Search Engine Optimization or more often referred to by it's acronym- SEO, is the process of making your website fully optimized for organic search engine queries that relate to your specialty (product or service).  More specifically, SEO is used to get help get your website a better organic placement on search engine queries.

How this actually works is probably one of the biggest debates going on right now.  What works, what doesn’t work and what you should avoid doing are all topics debated about amongst even the experts. Some techniques that were used yesterday and no longer working or could actually be working to bring you ranking position down.

The one area that is not debated is how to optimize your website.  You can have a great looking website, but never show up during a query because you’ve never defined your keyword or you don’t have the proper meta structure on your site.  Follow these tips to help you strengthen the foundation of your website and get that better search engine ranking position.

1) Define your keyword: To understand the importance of your keyword, it’s important to understand their purpose.  Before a search engine can tell you where a web page,file, video or document is, it has to be found. There are millions of Web pages, so a search engine uses special software robots, called spiders, to build lists of the words found on Web sites. When a spider is building its lists, the process is called Web crawling.  When the spider finds your website, make sure your keyword describes your business.  Google provides a great keyword tool to help you determine the best keywords to use for your site.

2) Insert your keyword into your title tag: In the source code of most pages is "header tags" (also known as Meta tags), which help search engines understand the content of the page.  To fully optimize your website, make sure your keyword is in the title tag. This is what is shown in the results of a search engine when your site is listed.

3) Insert your keywords in the description tag: The description Meta tag is just as valuable as the title tag. The information in this tag is listed directly below the title tag in search engine results. As a result, a good description can make your website stand out from other listings. To get the prospect to click on your site, it is important to write a catchy description while using your keyword.  This is also a great area to include a “call to action.”

4) Target one word for each page: A common mistake many webmasters make is trying to cram too many keywords on every page of their website. Instead of doing this, focus on one specific keyword for each page. If you want to target multiple keywords, create a separate page for each keyword.

5) Make each page of your website keyword rich: Once you’ve defined your keyword and placed that keyword in your Meta Title and Meta Description, make sure you page actually has content related to that keyword and it has the proper density. Keyword density is the proportion of times your keyword appears in your content, compared to the total number of words on the page.  Most SEO providers, suggest a keyword density of anything from 4% – 7%. Also make sure you understand where the first 100 words of your crawled content will be located on your home page. This is the area you have to make sure you have proper keyword density.

Follow these steps for on-site optimization and you will see an increase in your Search Engine Ranking Position. Check your website's current rank positions for your keywords and if you have put together your meta tags correctly, you will see an increase in your page position. To keep the momentum going, try hiring the services of a professional SEO Firm. If you are unable to make the changes to your website, contact your web designer or webmaster and tell them how to optimize your website.

On site optimization is your most important step for Search Engine Results Page (SERP) ranking. If you miss this step, your page might never be found by someone looking for your sevices.  Companies often pay big money for the website, so it's important to optimize your site. Don't buy a gold plated, diamond studded billboard and then place it out in the middle of a forest where no one will ever see it. If your not using a professional SEO company, make sure you follow these 4 simple steps.

Your first step is to make sure your page title has your keyword.  Don't title your home page with "Welcome to My Company" or "Home." When the search engines send in their robots to crawl your page, they will put you in the Welcome or Home category. Tell the robot what your website is actually about. Use your keyword in your title.  If your an appliance repair company, put that in your title.  If your in the service industry, make sure you include your city of service in they title.  A good title for an appliance repair company located in San Antonio would be "Appliance Repair | San Antonio, TX."

Next, make sure your meta description includes your keyword. If your business is appliance repair, make sure appliance repair is included in your description. For a local service company, it's also critical to put your city of service within the description.  Using the appliance repair example, your meta description should begin with: Appliance Repair San Antonio (or your town). Follow this with a great call to action. The description is what a search engine shows on the results page just below your title.  This is your advertisement.  Don't waste this valuable space telling people you've been in business for upteen years.  Very few people care about that. Give someone a reason to call. Which do you think will produce more results?  We've been in business for 25 years or Schedule online and save 25% off your appliance repairs"

The third step to optimize your website is to make sure your content contains your keyword.  Be careful and don't stuff your page with your keyword.  Search engines like to see around 10 to 15% of your keywords in the content.  Too much more than that and they will think you're stuffing and your site will not rank as high.  If your keyword phrase is "appliance repair san antonio," it doesn't have to appear like that every time you place it into your content.  Mix it up.  You can say, "we repair all makes of appliances," and  "We are your San Antonio Appliance Repair experts."

Another on-site SEO technique is to make a page for each of your keywords.  Don't duplicate the keyword phrases on the new pages.  For example, if your the appliance repair business, you can put refrigerator repair on one page and dishwasher repair on another. It's not a bad idea to give all the brand names you repair.  Make a list of all the brands of refrigerators that you repair.

Lastly and not the least important part of on-site optimization is to link your pages together.  Use anchor text to link back to your home page, or link your home page to each of your other pages by including anchor texts within your content.

Follow these steps to get the most out of your SEO efforts.

San Antonio SEO

Web Design San Antonio

Appliance Repair San Antonio

According to Google, Bounce Rate is defined as the “percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.”  In just a few short seconds, you have to capture your audience and persuade them to go deeper into your site (click to another page such as Contact Us).

Website Design has to take into consideration how to build a site that will compel the consumer to stay on the site and click other pages within your site.   The more compelling you landing page, the more the consumer will want to stay on your site and actually convert from a shopper to a consumer.  The landing page has to provide the information that was promised in the ad copy and it has to be easily found.

Look at your website and ask yourself the following questions?

1.  Does Your Website Capture the Eye of Your Audience? You only have a few seconds to capture your audience.  Where do your eyes go on your website?  If your traffic spends only a few seconds on your site, they will be considered a bounce.  One of the most important aspects of website design is be able to catch the eye of your audience and give them pause long enough to look at your site.  Graphic Design plays a key role in whether or not your traffic is considered a bounce.

2.  What is Your Website About? The average time spent on a website is around 30 seconds, but the typical person will spend much less time than that if they can't tell what your site is about or if your site is too cluttered.  Your site needs to be clean and compelling because you only have seconds before that traffic moves to your competitors site.   Your landing page should be exactly as promised in your description or ad copy and more importantly, once you’ve convinced someone to come to your site for a particular reason, don’t hide that information.  If you’re promising someone a free download, don’t make them hunt for the download button.

3.  Is Your Important Information Above the Fold? Your audience doesn't need to hunt for your most important information like your "contact us" button or your special offers and call to actions, so make sure you can establish your unique position without making your audience scroll down to find it.

4.  Does Your Site Have a Clear and Compelling Call to Action? Once you connect with your audience, there needs to be something that tells them what to do next.  Provide them with a compelling call to action, such as, "Download Report Now," "Buy Now," "Free Sample," "Join our Mailing List," or "Sign up for a Free Trial."  These are just a few examples of your unique selling position.

5.  Does Your Site Connect With the Consumer? Consumers prefer dealing with people and not machines.  Use a conversation style on your site and be honest and straightforward about your products and services.

Web Design San Antonio

San Antonio Web Design

Website Design San Antonio

San Antonio Website Design

Social Media Marketing

Social Media focuses on the interaction of the public forum to a particular item within your website to hopefully get people to share it with their social networks. To create this interaction, site owners will put people friendly features such as blogs, Q and A, adding comment options, message boards, video, or including links to relevant sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more.  Sites that practice social media allow people to share their opinions, experiences, perspectives, and connect with others as well as the business. The idea is to inform and entice potential customers.

Having viewers interact with your company builds a bond that leads to loyal customers.  Last year was described as the “Social Media Advertising Boom”, and this year, the money predicted to be spent on social media marketing is predicted to pass 2 billion. With more than 80% of all businesses that employee 100 or more people, practicing social media marketing, the numbers of small to medium sized businesses trying to build their social networks has skyrocketed over the past few years.

Facebook has quickly gained the title of “Social Media King”, and has proven to be a very effective, sophisticated tool for the small to medium sized business.  Facebook has become so important that some businesses are now spending as much time and money optimizing their Facebook page as they are with their own website.  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your Facebook is an important key to getting those higher search engine results.

There are many businesses that can help you optimize your website and your Facebook page for a fee, but here are a few tips that you can do right now to help optimize your Facebook page.

1)    Chose the best Facebook name and do not change it
2)    Use the ‘About’ box to place keyword rich text about your business
3)    Use the ‘Info’ tab to include important keywords, text, and high priority links
4)    Create ‘Static  FBML’ boxes and tabs to place lengthy content and other links
5)    Post direct links to your website or other relevant sites in your pages stream
6)    Add photos with captions, events with descriptions, and a discussion forum
7)    Select “everyone” in your privacy settings so anyone can see your page
8)    Include links to your Facebook on all of your sites

And don’t forget to include a Facebook blog and links back to the blog on your website.  You can also include links to related articles (they don’t have to be yours).  Facebook is also a great place to share photos, but make sure you tag the people included in your photos.  It’s also a great place to share YouTube videos.

Remember, SEO is not only wall posts but status updates, links, notes, and tags.  When you create you Facebook page, one of the most important components is to be human. Start conversations, ask questions, and interact.  To do this, know your audience and target market; age, gender, interests, etc.  Work on increasing your number of fans by getting people engaged in your page by customizing with articles, blogs, discussions, reviews, pictures, videos, and anything else that would construct a persona of your company as a whole and you as a person.

Search Engine Optimization San Antonio

SEO San Antonio

Social Media Marketing San Antonio

SEO Austin