I am proud to report that my website is now 87% optimized according to Website Grader. Who would have thought this would be exciting news for me! This wasn’t an easy task but it also wasn’t that hard. For some reason there’s all sorts of mystery around search engine optimization. There are all sorts of consultants out there charging big fees to get you optimized. I thought I’d talk about it today because so many of you are working on a new site or reworking your sites right now as part of your rebranding. I still stand by my number one rule that first and foremost you need to “know your difference.” Make sure you’re crystal clear on your brand positioning before undertaking any web exercise. Aside from my number one rule here are 5 things that I’ve learned about SEO (in no particular order):

1. Key Words and Phrases

Write your copy based on what you’re customer is looking for. For example one of my key phrases is “branding strategies” I don’t really promote my business in that way but that’s what people are looking for according to “Google Words for Search.” Research key words and build them into your copy.

2. Title Tags & Page Titles

Your title tags are the words that are embedded at the top of each page (they show up as a page title in the gray bar that frames your web page. You can put a different title tag on each page for example on my workbook page, I put “new marketing ideas / small business” as my title tag. If your site is a WordPress site, this is very easy to do yourself. Each page should have a title that’s relevant to that page as well.

3. Links

It’s important for others to link to your site and you to link to theirs. But again make sure links are well aligned to your brand. My site is linked to various graphic designers and copy writers as they are well aligned to my brand.

4. Audio and Video

Put lots of audio and video on your site. Aside from being more engaging, it keeping people on your site longer and gives you a better change of getting your message heard.

5. Blog

Have a blog on your site and update it regularly. I try to post something new each week. Thinks that are again aligned to my brand that will inform and educate my audience about branding.

A system for managing social media

You’re probably at the point of thinking – how does one have time for all of this. After a great deal of trial and error, I figured out my own system. I have a topic each week that I focus on. I write an article every Sunday for my blog. I then take the key points and write a VERY short email to send my mailing list – honestly – 2-3 sentences (what gives with these foot long newsletters). Then I take the key points and divide them up to post on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. I use Hootsuite to program it all for the week. My goal is to authentically communicate something valuable to people that will help them with their business. (I hope this is helping you).

This Friday (October 8th), Hubspot is hosing a free webinar about website redesign. It looks like a good one. Here’s how they’ve positioned it:

Did you know that:

… a website redesign done wrong can lower your website traffic?

… a redesign done wrong will reduce your leads and sales?

… a website redesign is about a lot more than just look and feel?

… most companies get major parts of the website redesign process wrong?

Join HubSpot’s VP of Marketing in this free website redesign webinar to learn how to perform a successful website redesign.

http://bit.ly/9dNgjh

News Reporter