This week we will be going back to your website to make some very important changes that will help put your website on the first page of Google SERPs (search engine results pages) almost overnight! In week 8 this will make a HUGE difference in website traffic for your business!
So let’s get started!
Let’s talk about the very first page that most people see when they visit your website. The first page (landing page or index page) of your website should not have a lot of information on it. It should be an introduction with a summary of your services and clear navigation to all the different services or products you offer. If you list your products/services here, then each product or service should have a title with a short (less than 100 words) description. Your index or landing page should also offer different forms of contacting you through your social networks and different ways of ‘interacting with’ you (your website and social media).
What’s The Goal of Your Index Page?
The goal of the index (or landing) page is to lead your visitor to the information they are looking for quickly. What information is the visitor looking for? You need to get them to that information VERY quickly before they lose interest. A very useful tool for determining if you are losing visitors is called a bounce rate. You should have Google analytics installed on your website to track visitor behavior on your site. Bounce rate is a measurement of how many people enter and leave your site on and from the same page without accessing any other pages on your site. Basically it’s a measurement of your site ‘appeal’; both visually and contextually.
Why is This So Important Cheryl?
It all comes down to your website. You all have great expectations of this Social Presence course. I am quite sure that at the end of 8 weeks’ worth of work you expect to get more leads from your website and social presence. Whether you are looking to get more sales, more leads or more investors... Whatever the case may be, you must know where you started to get anywhere.
As a potential customer, lead or investor….
- Is the site appealing?
- Is the site navigation clear?
- Is the information presented clear or confusing?
- Did you want to stay on the site for more information or did you immediately want to leave?
- Is there a clearly defined goal? (call to action)
This is the ‘human’ aspect of the site. When a human visits your site, what is their impression? How can you improve that impression to get people to contact you about your services? Research shows that you have about 2-3 clicks (page views) to get a targeted human visitor to contact you about your services. So, what I need you to do this week is take a good look at your site.
What it all boils down to is this… we can spend the next 8 weeks writing awesome blog posts, growing your social network, and attracting leads, but when they finally get to your website… will you lose them immediately?
Let’s use this as an example: I could spend all the time in the world with a local ‘Fancy Italian Restaurant’ marketing them: placing ads, sending out postcards, developing radio copy etc. etc. etc about fine food and good atmosphere… but when people actually go there, open the door and its nothing but a biker bar with loud obnoxious music serving spaghetti and beer… those ‘visitors’ will open the door and immediately leave.
THAT is your bounce rate…
So, in 8 weeks, if you come to me and say… Cheryl, I spent all this time working on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and posting my butt off and I just don’t get it… where are my leads??? The first thing that I am going to do is say…
Please send me a link to your website.
If I have to come back and say … “biker bar”… then we are both going to be a little embarrassed. ;)
Search Engine Optimization
In much the same way a human looks at your site, a search engine indexes your site based on the information presented. A search engine does not see your site the same way a human does. It only sees text, navigation and links. So in order to improve your search engine ranking (to get more human visitors) you need to improve your ‘presentation’ to a search engine. I will need you to choose 5 pages on your website to look at. We are going to work on these 5 pages and make them more ‘friendly’ to search engines.
Page URL – Your page URL SHOULD have keywords contained within. For example:
www.cherylwaller.com/page 2.html
is not going to be indexed as well as
www.cherylwaller.com/broward-county-real-estate-for-sale.html
Page Title – Your page title is what is displayed in search engine results (SERPs) at the top of your listing. Keep this at around 65 characters and under 70 so that the entire title shows in search engine results
Page description – If you DO NOT have a page description, search engine indexers will CHOOSE a description based on the text on the page. If the only text on the page is your copyright information (for example) this will display directly under your page title in SERPs. Each of your pages needs to have its own description with keywords contained within. Keep this under 160 characters for each page. EXCEPTION: Google will choose an excerpt of the most relevant information on the page to display as the description. This is another reason why page content is so important.
Keywords – While keywords are not looked at by Google, other search engines do look at them and it will help you more clearly define your SEO goals when working on several pages. List 2-5 keywords/phrases for each page. These keywords should appear not only appear in the URL, title and description, but should also appear early in the content of the page. With latent semantic indexing, avoid keyword repetition. Your keyword density should be less than 1% for your page and text should have lots of relevant content to your keywords. If you find yourself writing about the keywords of another page of your site, be sure to anchor text link to that page instead of confusing the visitor (and search engines) with too much information about varied topics. Stick to the topic (keyphrase) and provide links for additional information.
Headings – commonly referred to as <h1></h1>, <h2></h2>, <h3></h3>, etc., the heading tags on your webpage tell a search engine the level of importance of each title. While the above might look like gobbly gook to you, it’s actually quite simple. H1 = heading of 1st importance, H2 = heading of second importance etc. Like in grammar school, each one should support the others, BUT you can ONLY have ONE H1 or topic for the page. This H1 heading MUST contain the same keyphrase as you are using in your URL, Title, and Description.
For example, let’s say that your keyphrase for a page is ‘Austin TX Plumbing Services’
Your URL should be:
http://myplumbinbwebsite.com/austin-tx-plumbing-services.html
Your Title should include the phrase ‘Austin TX Plumbing Services’ EXACTLY in that order.
Your Description should include the phrase ‘Austin TX Plumbing Services’ EXACTLY in that order.
Your Keywords should include the words ‘Austin TX Plumbing Services’ EXACTLY in that order.
Your H1 heading should include the phrase ‘Austin TX Plumbing Services’ EXACTLY in that order.
NOTE: I DO NOT expect you to fix your entire website this week. The entire purpose of this week’s assignments is to fix FIVE pages that we can use in weeks 7 & 8 to direct traffic and get leads and conversions! You have plenty of time to fix the rest of your website and I do not want you getting off track from the course. We need to get this done on five pages and then move on to week 7 to start getting TRAFFIC from your social profiles. In week 8 we will be connecting EVERYTHING together and using a fortune 500 technique to draw traffic from sources all over the internet. So, please… Focus on these five pages. Add content, straighten out the title, descriptions, keywords, headings and content and let’s get your exposure on the internet fully exposed next week!
That’s it for this week and WHEW you have quite a bit of homework this week. Keep in mind it will be well worth it when we get to week 8 with our Fortune 500 Company Technique! Next week, in week 7, we will be going back to your social profiles and connecting these five pages in a way that will open the floodgates for traffic to your site!
See you next week!
-Cheryl
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