Ranking high in Google’s search results can and will have an incredible impact on the success of your online business.

You have really only have two choices when it comes to optimizing your website for search engines so as to increase your traffic thereby increasing your profits. You have the choice of either employing the service of a Search Engine Optimization company to do all the work for you and get your website ready to start getting traffic, or if you feel that you have the time and the patients to do it yourself then you can learn what you need to know and implement SEO into your website on your own.

Step 1: Keyword Research and Why you Must Do It

You should be thinking about what keywords you would think your customers would type in to a search engine to find the types of products and services your website has to offer? A keyword can be one word (e.g. “SEO”), or they can posses multiple keywords to form a phrase, multiple keywords or keyword phrases are usually recommended due to the fact that they tend to be more specific which makes it all the more likely that your website is what the customer/visitor is looking for. For example if someone types in the keywords "SEO tools" he knows he is looking for a site that will provide information on SEO tools.

You should start creating the basic plan for your website by writing down as many keywords as you can think of that will relate to your individual page or blog post that you plan to create, and you should do this for each page or blog post on your website. For example if your website is going to be about “Making Money with Google AdSense” then some obvious keywords or keyword phrases would be “making money with AdSense”, “Google AdSense”, “making money”, and “AdSense”.  In most cases you should not use the same keywords for each of your pages or posts so you’re your website ends up being ranked on more than one search result. You need to brain storm keywords that are related to your individual pages and then come up with a list of alternative words and phrases that coincide with your original list of keywords. This in essence gives you another set of keywords or keyword phrases to include in your site. Another idea that can end up being extremely profitable, and one that is rarely used, is to use some common misspellings of a few of your keywords or keyword phrases. You may wish to also use geographical phrases in your keywords or phrases if you feel that they would be important to your customers (e.g. “Chicago Pizza”), this would keep your search result relevant for anyone looking for pizza in Chicago, Chicago style pizza, ect. It is also a smart and profitable idea to research competitors’ websites for keywords and learn which keywords your most successful competitors are using. How many keywords you should have per page on your website is a matter of opinion but with hot key words it is better to focus on just one or two keywords for any pages or posts that relate to the keyword/s. If there is not as much competition for the keywords that you are going to be using then it is possible to use more than just a couple keywords per page. It is typically only recommend that you use no more than around 20 keywords or keyword phrases for any one page.

In addition you should choose the two most relevant keyword phrases that you believe would be searched for the most often when a parson does a search related to your website. However, you must also remember that the more competition there is for a keyword, the harder it is to achieve top rankings and that is why I suggest you only focus on only one or two keywords per page or post if the keyword is a highly competitive. For example, if you wanted to rank high in Google for the keyword “insurance”, you would have a very long road ahead of you. So remember, try your best to select two keyword phrases that are the most relevant to you business but that are neither too vague nor too competitive, it is also a good idea to have 2 or 3 words in each of your keyword phrases (e.g. “Home Improvement Tips”).

Once you have selected what you think are your two best keyword phrases, with 2 or 3 words, you can move on to your next step which will show you how to make some improvements to your home page. These improvements will help keep your web traffic on your site longer leading to more of a chance to earn money from your ads, services or products.

Step 2: Web Copy is King - Use It Correctly

Web copy refers to all the words or text that you have on your website or blog, if you didn’t already know that content is king in the world of search engines now is a good time to learn and begin to implement. Having quality content on your site is one of the most important ways to do in order to rank high in search engines and keep your visitors coming back to your website. In addition, your keyword phrases need to be placed strategically on your webpage to convince Google that your content is highly relevant to those specific keywords. The more prominent they are the better. As important as search engine optimization is, it is just as important to realize that your visitors should come first so your content should be easy to find and follow.

Here are some steps you can take to increase each keyword’s importance on your website:

• Place your keywords in your headings and try to keep them at the beginning of the heading.

• Include your keywords towards the top 20% of the page each of your pages.

• Bold or italicize keywords and keyword phrases when it is appropriate.

• Instead of having a link to another page that says "Click here to find out how", reword it to include your keywords, for example, "Read more about how you can "generate more traffic".

Another important tip you should always follow is to also include the keywords that you chose to use in to your HTML “title tag”, this will help bring in more traffic to your site. If you are unable to do this yourself you can contact a web developer to do this for you.

Once you have tweaked your home page and have it optimized for search engines you should strongly consider adding fresh and original content to your website, such as detailed descriptions of what your website has to offer your customer, a FAQs section that will help them learn anything about your website that they need to know and informative original articles that discuss the products or services your website offers and provides relevant content to your site. If you don’t think you can write your own content or you don’t want to write your own content, there are several solutions to this problem. Many articles can be found in article directories which can be used on your site, often times you can find PLR content which you can claim as your own work (rewriting is highly suggested in this case).

It is also a good idea to remember that search engines can only read text, not pictures, so although using pictures can increase your ad clicks they will not help your search engine ratings. Often times web developers will embed words in to an image to try and improve the look of the website to its visitors, additionally they often use Flash for animation for the same reason, it should be noted that this presents problems with search engines rankings.

Step 3: Linking, How to do it and Why it is Important.

Each link from another website to your website (not from your own website) is considered by search engines to be a vote of popularity for your website, having good backlinks can will dramaticaly improve your rankings in search engine results. However, remember that it is the quality of the backlinks and not the quantity of the links that is important when it comes to search engine rankings. Websites that contain your backlinks should be relevant to your websites industry or business and preferably be companies or websites that are highly regarded themselves. Ten quality links count far more than 500 links from arbitrary websites. Just as your social network offline can have a big impact on your income so to can your online social network have an effect on your income. You should brainstorm all the relevant websites that pertain to your industry or business and write then and ask them if they could provide a link to your website. Write a friendly email to each describing the benefit their visitors would get in knowing about your business, and request them to create a link to your website. Most people will not respond first time round so a follow-up phone call is usually required as well. This can be an important part of building your online network and dramatically increase your businesses profits.

How should you monitor your results and why do it?

Monitor your rankings in Google over the next few months by typing your chosen keywords into the search box, and recording your ranking. Also look at your hosting reports to understand what search terms your visitors are using to find your website. Keep tabs on your competitors as well, you may discover a keyword or phrase that is not being utilized and can offer you a wonderful opportunity to get more website traffic and increase your profits.

Using these tips and optimizing your website to get good search results is one of the most important things you can do to increase your online income whether it be from advertising or sales of a product or service. You will not get traffic if you don’t get your website listed with search engines and without traffic you will never make money with your website.

Cheryl