So you would like to run an Online Business or already do but … 10

In my last blog, I introduced the topic of web sites. Web sites and sales pages are your virtual showroom for your online business. This is where your potential customers come to see if you have something that they need. They got there because you have attracted prospects to your pages using a number of tactics including the fact that search engines should find your sites. Now I would like to touch on the topic of search engine optimisation (seo). It’s a big topic so all I plan to do in this email is make you aware of it. 

The bottom line of seo is to get your web page ranked on page 1 of the organic listings when people search on a phrase or word that is important in your chosen niche. As an example, in one of the niches that I operate in wearing a consultancy hat, the term “management cybernetics” is crucial. I have just done a Google search and the term has my company site www.phrontis.com listed third in the rankings for page 1. If you carry out many of the activities discussed in the nine preceding emails then they will have an impact on your search ranking. 

So what will help you get a good ranking? There are many factors that work in combination with each other. Firstly, the web page must be clearly focused on a particular customer niche and use key words and phrases as part of the page content that are consistent with that niche. Good quality content is essential in the longer term! Good Headings and sub-headings will also help in ranking. You also have to give thought to the content required for tags and meta-tags. (Tags, part of the underlying web page background structure, have not been discussed in this introductory set of emails but they are important and will be covered in other briefings or blogs.)  

Once your web page is optimised for search engines, you then need to look at connectivity – what and who connects to your web pages. Provided that the links are relevant, the more links to your web page(s) that you have the better. That is where your blogs can help; and these blogs and variations of them posted elsewhere will certainly help. So will the free ads and paid for ads help to improve the page ranking because of the links to your web page. A further benefit can come from the Social Networking sites linking back to your site provided that you respect the etiquette of the individual site. Do not become a social spammer – you will be ignored if you do. 

Well I hope that this final blog has brought all of the activities of online business together for you and given you a better appreciation of what internet marketers get up to. Remember this is a very quick introductory overview – there is a lot to learn if you are new to online business and want to do most of the work yourself.

The Revolution