This is the final post in the SEO for Crafters series and we’re going to end on authority. Fitting, right?
A website’s authority comes from traffic, time and inbound links. The longer your site is live and has people visiting it the more authority you gain. Additionally if other websites and blogs link to your site you also gain authority, especially if those websites are highly ranked.
There’s not much you can do about the time part of the equation other than get your website published. However you do have some control over traffic and inbound links so I’ll share a few strategies you can use to help the process along.
This isn’t an overnight process so you must be patient with the results. Think of building your website’s authority the same way you think about building your business. A little at a time, slow and steady.
Traffic
Traffic is the number of unique visitors you get to your website over a given period of time. The best way to generate traffic is by sharing your website link whenever appropriate. Put it in the signature of your email, make sure it’s on your business cards, add a link to all your social media profiles, and share it with any online groups you’re apart of. You also get traffic by ranking well in organic searches. That’s where all the keyword information from the last few weeks comes in.
Think of traffic to your website like traffic to a retail store. Anything you can do to get people in the door to look around is good. Mostly that means letting people know where you are, which means your web address.
Inbound Links
Traffic also comes from other websites linking to you, inbound links. While you will get a few inbound links naturally over time if you provide good content, you can also strategize to build the right kinds faster. This means creating relationships. Think of inbound links as references or referrals. Most people don’t refer businesses or people they don’t know. You need to be known by the right people.
The relevancy of the link also matters for authority. The idea is to get highly respected websites with a similar target market to link to you. This generally happens if you’ve provided information that’s useful to their audience, you’ve said something favorable about them or their product, or they have some sort of relationship with you and want to help promote you.
Building Relationships
Building relationships online is really no different from building them in real life. It takes mutual interest and a shared experience.
The best way to go about this is to first identify a list of bloggers and businesses you want to build a relationship with. They should be experts in your field, share a similar target market, or have a complimentary business. Find out where you can interact with them, Facebook, Twitter, their blog, or some online forum.
Once you have this list, begin to get to know them if you don’t already. Follow them on Twitter, “like” them on Facebook, and subscribe to their blog. Pay attention to the type of information they share, what they talk about, and try to discern how you might be able to help.
Then follow some or all of these steps to build the foundation for a relationship:
Once you have a solid foundation, if link sharing hasn’t already happened, then you can propose collaborating on a series of articles or project, swapping links, or even just in kind mentions of a post or product. If you’ve done your build up well they will graciously accept.
In part 2 of SEO for Crafters I’ll show you what you can do with those keywords you’ve spent so much time researching.
How many keywords did you come up with? It’s honestly only reasonable to be able to optimize for 5-10 words or phrases. But don’t worry if you came up with a list of 50 or more, your work wasn’t in vain. If the words and phrases on your list are related you can pull from them now and again to keep things fresh. You may also decide to optimize specific pages for different words.
To optimize your website or blog for a word or phrase means to use it in key places that allow search engines to find that word on your site. You probably have a friend who uses the same expression over and over again like “cool beans,” or “totally, man.” When you hear that expression you can’t help but think of them. Optimizing has a similar effect. You will strategically use words and phrases repeatedly in your text and titles. The more you do this the more search engines will associate your website with those words. The search engines are looking in five main areas: titles, descriptions, main copy, links, and urls, to find those keywords.
Titles and Descriptions
Search engines place higher importance on words that are formatted as headings and titles, so use your keywords in titles and headings for your pages. To have the full impact you can’t just bold the text or make it bigger you need to format it as a heading or title.
If you use a platform for your website that does behind the scenes coding for you, you probably have optional fields for descriptions, both for pages and posts. I recommend filling them in. The descriptions should read like normal text as they will be seen on the search page below the link to your site. If you have a compelling, to-the-point description it will help entice people to choose your link over others.
Main Copy
The main text of your website is also ranked, but not as high as titles. First and foremost use natural language, you want people to be engaged with your text so they read it all, come back for more and even share it. But do keep that list of keywords in mind and pepper the words you’re focusing on throughout the text. This may mean that your website in general is optimized for one phrase while specific articles are optimized for different, but related phrases.
Links
Links are important for many reasons, but in this context you want to link specific words in your main text to a related article on another website. So from this point on no more “click here”, instead use keywords to describe what you’re linking to. For example at the bottom of this post there’s a link to a cheat sheet for all this keyword information, I use the words, “using keywords in SEO” as a link not “illustrated cheat sheet” because they’re more specific and descriptive.
URL
You should have control over the urls for your pages and individual posts. Make use of keywords here too. Don’t ever settle for the default random number that’s generated with some blogging platforms. If your platform generates a url from your title that’s great because you’re already using keywords, however you might want to tweak it to either make it shorter or really focus on the right words.
All of this boils down to is having a few words or phrases that are descriptive of what your website is about and using them in a natural, organic way in the titles and text of your site.
To help you with this week’s tips here’s an illustrated cheat sheet for using keywords in SEO.
Next week we’ll focus on authority, the final part to SEO for Crafters.
This is the start of a little series I’m going to call SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Crafters. I’m going to break it down into the simplest pieces I can.
This series is for those of you who have only just heard of the term SEO, either here or in passing conversation, but really have no idea what I’m talking about or why you should care. Don’t worry I’ll be sure to let you know why you should care.
There’s a lot of mystery surrounding SEO. This is because it’s as much art as it is science and it takes time to see results. Many people actually do the right things, but give up before the magic takes hold.
What I intend to do is give you a few simple steps that can help you give your website or blog a big boost. You will need to be patient because it won’t happen over night. But if you’re able to keep in mind a few simple things, you will see results.
So let’s jump right in and talk about target market and keywords, the building blocks of SEO. But first let me explain search engine optimization. It is more or less exactly what it sounds like, optimizing your blog or website so that search engines will find you easily when a search is performed. The better your site is optimized the higher up or closer to number 1 in the search you appear and the more likely someone will be to click the link to your page.
Target Market
Here comes that target market thing again. For you to optimize your blog or website you need to define who you want to reach and what they’re searching for. The more you can narrow the focus of your blog and who will be interested the better your chances of rising to the top.
This means you need to think like your customers, what words would they use to find you? What specifically are they searching for?
Start Thinking About Keywords
Keywords are the specific words that someone would use in a search if they were looking for the information on your website or blog. When someone performs a search it’s because they have an interest. They tend to type in 2-3 words that first come to mind to describe their interest. They find a few interesting links that either a) give them a new phrase to search for or b) make them add on words to refine their search. When they start their search they get a lot of information they don’t want, but by following a few links they eventually find the wording that will lead them to the link they want.
What might those words be? This is the trick to keywords.
Google Adwords
Google Adwords is a pretty powerful tool that will give you a lot of useful information. You need to pick a word or phrase to start with, but this will most likely lead you down a path, so give yourself time to explore, be open to words and phrases you hadn’t thought of and take notes.
When you type in a word or phrase you get a list of related search terms with numbers listed for “Global Monthly Searches” and “Local Monthly Searches” as well as a bar graph that indicates competition. The monthly search numbers tell me how many times someone used that phrase over the last month both globally and locally (which is only as specific as United States). You’ll see numbers in the hundreds and in the hundred’s of thousands. Obviously the higher the number the more people are looking for that “thing” in particular. However the highest isn’t always the best. This is where the competition comes in.
Competition is a little tricky though because what it actually refers to is the number of businesses buying that phrase for their adwords campaign. However, it’s also a good indication of websites that have been optimized for that word or phrase. What you’re looking for is a combination of low to medium competition and medium to high search numbers
Look To Your Competition
Google Adwords also allows you to search a competitor’s website to see what words they’re optimized for. This will not only spark a new direction in thinking, but can help you distinguish yourself.
At the end of all this back and forth and chasing around you should have developed a list of 50 to 100 words and phrases that fit your business. They should either fit the low to medium competition and medium to high search numbers formula or have such ridiculously high search volume that competition doesn’t really matter.
Organic Search
Now there’s one final step, checking your organic search competition. Organic results are the websites, not the ads, that come up when you do a basic Google search. All we’re going to do now is get an idea of how many other websites are using the terms on your list. To do this type “allintitle: your keywords” into a basic Google search. What comes up is the websites that use this term in titles both of the entire site and of individual posts. There will be a number directly under the area you type your search term in. That’s how many pages use that term or phrase. If you can the results into the hundreds instead of the thousands, you’re on the right track.
Next week I’ll tell you what to do with all those keywords.
We often describe our businesses differently than others, what words do you commonly use in talking about your business? Do those match up with what others say?
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