How to make your company's website visible on search engines without spending any money

By Vance Marketing Solutions

Tom Denison		Michael Butera		Lauren Heist		Anya Cheng

 

What you will learn:
 

• Keyword research is the key. Choose the right keywords via free web analytics tools.
• Put those keywords in your website URL, content, image notes and more with appropriate frequency.
• Link to as many internal and external RELEVANT pages as possible
 

Remember that age-old question: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Similarly, your website might look great, but if no one can find it through search engines, it’s not doing you any good.

Search engine optimization is one of the most important things you can do to ensure your website receives lots of relevant traffic. Most importantly, it’s free.

The difference between paid and free results
When you go to a search engine and type something in, you will see two different results: Links that are paid for and links that are not, which are called “organic” results. In Google, for example, the paid results appear on the right side of the page, or at the top of the page with a colored background. The links in the center of the page are the “organic” results, which are free.

Search engine marketing is an umbrella term that includes search engine optimization, which controls the organic results, and Pay Per Click advertising, which is another term for paid results, and more.

How does search engine optimization work?
Search engine optimization is the process of configuring your website to be search engine friendly. A properly optimized website tells search engines what your business is about. It allows search engines to understand the key words and phrases of your business and list your website in its search results pages based on what you communicated. The easier you make it for search engines to understand what your business is about, the more likely your site will appear in higher positions in their search results.

10 steps to improve your site’s visibility for free:

1. Understand your current situation — Think of a few keywords that best describe your business or that you want people to search for to find you, such as CNC machining, CNC router or woodworking machine. Google those keywords to see if you are on the first two pages. If not, start now to leverage the power of search engine optimization and attract new customers.
    
2. Use free analytic keyword research websites to find the right keywords
   
   1. Go to https://adwords.google.com
      
      
       
   2. Log in to your Google account
   3. Choose “Tool” and “Keyword Tools”
   4. Type in the keyword that you want people search for, such as “CNC Router” where it says “Enter one keyword or phrase per line.”
      
      
       
   5. Then you’ll see all of the words that are related to the term you typed in and how frequently those words are searched for
      
      
       
3. Use keywords in your URLs – If you can, change your site’s URLs to include terms that match the keywords you are trying to optimize for.
   
   For example, let’s say Joe’s Machinery Company wants to optimize for the word “CNC router.” Instead of building a page’s URL to be structured as http://www.joesmachinery.com/cid=45894, rewrite the URL to contain the main keyword, such as http://www. joesmachinery.com /cnc_router
    
4. Use keywords in your content – Optimize for two to four keyword phrases per page. Use the selected keyword phrases multiple times on the page, within reason. Be careful not to turn your content into spam
    
5. Use keywords in your images -- Unlike humans, search engine spiders can’t see images; they only see text. So for each image that you have on your page, it’s important that you also include an “alt tag,” which is like a text description of the image. It’s an important way to work more keywords into your page and make your page more visible.
    
6. Avoid Flash – Flash may make your site look spiffy, but Flash files cannot be read by search engines. Use Flash sparingly.
    
7. Link to internal pages – If there are a significant number of links on each page connecting to other pages on your site, it makes it easier for search engine spiders to crawl the content of your site and index more pages.
   
   For example, if you have a page about woodworking equipment, a page for solid wood machining and a page for panel processing equipment, you should have a link to both the solid wood machining page and the panel processing equipment page when you are on the woodworking equipment page. Also, link the solid wood machining page and the panel processing equipment page together as well.
    
8. Make sure that the keywords that are near each link are related to the link. For example, if you have an article about fruit and you want to link to a page about apples, make sure there are a lot of “apple” words near the link to the apple page. That way the search engines know the link is really related to the article.
    
9. Link to external pages – Find out what are other websites are related to your industry and request them to link to your website/pages.
   
   For example, if you have a page about gluing and laminating equipment, and you find there is an article on www.iswonline.com about gluing and laminating, you ask www.iswonline.com if they would link to your page.
    
10. Continually test and improve – Customer behaviors are always changing.
     

Vance Marketing Solutions’ Search Engine Optimization Services

Too busy to execute the details? Can’t afford to hire a full-time internal expert to help you? Vance Marketing Solutions offers search engine optimization services to help your site improve its organic search rankings. We are the SEO company that understands the nuances of search engine optimization and will get your site listed on Google.

With more than 80 percent of all web traffic coming from search engines, it’s crucial that search engine optimization is a cornerstone of your online business.

Even if you’ve done a little research on keywords in the past, keyword popularity is always changing, so it’s important to partner with an SEO company that has SEO services to help you stay on top of the latest keyword trends in your marketplace.

Our SEO services include extensive keyword research and recommendations about how to improve your Meta tags, H1 tags, image alt tags, site structure, navigation structure, URL structure and link building campaign.

By developing a strong search engine optimization strategy as your marketing weapon of choice, you’ll experience an unmatched level of visibility, sales and brand recognition for your business.

Want to learn more about Search Engine Marketing? Download the presentation that Vance Marketing Solutions presented at the AWFS show.
http://www.vancemarketingsolutions.com/wood
 

Or contact Tom Denison, Vice President, Vance Marketing Solutions at 847-634-4353