Are all the pages included or just the homepage?

The first thing your SEO consultant will check when reviewing your website is search engine accessibility.

Here’s why – search engine robots need to be able to crawl through your website before it can start reading your optimised web pages to increase your rankings.

Did you know it’s easy for you to find out if your website is included in Google?

You can do it right now – go on.

Go to www.google.com and type in site:yourwebsite.com.au – for example I would type in site:clarelancaster.com.au

Click search and hey presto – the results you see are the pages that are included in Google.

You can quickly see how many pages Google knows about by looking at the “Results” in the bar at the top right hand side.

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If you have a website you need to know the basics of how Google works.

Here goes…

Google works by crawling through the Internet via links, to make a library of all the websites that it can find.

When a user types a search query into Google, the search engine looks through its library and uses a ranking algorithm (computer program) to compile a list of the most relevant websites to satisfy what that person is looking for.

It also looks for advertisements that are relevant and displays these in the right hand column of the search results (Google Adwords results).

Yep – that’s it in a nutshell.

Of course there are a million and one other details that the above doesn’t cover but if you can get your head around this simplified version – you’re probably miles ahead of the competition when it comes to understanding how search engines work and the process they go through to present the list of websites to answer a search query.

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Your website must be found on Google to have a chance of connecting these targeted, high quality visitors to your website.

There are two ways to get visitors from Google.

• Using Google Adwords
• Using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

These two methods come under the term “Search Engine Marketing” or “Search Marketing.”

Google Adwords is a way of sending high quality visitors to your website immediately, by paying for it.

SEO will provide a stream of free, high quality visitors to your website but can take up to 6 months for best results.

Both types of search marketing can be used to ensure your website reaches the visitors that you want to connect with.

What is Google Adwords?

Google Adwords allows you to place small text based advertisements of your website on Google.

Here’s how it works:

1. You create text ads and choose keywords you think your customers would use to find you.
2. Those text ads are displayed when someone types in one of your keywords.
3. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad’s link and visits your website.

What is SEO?

SEO is a way of ensuring your website is accessible to Google and has the best chance to rank higher than other websites that offer similar products/services.

The theory behind SEO is simple:

• Ensure your website follows the Google webmaster guidelines to make it accessible.
• Create a website that is the more relevant to what you are offering then your competitors.
• Think about the keywords your customers would use to find you and use those words in relevant places throughout your website.
• Make it a high quality website so that other websites will link to you

I recommend that if you have invested in SEO (and I always advise that you do) you should run a Google Adwords campaign until your SEO results appear. At that time, you can stop paying for visitors and start receiving high quality visitors that are easier to convert – for free.

*July 2008, Hitwise [Link]

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Google’s introduction to Search Marketing/Google Adwords is free to use and it’s a nice run down about how to approach your website for business and get into an online marketing mindset.

While Google have defined Google Adwords as “Search Marketing” there are actually two forms of search marketing – SEO and Paid Search Advertising.

Google Adwords is a type of Paid Search Advertising. You pay to advertise your website with a short piece of text and your website link – the ads are displayed down the right hand side of search results.

You can decide when your text ad is displayed by selecting keywords you want your ad to appear with.

Advertising using Google Adwords means that you can immediately connect your website with visitors who are searching for keywords relevant to your business.

SEO on the other hand delivers free high quality visitors from Google. While the results are not immediate and the initial outlay is more than Adwords, the return on investment is much higher.

Visit: http://www.10searchmarketingsteps.com.au/ to test it out.

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Why should you care?

Because 80% of research before purchase is done online. 88.14% of those searches are done using Google.  Source: July 08 Hitwise.

Google will soon be changing how we interact with and find information on the Internet thanks to changes to their search results.

“Search engines of the future will be better in part because they will understand more about you, the individual user,” Google Vice President of Search Products & User Experience Marissa Mayer said earlier in the year.

The new Google search results will be interactive. You’ll be able to change the order (ranking), delete websites from the results and leave comments on specific links.

How this affects your website

If users now have the power to delete your link out of their search results, or move its rankings around it’s more important than ever to appeal to potential visitors.

The only chance you’ve got to do this is by how your website looks in the search results.

What can you do?

1. Make sure your web page titles are compelling, concise and informative and unique to each page on your website.
2. Make sure the first paragraph of text on your page is descriptive of the page’s content.

Sure there will be visitors who won’t click through to your website from the search results simply because what you are offering on your page is not what they are looking for.

But if you’ve got what they’re looking for, make sure they know it through an effective webpage title and description.

You’ll end up with more clickthrough’s to your website from visitors who’ve already proven they’re looking for what you’ve got.  And they’re the type of visitors you want.

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