But are you placing enough importance on one of the key marketing tactics you’ll need to use in 2011? Or are you ignoring search engine optimisation?

So before you sign off on your to-do list, make sure you’ve added SEO in the right places:

Web Design

It’s a cliche, but lots of people get to January and think “New Year, New Site“. Unfortunately, they tend not to think “New Year, New Site, New SEO Campaign“. If you’re having your website redesigned, then make sure you use designers that will consider the SEO implications of your design. It’ll mean that your website ranks quicker, and starts to provide a return on your investment.

New Content

Maybe in 2011, you’re going to re-do some of the wording on your website. Refreshing your copy can be beneficial to your search engine rankings, but only if the copywriter you use knows how to write for the search engines as well as your clients. If you’re having trouble finding someone to do the job, you can always ask your FirstFound search engine consultant for advice.

Networking

If your plan for 2011 is to make some new business contacts, make sure you’re considering search engine optimisation. Can the person you’re befriending help your SEO with a link, or by providing you with a slot for a guest blog post? If they can, your prospects for the year will start to look a little brighter.

Suppliers and Clients

And of course, it’s not only new contacts who can provide you with a link. Don’t forget to ask your suppliers and your clients – it’ll help your relationship and your search engine optimisation!

Whatever you’ve got planned for 2011, make sure you keep search engine optimisation in mind. And if you’re having trouble, remember – the friendly SEO team here at FirstFound are always ready and willing to help!

We all have days when we need to write a post or article, but just can’t think of what to do.

In times like these, I like to dip into my bag of cliches and fire up one of four tried and tested methods for putting a post together:

1: Get someone else to create your content!

This one actually needs you to do some networking. By networking, I of course mean “sitting on Twitter asking questions”. Everyone has hopes, aspirations and opinions. Give your followers a platform and publicity, and they’ll sit there writing content that you’re free to use. Just slap some witty or insightful book-ends on there, and voila! Blog post, ready to roll.

2: The Short Sharp Shock

Who says a blog article has to be long, involved and in-depth? Well, most people. Luckily, what people say and what people do are different things. You can get away with a short two paragraph article every now and then, so long as you’re witty and succinct. Sometimes a packet of crisps is more satisfying than a three-course meal.

3: All Aboard The Bandwagon!

Bandwagon jumping. With access to trend information at our fingertips, it’s never been so easy to see what people are talking about. It’s also never been so easy to see what other people are saying – so just pick something you disagree with and write about why that person is wrong. About half the article’s done for you already. Magic.

4: The List Post

This one’s the daddy of all cliches. List posts are easy to think up, easy to write and easy to read. Anyone can come up with a list, at any time, in any place. I thought up this very article whilst lying on the couch watching Loose Women.

Easy!

To capture your customer’s attention, there are three simple rules that the copy on your site should follow, if you want clients to buy your products instead of clicking off your site.

Rule One: Talk to your audience

Visitors aren’t visiting your site so that you can tell them why you’re fantastic. They want to hear you talk about the benifits that they’ll see. So talk to them. Fill your copy with words like “you” and “your”, and always use an active tone.

Your customers won’t be interested if you tell them that “Omnicorp PLC can help all manner of businesses“. Tell them that “Omnicorp PLC can help your business” and you’ll have their undivided attention.

Rule Two: Tell them what to do

Never assume that your visitors will carry out the action that you want them to of their own accord. If you want them to do something, tell them. Calls to action are simple to use. Start a sentence “Buy the Omnitool today and you’ll benefit from…“, end your paragraph with “Call our friendly team today on…” – it really is that easy.

And once your customers know what they’re supposed to do on your site, they’re far more likely to do it.

Rule Three: A quick trick to reinforce your message

Professional copywriters have a whole host of clever techniques at their disposal, but one of the most effective is so simple that it’s included on the GCSE English syllabus. The “rule of three” is a technique that reinforces your sales message. Simply use three benefits when you’re describing a product or service. Tell your visitors that your poriducts will make them faster, stronger and healthier. Two benefits seem lightweight and four has you coming on too strong. Aim for three superlatives, three selling ponts or three benefits, and your copy will be far more engaging, persuasive and effective.

“SEO isn’t a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that.”

Ok, that’s not exactly what Bill Shankly said, but that’s because he wasn’t an SEO. Optimising your website might not literally be a matter of life and death, but poor SEO can be fatal to your online aspirations.

If your website is underperforming, and you’re worried that your website might be suffering from potentially fatal flaws, then our rundown of these all-too-common website mistakes (and their solutions) could just save your internet marketing life.

Fatal Mistake #1: “So, what exactly is it that you do?”

Take a look at the copy on your homepage. I bet it’s just lovely. Telling your clients and the search engines that you’re an “innovative purveyor of bespoke manual earth relocation solutions for the agricultural or horticultural professional”. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

But do you think that your clients are looking for “manual earth relocation solutions”? No, no matter how innovatively you might be purveying them, your clients are still looking to buy a spade.

Lifesaving Tip #1: “Call a spade a spade”.

The search engines don’t know that when you say “bespoke manual earth relocation solution” you really mean spade. So when it comes for them to put together a search results page, they won’t group you in with the other spade sellers. And they definitely won’t put you in position one.

Fatal Mistake #2: “Spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam” “But I don’t like Spam!”

It’s all well and good mentioning your products a few times, but when every third word is the name of your main product, you’ve taken things a little too far. And going too far leads to problems.

First of all, your clients don’t like spam. If they’re confronted with paragraphs that are clogged by keywords, they’re not going to read it and think about buying. They’re going to read it and think about hitting that back button.

And second, search engines don’t like spam either. They’ll drop a spam-filled page quicker than you can quote a Monty Python sketch on the subject.

Lifesaving Tip #2: Organic produce will outsell canned pig snouts

Make your copy organic. Your clients and the search engines will expect to see your products in titles, so that it grabs their attention. They’ll expect to see you mention your products in your body text. They might even expect to see it in your footer – especially if that links through to a product page.

So give them what they expect. But make sure it sounds natural. Make sure it’s organic. Just like product placement in films, your clients should suddenly decide they want a Pepsi. But they shouldn’t have noticed the Pepsi cans liberally scattered across the set.

Fatal Mistake #3: No man is an island. So why is his website?

You’ve built that website. You’ve written it and you’ve released it out into the wild. To bob around happily on the high seas of the internet.

Alone, and ignored.

How exactly are people going to find it then?

Lifesaving Tip #3: “It’s called the web for a reason”

To quote a much wiser man than I:

“Links are what gives a website its power. They surround sites, penetrate sites and bind the internet together”

So make sure that those links are binding your sites to others. So that they can pass on authority and traffic – and so that they can point the search engine crawlers towards that technological marvel that you’ve created.

Fatal Mistake #4: “There’s no such thing as society”

Social Media’s just a flash in the pan, isn’t it?

I mean, Twitter is just full of celebrities and egotists telling you about endangered radio stations or their lunch plans, and Facebook is just the world’s most boring Massive Multiplayer Online Farming Game. Then you get to Bebo and Myspace. But let’s not even go there.

Wasting time wittering away at your “friends” on Twitterbook and Myface isn’t going to turn you into a dotcom millionaire, is it?

Well, wasting time on them isn’t. But neglecting them entirely might just end your dreams of a luxury yacht.

Lifesaving Tip #4: Get by with a little help from your friends

We’re not suggesting you fire up Farmville or hang on Stephen Fry’s every word, but intelligent use of Social Media can make a real difference. Twitter gives you access to data on what your target audience is interested in at that exact moment. FourSquare can be a real revenue generator for local businesses. Facebook is bigger than Jesus Google.

Put simply, Social Media can turn you a tidy profit if you use it as a tool.

So that’s our top four fatal mistakes, and hopefully after reading our lifesaving tips you won’t be making them any more. But we’re always interested to hear what our readers think.

If you want to share your absolute no-nos with us, or let us in on your secrets to success, leave a comment below.

When Andrew isn’t writing for the FirstFound Blog, he’s easily found on Twitter and LinkedIn. Or being a nerd. But you’d know that from all the pop culture references.

The Secret of Content Rich Documents

If you run an online shop, it is tempting to rely heavily on the pictures and imagery of the products to do the selling. But without any text, search engines will not know what they can recommend your page for, and nobody will even see them!

Descriptive Text and Page Titles

Let’s suppose you sell hats, getting to the top of Google for this phrase by itself will be difficult, and probably not all that helpful. Most searchers will already have an idea of the product they want (even if they may not have included it in their search query). If you win the click for ‘hats’, many of those clicks will be hard to keep because the user might be looking for a particular type of hat which you may not even stock! If too many people leave quickly (‘bounce’) this will start to have a negative impact on your websites rank.

By including a more detailed description, you can expect your pages to rank for more specific searches which will not only satisfy the users search, but will also be more likely to convert into a sale! Do you sell ‘wool hats’? Have you talked about the colour or design? Is there a clothing label or designer brand that has a strong identity which you could mention? Are they suitable for special occasions which you could spend a few sentences talking about? Do you stock party hats or fancy dress hats? Even the simplest product deserves a good description. If you cannot easily include the text with the product, perhaps you could have a separate series of information or help pages which link directly through to your product? It will help the search engines find a better search phrase that will bring you traffic. Remember :- if you don’t include the detail, you won’t be included in the search!

Giving Your Audience Helpful Information

Google’s job evolves around recommending websites that searchers will find useful. If your industry is quite competitive and you are finding it difficult to generate traffic, there are several neat ways you can get around this. Google only has 10 top spots, so it must choose the 10 most useful sites for each phrase. By improving the quality of information your website provides, you will be improving the overall performance of your site. Maybe you could include product reviews, advice or how-tos. Perhaps you could get users involved in discussing the product? Does it have a fan base you could somehow utilise? Would  Social Media be the way to tap into this traffic reservoir? If you have any informative PDF documents already (perhaps technical specifications, help manuals or product information pamphlets), it would be worth making those available on your site. Google will happily index these exactly like it reads regular web pages and this extra content will count in your favour.

Being Aware of Trending Topics

All sorts of interesting factors affect what people talk and write about. The Internet is just like other mediums – any big stories in the news headlines will stimulate search and readers. Is there some way you could utilise this? If you have a news or blog section you can use this to promote yourself. Because blogs are indexed sooner, you will find these more responsive and able to respond to sudden changes in peoples search habits.

In a nutshell, Google will reward you for including any information your visitors might find useful. As an expert in your industry, only you truly understand your potential customer base. Consider your competitor sites and ask yourself what you could do better!

Understanding Your Audience Through Keywords

When I’m sat at home watching TV, the advertiser doesn’t know me from Geoff. I’m only here because the scheduled program was of some interest. Outside of this, potential advertisers know very little about me. This is where the Web is utterly different. Each visitor who lands on your page, came from somewhere. Think about it: If they came from a search engine, then we know their intentions will lie behind the search terms they entered into Google. If they followed a link, then it is likely they saw something on the referring site which led them to believe we can help them out. We already understand something about their desires and purpose and by applying just a little tracking data we might be able to better understand what really makes them tick.

Using Google Analytics to Guide Page Structure

So what does this have to do with page structure, SEO and how you break up your content? Well, I like to imagine each page as an island. While they may share a common purpose and phrases, each will deal with a slightly different topic and can therefore be used to target different searches. Each page needs to be targeted towards a particular audience. Lets suppose you are a plumber who performs everything from central heating to plumbing repair and boiler installation. It would be very tempting to lump a all this information together under a general page ‘services’ which might include lists of statements.  By simply breaking up the different services across pages, and padding the content out with text you will have more room to optimise each page for variations on themes around their target optimisation phrases and this will allow you to deliver highly relevant content, which in turn will improve your bounce rate and therefore the success of your SEO as a whole.

Identifying Content That Works for Your SEO

Looking through your Google Analytic data for low bounce rate phrases people found you for will help you work out which visitors were receptive to your content after entering their search terms. You might refine the optimisation of each page to remove or rephrase terms that have a high bounce. One or two bounces is quite normal, but if you’ve had five or ten visits and have a bounce rate over 75%, this might be caused by optimised search terms that are either slightly ambiguous or perhaps a little vague. It might even be nothing wrong with the content itself, but simply the message includes too much information that is not relevant to your search visitor, who might wrongly conclude you could not satisfy their need because they simply didn’t read far enough down the page! If you add content to the site regularly, keeping track of your tracking data will also help you identify demand for a particular topic and allow you to pitch information you know will work.

Deciding When a New Page Will Help Your SEO

The questions to ask yourself are surprisingly straight forward: “What type of audience is this message aimed at?”, “What will this audience be looking for?” and “What sort of action do I wish to encourage from each type of visitor once they find this page?”. If you allow these questions to govern the structure of your site, you will never go far wrong. If content is king, then how you divide up your Kingdom will determine how effectively each page can work together and will improve the overall quality of your SEO.