Did you know that there are an estimated 1 billion people online and growing at a staggering average rate of around 80% per year. Another fact to note is that in the entire Middle East, there are only 18 million people online. And since internet is about numbers, it makes prudent business sense to go global.
Thr first step in to be found in global and regional search engines. And that requires 'Search Engine Optimisation' (SEO).
Here are some tips to help you attract a world wide audience.
Title Meta Tag
The title tag is what displays as the headline in the 'Search Engine Results Pages'. It's also what displays in the top blue band of Internet Explorer when your site is displayed.
The title tag of your website should be easy to read and designed to bring in traffic. The main keyword phrase (USP) should be used towards the beginning of the tag. Don't make the mistake of putting your company name first, unless you are already a household name. People are more likely searching for what you have to offer, not your name.
Description Meta Tag
The description tag is the paragraph that people will see when your page comes up in the search results.
Your description tag should be captivating and designed to attract business. It should be easy to read and compel the reader to act right now and follow your link. Without a description tag, search engines will frequently display the first lines of text on your home page.
A proper description tag is what people will see below your title. You should make proper use of punctuation, use your subject and geographical references.
Keywords Meta Tag
These are words/phrases that the prospective visitors will use to find your business in search engines. Use 'empathy' and think like prospects looking for solutions to their concerns. You are more likely to get it right that way, rather than state, "We are # 1 in business, etc."
Avoid stuffing your keyword metatags with too many keywords. Just use relevant tags that apply them directly to the content of that particular page.
Alt Tags
The small yellow box that comes up when your mouse cursor is placed over an image is called the ALT tag. Every relevant image should have an alt tag with your key words or phrases mentioned in the tag.
A proper ALT tag goes after the file name, and before the Align indicator. * - The ALT tag is no longer being considered for ranking purposes by some search engines.
Header Tags
The text of each page is given more weight by the search engines if you make use of header tags and then use descriptive body text below those headers. Bullet points work well too.
It is not enough to merely BOLD or enlarge your text headlines.
Link Text
Search engine spiders cannot follow image links. In addition to having image links or buttons on your web pages, you should have text links at the bottom or elsewhere. The text that the user sees when looking at the link is called the link text.
A link that displays products does not carry as much weight to the search engines as a link. Link text is very important, and is actually one of the most frequently overlooked aspects of web design that I've seen.
Site Map
Using a site map not only makes it easy for your site visitors to see the entire structure of your website, but it also makes it easier for the search engines to spider your site. When the search engine spiders come to visit, they will follow all of the text links from your main index page.
If one of those links is to a site map, then the spiders will go right to the sitemap, and consequently visit every page you have text linked to from that site map. On the site map page, try to have a sentence or two describing each page, and not just a page of links.
Relevant Inbound Links
Internet is also about networking. Build reciprocal hyperlinks with suppliers, customers and business partners/portals. It used to be that the quantity of incoming links that mattered most, but today it's much better to have three highly relevant links to you from other popular related web sites than 30 links from unrelated low ranked sites.
To see who's linking to you, in Google type the following...
links: yourdomain.com. You will soon know where you stand!
Content is King
Focus on the topic and have relevant text. Ideally, each page should have between 400 to 650 words on it. Too few, and the search engines won't consider it to be relevant enough. Too many words and the search engine spiders may have a hard time determining the actual subject or focus of the page.
Use your keywords or phrases often, and use them at the beginning of your paragraphs wherever possible. Don't overuse them as some search engines may even blacklist you for trying to outsmart them. Read the Google:BMW story in the archives.
Budget for 'Search Engine Optimisation'
Having spent around US$ 10,000 on a professional web site don't scrounge on a few more Dollars!
This will be the best money you spent online before you started making 'world wide wealth'.
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