Search Engine Optimisation is a must if you want to make sure your intended audience finds your website but it can be time consuming and technical – patience is invariably required and it is usually best to employ an expert to help.  There are, however, some things that you can do to improve your website ranking that are easy to do and don’t require the assistance of an SEO specialist.

Easy Ways To Improve Your Ranking

1. Update your site regularly – this may seem obvious but many corporate sites rarely change.  Search engines like sites that change often so by updating your site frequently you can improve your ranking .

2.In case you haven’t done so, remember to submit your site to Google and other search engines  to help them find and crawl your site.

3. Post video to YouTube -  posting a video on YouTube and linking it back to your site has the added benefit of building really valuable links to your site.

4. Add a podcast – our traffic peaks every time we podcast and by submitting the podcast to top pod sites, the effect ripples. Coincidence? I think not.

5. Label your images – most sites don’t bother but this is viable real estate on your site, use it. Image titles should relate back to your keywords and offering for maximum impact.

6. Use Google’s webmaster tools – make sure your site is crawled regularly, submit your sitemap and identify any problems so that you can fix them.  If you can’t work out how submit your sitemap do it page by page in Google.

7. Get bookmarks – book marks build links and the more you have the better. Hit on employees, partners and colleagues to bookmark your site.  Good sites include Digg,  or Stumble Upon.

8. Comment regularly on relevant high traffic blogs and always remember to insert your url correctly.

9. Spend some time developing a keyword map for your products and services so as to identify the most effective words to use and those to avoid. Content on your web site is key to helping the search engines understand what your site is all about.  When considering content, remember to put yourself in the shoes of your audience.

10. Use bold and headings to identify key terms in your text.

11. This one should be first on the list but it seems so obvious I almost left it out. Use a website traffic tool like Google Analytics to measure traffic to your site.  If you don’t then how will you know which of the above is working.

If you don’t have time for SEO yourself, remember, it is one of the services we provide.  We’d love to talk to you about your SEO goals.

Thanks to a2d on Flickr for the image!

Grooveshark – groove to your favorite music while you work.

About Men – a new men’s health site in BC.

Twubs - making sense of Twitter hashtags #.

Twittersheep – see what your followers are Twittering about.

Sprouter – collaborative networking tool.

Slickplan – Create flowcharts and site maps for free.

SiteScan – verify your Google Analytics tracking codes.

Enjoy!

Microsoft has a new offering the promises to change the way we search the Internet. Its called Bing and is still under wraps so we’ll have to wait and see if it will better the mighty Google.

Not to be outdone, Google also has a new offering in beta. Google Wave promises to change the way we communicate and collaborate on the web.

Make your own book with Blurb and BookSmart.

Have fun with your desktop at Bump Top.

Twitter tools: Untweeps (get rid of anactive users), Twilert (Twitter keyword listening tool) and Just Tweet It (another Twitter directory).

1. Update your site regularly – this may seem obvious but many corporate sites rarely change.

2. Post a video – it can be short and sweet but has the added benefit of enhancing your image.

3. Add a podcast – our traffic peaks every time we podcast and by submitting the podcast to top pod sites, the effect ripples. Coincidence? I think not.

4. Label your images – most sites don’t bother but this is viable real estate on your site, use it. Image titles should relate back to your keywords and offering for maximum impact.

5. Use Google’s webmaster tools – make sure your site is crawled regularly, submit your sitemap (okay I concede you might need a technodweeb for that) and identify any problems so that you (or your technodweeb) can fix them.  If you can’t work out how submit your sitemap do it page by page in Google.

6. Get bookmarks – book marks are like links the more you have the better. Hit on employees, partners and colleagues to bookmark your site.  Good sites include Digg,  or Stumble Upon.

7. Comment regularly on relevant blogs and always remember to insert your url correctly.

8. Spend some time developing a keyword map for your products and services so as to identify the most effective words to use and those to avoid.

9. Use bold and headings to identify key terms in your text.

10. This one should be first on the list but it seems so obvious I almost left it out. In case you haven’t done so, remember to submit your site to Google and other search engines otherwise there’s no hope whatsoever.

2. Your company – what resources are in place or will be made available. Also consider existing web presence, company culture, mission, goals and policies.

3. Competition – check out what your competition is doing on line, track blog and RSS feeds that mention them as well as comments on their products or service from users. Also consider the actions of similar companies operating in different jurisdictions.

4. The market – is your market place experiencing and up turn / down turn or is it in a state of flux? These will all impact the approach you take.

5. Integration with your overall marketing and advertising strategy is imperative. Each must complement and support the other by conveying the same brand image and messages.

6. If you don’t have web savvy resources in house then don’t worry – get guidance from people who do this (like us ).

7. Positioning – find out where you stand in the web rankings in comparison to others in your field.

8. Traffic – who visits your site right now, how often and how long do they stay.

9. Pricing – if your offering is considered “prestige” then your web strategy will be different than if your its aimed at the masses.

10. Consider all tools at your disposal to promote your web presence and don’t forget to consider newer technologies such as wikis, social networks and microblogs for effective online marketing.

1. Always ensure your site is listed in all of the major search engines prior to starting your link building campaign.
2. Only submit links to quality sites.
3. Target your linking to sites that are pertinent to your business.
4. Remember to add your links in appropriate directories.
5. Quality is better than volume. Link to sites that have good traffic stats.
6. Track your progress – set up a spreadsheet to track submissions.
7. Many sites require a reciprocal link. Decide in advance if you will take this approach and add this to your web site.
8. Only pay for listings if you can determine your ROI.
9. Go for the low hanging fruit. Request a link from customer and partner sites.
10. And this is perhaps the most important. Don’t get disheartened. Effective link building takes time and commitment. Results are not instantaneous and it often takes several months to see the full effect.