Search Engine Optimisation Training Course

Lesson No.20 - Using Structured SEO

by Bruce Gow Search Engine Guy Pty Ltd
http://www.searchengine-guy.com.au

This is the last module of our SEO training course. It’s now time to review all what you have learned and see where each piece of the puzzle fits in your SEO campaign.

Keep in mind that SEO is an art and not an exact science; This is a backward engineering process using best guesses and probabilities to increase our chances of success.

Keyword Research
There is one element in SEO that you must focus on no matter what, and that’s proper keyword research. Use this from the word go for choosing your domain name to naming your directories and file names.

Your entire SEO campaign, and then to some extent your entire online business, depends on the keywords you are deciding to optimize for. Optimise for the wrong keyword, and all your SEO efforts and advertising budget will go to waste, so take your keyword research very seriously!

Plan Your Work and Strategy
There are so many things to do in SEO that it’s very easy to just waste your time, doing a bit of this and a bit of that, and failing to grasp the big picture of what you are supposed to do.

Plan your work carefully and stay focussed by being accountable for your actions. Just consider steps like building 1 backlink per day, this may sounds like nothing, but if you are able to keep up this regiment, it’s worth 365 backlinks per year. If you have been more disciplined and build instead 10 links per day, you naturally (or organically) add up 3,650 backlinks within a year!

Let me tell you that this is no small achievement!  Unfortunately it’s very easy to skip your schedule and start to procrastinate. Before you know it, 2-3 months may have passed and you haven't built any links, while your competition is already 300 links ahead of you!

Build a Solid Base
If you haven't done your homework properly, it’s very unlikely that your site structure will ever change.  You certainly may build on it, but you are not supposed to redesign it.

Considering how your site structure is the foundation of your site, it would be smart to have it done right from the start rather than having to change it over and over.

Doing the right thing from the start not only will bring better results faster, but will also save you valuable time afterward in comparison to the people who rush and then realize that their site is wrong and have to redesign it.

If you are lucky, you are the one doing the work and all you wasted is your time; if you are unlucky and hired a web design company to do all of the work, you’re going to have pay again to fix what you should have done in the first place.

Online Business is Still Business
Online business is really very attractive to everybody because of its low starting cost. Now, all too many people confuse low starting cost and no starting cost.

I really want to stress that even if the fix costs of an online business are much lower than an offline business, it’s still a business and will have required costs involved.

In my opinion anyone starting or wanting to start an online business should be ready to consider a minimum $5,000 of start up business cost. This would include a spend of around $2,000 to $3,000 of website design / web development and the rest on SEO work such as article writing & content writing, link building and paid inclusion.

People often ask me could I make their cheap & ugly website popular, & I often think, "What for? Why on earth would anyone want to make that site popular?"

On the other hand, well built, good looking sites are a lot easier to make popular earners and may be take less time to get decent rankings that get the results and corresponding conversions into sales. The key in business is not how much you spend, or how much you earn, it’s all about Return On Investment (ROI).

When you run an online business, the success or failure of this one is directly dependent of whether or not you are found online, and this is done by SEO. Trying to save cost by not paying for required education or acquiring the necessary tools is foolish at the same level as trying to run your online business without your own computer, internet connection, and domain name.

If you think that because you are using the free computer with internet connection at the nearby library is the way to run your online business because you are saving a lot of money on those expenses, think again.

When it comes to SEO, ask yourself honestly what a first ranking in the search engines for your main keywords is worth for you and your business. I know of people who are paying $80,000 or more per year using Yellow Pages advertising that aren't even making the return on investment up on the cost of the ad. Compare that amount with the cost of getting it done properly from the start.

Here's my structured Online Sales Funnel;

Websites mostly exist for commercial reasons, either to generate sales or inquiries which lead into sales.

Therefore is is extremely important that if you have a website, that the website tracks conversions of visitors to sales.  This may be achieved by measuring the amount of visitors who come into the site and finding out which of these convert into sales.  Once you discover this information, and change your business strategies to accommodate these outcomes, it will have a direct affect on the success of your business. 

Here are the different steps of this sales funnel;

1. Acquisition

Visits to your website result in attention and interest in your products and services.  The vehicles include;

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Sponsored ads
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Free or organic listings
• Banner Ads
• Affiliate Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Regular offline marketing

At this step you have a very good opportunity to build conviction and desire to purchase.  The potential customer within a few seconds;

• Decides on whether your offer is exactly what they want
• Evaluates the appearance of the website
• Makes a judgment whether they trust that your offer is genuine
• Decides to stay and take action - or leave.  This exit from the same page as what was entered is referred to as a "bounce".

Recommended SEO Tools
Below is a summary of all the resources and tools I have been recommending you during the course. I vouch for those, not because of an affiliate link, but because those are the services I purchased and use in a very satisfactory manner.

WordPress
This is the engine I personally recommend for you to build your site on. Doing so will give you a huge advantage with the search engines, and best of all it’s free.

Keyword Elite
Powerful keyword software providing not only valuable information for SEO but also PPC work.

IBP
All in one SEO solution packed in one powerful software, where the most valuable feature to me is the Top 10 Optimizer report that will provide you with information that can dramatically affect your search engine ranking.

SEO Elite
Doing SEO without SEO Elite is like trying to dig for gold without a shovel! For only a onetime fee of $US167 only it’s the best investment of your business life! Talk about ROI, this is the onetime $167 that will bring you thousands and thousands in your pocket each and every month

Exercise
You are now fully equipped to bring your site to an all new level, closer to the top rank in the search engines!

The last exercise consists of you applying the knowledge you acquired during the course rather than letting it die and rot in a deep corner of your memory. Remember, even the best technique or strategy is worthless if no action is taken.

1.   Learn How to Sort Out the Competition
2.   Do Your Keyword Research Homework
3.   Refining Your Keywords
4.   Evaluating Ranking Difficulty
5.   Mapping Your Site Structure
6.   Understanding Links & PageRank
7.   Sculpting Your Site Structure
8.   Cascading Style Sheet Design
9.   Using Wordpress for SEO
10. Setting up Your Analytics
11. Engineering the Title Tag
12. Optimising The Content
13. Optimising The Description Tag
14. Building Internal Links
15. SEO & Images
16. OnPage Analysis Using IBP
17. Link Building 101
18. Beating Your Competition
19. Building External Links
20. Using Structured SEO Bookmark this on Delicious

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