecting various keywords, and paying a set amount each time a person clicks on your ad (and gets taken to the page you specify on your website).
The most popular exponent of PPC advertising is Google AdWords. Do a search for something in Google and have a look on the right hand side of the page - those little ads you can see are pay per click ads. This means, the advertiser will pay Google if you click on their ad!
Here’s an example of a typical PPC ad:

Brand name tennis racquets. Wilson. Prince. Head. Yonex.Free can of balls with every sale.www.tennisracquets.com.au

The sort of keywords you would use for this ad could be “tennis racquets”, “tennis racquet”, “cheap racquet”, “wilson racquet”, “cheap prince racquet”, “racquet Australia”.

The most popular (and still the best, despite its imitators), is Google Adwords. You can set up an account and create an ad campaign in about 15 minutes, and be generating traffic to your website within minutes of the campaign launching. Each click will cost you a minimum of AUD$0.05, but you could pay AUD$15 for a very popular key word!

You decide whether to pay more than the minimum to increase the ranking of your ad. Depending on how competitive each individual key word is, you could be anywhere from No 1 to No 100!
Obviously, if you are out of the top 10, the chances of your ad being seen will diminish quite rapidly. But, don’t feel you have to pay a ridiculous amount of money to be no 1. It is not worth it. For a whole lot of reasons, the optimal position is between 3 and 7.

here is a whole science involved in Google Adwords. Many people have written ebooks about how to maximize your advertising dollar by getting the best return from Google. The best Google guru around is the fabulous Perry Marshall. I was lucky enough to see him live at the X10 Seminar and the guy is brilliant!

y the way, I have recently received his Advanced Google course with Dan Crowther – and it really is awesome: filled with sophisticated tips and tricks to take your Google campaign to the next level.

For more information on search engine optimisation and pay per click (PPC) , visit webcare at http://www.webcare.com.au