Why is SEO (which stands for Search Engine Optimization) so important?

If you are looking for a company to help you solve a problem (i.e. – where to go for lunch, someone to help you increase sales, etc.), where would you start looking for this information? Would you go to the Internet or to the yellow pages?

The Internet. More than 80% of people will never look at the yellow pages and go straight to the Internet to search for “your city pizza restaurant”. And the restaurants that are on the first page of Google for that search will get a significant increase in customers because of that!

If your website isn’t search engine friendly, you’re leaving out at least 60% of all the potential customers you could be getting.

Let’s be perfectly candid – if your business is not showing up within the first two pages of Google, then for all intents and purposes your business does not exist. The effectiveness of getting a good search engine result positions works out like this:

• 1st – #1 spot on Google for a particular keyword (this is the best)

• 2nd – one of the first (#2 – #5 spots) in a search engine result

• 3rd – somewhere on the first page (organic search results or paid search); generally “above the fold” (i.e. – content that can be seen without scrolling down the window)

• 4th – somewhere on the second page (maybe)

• 5th – everyone else (if you’re in this position good luck! But if you want to change that, let me know and I will help you figure out the best way for you to fix this sales-killing problem)

The #1 source of free exposure for your business comes from the search engines.

Getting your website to the top of the search engines will do wonders for your traffic. Do you know how to research different keywords to see what people in your market are searching for? When they are looking for businesses like yours, what terms do they type into a search engine window? The best results are achieved when you strike the right balance between keywords that:

• have the highest number of searches
• · the least amount of competition (this means fewer of your competitors are trying to get ranked for the same term(s)

Once you’ve selected your keyword(s) or phrase(s), you need to apply proper SEO principles to get your website properly ranked. Remember – you will need to focus on both on-page and off-page SEO.

On-page SEO is generally considered to be those things that you would do “on your webpage” that make it easier for the search engines to understand what your business is – title tags, description, keyword listing, alt tags for images or flash animation, etc.

Off-page SEO is generally considered to be those things that you would do “off of your web page to make it easier for the search engines to view your website as an “authority site” on a particular topic; for example, the number and quality of various web pages linking back to each of your specific web pages, etc.) If you haven’t take a focused approach to optimizing your web pages for the search engines, now is the time to start.

Again, we understand that you’re busy. You might not have the time to sit around and research out keywords for your website. That’s where East One Marketing can come in. For a FREE 20 minute “SEO Keyword Consultation” send me an email at info@eastone.co.uk or call me on 01273 449906 / 01273 819382

It’s a FACT – people buy in their own time, for their own reasons, from people they know, like and trust. If you get 1,000 people to visit your website, chances are only about 10 will buy. That’s roughly 1% of your visitors.

This is because most customers just don’t know you or trust you enough on their first visit to actually make a purchase

Unfortunately, most website owners just let the remaining 99% of their traffic leave their website without trying to engage them!

That means that after spending all that time building their website andgetting traffic to it, 99% of their traffic just goes out the window!

As you can imagine, that’s a significant waste of money! Instead of wasting your traffic like this, start engaging with them. “Invite them in”, so to speak, and start “talking” with them.

You might be asking yourself, How do I do this ?

Give them something of value – for free…. and make it informative and useful.

What are some kinds of things you can give away for free? Articles, ebooks, newsletters, a free sample of your product or service, a free “teleclass” or seminar, or a free consultation.

These are just a few ways you can entice your customers into a dialog. If you ask for the contact information of 20% – 50% of your visitors, over the long run you’ll convert much more than just 1% into customers. Additionally, you can get “repeat business” by asking for your existing client’s email contact information. Studies have shown that just a 5% increase in repeat business can translate to more than a 25% increase in YOUR annual sales! And once they are engaged, you can start asking for referrals as well. Just think of where you could be 12 months from now, by just applying this one simple technique!

Where would your business be if you asked each of your customers for just three rerferrals?

For more information on how you could get “More Business For Your Business” Contact me today for a free consultation –  01273 449906

Your Website is only as usefull as the number of people using it!

If nobody sees your website, you’re not going to make any money! Its that simple

Remember:

Traffic = Prospects

Website / SEO / Design = Customers

This “heat map” shows the results of an eye tracking study, whereby users were observed by a machine. It shows a record of where their eyes moved across the page to take in information – and where they spent the most time.

You can plainly see that most of their time was spent in the upper left hand corner of the web page. More specifically, you can see not only where people spent their time, but where they actually clicked their mouse, in this image:

The closer the color is to “Red”, the longer an individual spent time looking at that spot. Further, each purple “X” shows where someone clicked on the page with their mouse. You can find out more information on how to interpret this image here. And it’s no accident that Google places their premium ad space in this part of the website – it’s how they make their money.

But right below these are the “organic search results” – those search engine results that everyone tries to modify their web pages for, so as to capture one or more of these coveted spots. All of these search results are “organically” positioned there based on the quality of the content on that particular web page. More on that and SEO later…

Let me ask you a question. If you hid your order link in small type way at the bottom where nobody can find it, what are your chances of making a sale? Next-to-nothing, to be sure…

You only have 5 seconds to capture their attention!

And, this figure might be too great. A research team lead by Dr. Gitte Lindgaard found that people can make rough decisions about a Web page’s visual appeal after being exposed to it for as little as 50 ms, which is 1/20 of a second Most website visits last about 2–4 minutes.

The bottom line is that organic search results will get over 77% of the attention and so called “click throughs” to the website link, with the #1 spot getting a majority of these. The other 9 spots on the first page of Google will also generate a good number of click throughs; however, once you get to the second or third page, or beyond, the relevance and click thoughs drop off dramatically.

Eyetools’ Greg Edwards published a “heat map” of people’s eye movements on the typical Google results page, determining both organic results rank and paid placement rank are of paramount importance. Most site viewers’ eyeballs didn’t even pass over fourth or fifth items in the lists. So, what’s the take-away from all of this?

Most business owners put their most important content – the “stuff” that will bring in a new customer or a new sale – on the left-hand side somewhere, usually in the middle or bottom of the page that they want everyone to look at. This creates disinterested or confused visitors, which results in lost sales for you. Confusing a prospect doesn’t help anyone because a confused buyer will not buy!

When you are putting together a web page, if you don’t pay attention to the results of the “Google Heat Map”, then you’re missing out! If you are a business owner or executive and want your website to make a return and get more sales, you need to:

· Put your calls to action where your customers won’t miss them

· Include bullet points in the main ‘heat’ of the google heatmap!

East One Marketing can provide to you a FREE Google heatmap analysis of your website – (£30 value) when you call me at 01273 449906

Keyword Rich Business Name
Businesses with their business type in their names are recommended from a ranking perspective. For example if you are a wedding photographer, it is in your interest to have the term “wedding photographer” in your business name. Adding the location in it would also be of benefit, however this is not often possible for practical reasons. e.g. when comparing wedding photographers in the London area, the business name “London Wedding Photographer” will usually rank better than “Gold Wedding Photographer” which will in turn rank higher than “Premium Pics”

Business Type Keyword Rich URL
Similar to ranking in the organic area, a keyword rich URL with your business type can also be beneficial. Businesses with established business names often see this as a problem as they have an existing customer base which may know them by their non keyword rich business name and URL. If this is an issue, consider building a different website with its sole purpose being its ability to generate leads from. As long as your content is unique to your main website, this practice can be a good way to rank well for your chosen keywords without having to change your main URL.

Enhance your Local Business Listing
Most business listings contain only basic data. Enhancing your listing provides additional information to Google which will in turn help you with your ranking. Fields you can provide to Google include products you sell, payment options, opening hours, areas you service etc. The more descriptive you are, the better the chance Google will elevate your listing when someone is searching for a specific query. For example the search query for “Manchester 24 hour Vet ” will promote the listing which contains that information.

Add Testimonials
Have a happy customer? Ask them to submit a testimonial through on your Local Listing. This is quite easy to do by your customer yet can provide some good ranking benefits. Never forge testimonials as Google can look at factors such as which IP lodged the recommendation, frequency of growth etc.

Getting into Google Maps can be easy. Ensuring you gain great ranking from it involves many factors as can be seen above.