Tactical Execution

We’ve all heard the phrase Search Engine Optimization or SEO.  We’re all familiar with the need to optimize our websites for the keyword phrases that are central to our businesses.  But how many of us truly know how to go about it?  How many people really know all the different places we can load keywords?  I’ve discussed this before in a post about the primary SEO success factors.  Well, here are a few more pointers.

Create pages for each keyword phrase.

This is a basic one, but one that is often overlooked.  Let’s say you’re trying to promote your business in Walnut Creek (the city Tactical Execution is based in).  You obviously want your website to rank high for people putting “Walnut Creek” into their search querie.  The first thing you should do is create a page called “Walnut Creek” or better yet “Walnut Creek [business keyword phrase]”.  By doing so, you’ll create a new URL on your website that includes both your city name and your primary business keyword phrase, side by side.

Search engines put a lot of weight on the words included in your URLs.  Check out All American Hauling.  I built this site for a friend and you’ll notice I’ve created individual pages for each city they service and every service they offer.  In addition, I’ve included links to all these individual pages right on the homepage.  Not only does that include all the relevant keywords on the homepage but it also adds keyword-rich URLs pointing to keyword-rich descriptive pages.

Put keywords into image tags.

Every image on your website has a “Title” tag and an “Alt” tag.  Those tags all represent places where you can include more descriptive keywords.  Again, you can look at All American Hauling for an example of this.  It’s a very basic site but the mechanics are very strong and it has a #1 Google ranking for keyword phrases including “hauling Walnut Creek”, “garbage removal Walnut Creek”, “East Bay garbage removal”, “Contra Costa garbage removal” and “Clayton garbage removal”.

Every image on this site has keyword-rich tags.  The search engines know the “Alt” tag shows when someone scrolls over an image.  That means the words you put there are almost always relevant to the topic of the page.  Take advantage of that and put your targeted keywords into your image tags.

Use keyword-rich anchor text.

The words you use for your links play a major role in the ranking of the destination pages.  Again, we can take All American Hauling as a case study.  All the services that All American Hauling offers are described on individual pages.  Those services are also listed on the homepage and each one is a link to the associated page.

The alternative to this approach is to references “the services offered by All American Hauling” and then put the link on “services”.  There’s no value in that.  “Services” says absolutely nothing about what the company does.  Take advantage of the opportunity in your internal link structure.  By putting the links onto your targeted keywords, you increase their importance within your entire site.

These are just three small tips and there are many others.  Get creative when optimizing a website.  Think about all the possible places where you can include more keywords.  If you leverage all the SEO opportunities, you can create an extremely effective website.  The All American Hauling website only has 34 pages but it delivers organic visitors all day long and you can do it too!

If you want your website to generate any sort of results, there are 3 questions a visitor must be able to answer within the first 5 seconds.  If they can’t, their interest will stall and they’ll probably leave your site.

1. Why am I here?

Visitors must have a clear idea of what you do as soon as they chance upon your site.  No delays.  No explanations necessary.  They need to take one look at your homepage and understand what you do.  In the case of blogs (where a visitor may first stumble upon your site on a page OTHER than the homepage), make sure your page header explains who you are and what you do.

This may seem like simple advice but you might be surprised how few companies have this initial step nailed down.  Not only are their sites unclear as to their purpose, but the executives within some of these companies can’t easily explain what they do either!  Major problem.  Successful businesses have many things in common but one of them is that they KNOW what they do and what they sell.  If you don’t have that figured out yet, stop everything and deal with that problem first.

2. Where do I look?

Your homepage is NOT a content page.  It’s a portal.  It’s only purpose is to explain what you do and direct visitors to something that will be of value to them.  Most homepages have 15 or 20 different options; links everywhere!  Don’t do it.  Your visitors won’t be able to navigate your site.  In fact, research has shown that internet browsers only look at simple 1 or 2-word buttons.  The longer explanations fail completely.  Check out this fascinating post on eye tracking to learn more about that.

Your homepage should have only a small handful of options.  The visitor should be given a basic choice right away, allowing them to navigate to something of direct value to them.  Think about a site with two large buttons reading “I am a man” and “I am a woman” on the homepage.  Yes, this is an extreme example but you get the point.  Immediately, the visitor can make a simple choice and navigate to an area of the site specifically designed for them.

3. What do I do?

This goes hand-in-hand with question #2.  Not only must people know where to look but they must also know what to do.  Always tell your website visitors what to do next.  Every single page on your website should link back to something else.  No page should be left hanging in the wind, all by itself.  Always give your visitors a few options of where to click next.

Bottom line; when people come across your website, they are in the submissive position.  They will receive whatever your website presents.  They have no control over what your website will present; only YOU do.  That’s a huge opportunity.  You can present a small timid online presence or you can present a huge overwhelming presence – your choice.  So project some confidence and give your visitors the direction they need to get the most out of your website.  Tell them what to do.  Make it easy and tell them where to go.  They will respond, in many cases, by doing exactly as you say!