Search Engine Optimization - It’s the Real World All Over

Think "physical world".

Tami has opened a moccasin store in her town. She names it "Tami's Store". She is great at making and buying leather moccasins. She is a good accountant. However, she knows nothing about marketing. When she lists her store in the yellow pages, she puts it under "department store". She does not hang signs on her store indicating that she sells moccasins. She is too busy to think about talking to other business owners. When you pass by Tami's Store, you do not know she sells moccasins. You go to the store down the street that sells all kinds of Native American items because you found it in the yellow pages. Sure enough, the sign in front says, "Spirit Wind's Boutique: From Moccasins to Art". Tami has opened a store that will likely go bankrupt within a few months.

You've just moved into a new town and managed to find the grocery store. You know it is the grocery store you want because you looked in the yellow pages and saw that it was just down your street. The big sign out in front that said "Hal's Grocery and Wine" helped you along, too. There are even signs on the windows that advertise specials. Normally, when you walk into a new grocery store, you know the locations of the items you need based on the signs that hang over the aisles.But Hal forgot to add those signs over the aisles. You wander around, spending much more time than you had planned to find the groceries you need. Now, let us say Hal's Wine shop is located in a back corner and let us say that the door you walk through to get into it closes behind you and will not open from your side. Now, you can always check out at the wine counter, but you need more groceries! Therefore, to get back in the store, you have to walk out the side door and walk around to go in the front door again. It does not take you long to decide you need to find another store.

Tami's mistakes:

• She did not name her store in such a way as to indicate her products.
• She did not list her store under the proper category.
• She does not draw attention to her store with ads and banners.

Hal's mistakes:

Hal was great with advertising, but he forgot about navigation. Confused customers do not make for happy customers. The only thing people can find without difficulty is the wine; then they have to go back through the front to get their groceries. Many people would not bother.

After your product, the first consideration should be the name of your store. This includes the domain name. Name your site in such a way that search engines recognize it as what people are looking for when they type in search terms. For example, if you are selling hair products, you might purchase the domain name, "www.hair-products-for-women.com" and then name your store, "Darla's Hair Products for Women". It is not fancy, but it is easy and search engines like easy.

When people visit your online store, they will want to know where the products are before they go clicking on links. They should not have to search everywhere within your site to find shampoo. Every page should contain navigation to the other pages on the site. A visitor may not want to go "home" to find conditioner and then home again to find hairspray. Search engines feel the same way. When a search engine indexes your site, it will follow the links within the site. Bad navigation is confusing to search engines and consequently, your site will be lower in the search engine results.

Next, you must give an accurate description of what you have on your site to the search engines. This is done by placing title, keywords, and description in the Meta tags of your html and building your content accordingly. Use keyword phrases in your content to let search engines know that what you claim to be there truly is there. Make sure the keyword phrases you use are those that everyday users will use when looking for your products. There is a trick to finding good keywords, but that is for another article.

You must advertise your site. Being indexed by search engines is the first hurdle, but if you want to make a success of your online business, you must actively market your site. Spread the word by purchasing pay per click ads on search engines, vertical engines and other sites. Spread the word by posting in your blog, purchasing ad space and allowing visitors to bookmark your site for their friends to see. Submit articles to directories that link back to your site.

My next few articles will delve deeper into the individual methods for good search engine optimization. Check back!