Planning

Businesses in Newcastle and the Hunter are gradually becoming aware of the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO). While it is likely to become a critical component of any marketing strategy for on-line businesses, it still needs to be approached in a planned and disciplined way. Developing a plan for your SEO, whether to be undertaken by yourself or an SEO consultant, will help to prioritise what actions are required and what outcomes are proposed to be achieved. The following are some suggestions for what issues should be considered:

1.Overall Strategy
What is your business trying to achieve? What marketing strategies do you already have in place (on-line and off-line)? How will SEO compliment your other marketing efforts? What are you expecting to gain from undertaking SEO?

2.Your Market
Who or what is your target market? What specific product or service are you trying to sell? Who are your current and future customers? Where will your customers be found or how will they find you?

3.Current Position
What is your current SEO position? What are your current keywords and how successful are they in attracting customers? What are your current search engine rankings? What links do you currently have pointing to your site?

4.Review Search Engine Practices
Search engines continually change the way they rank websites in order to stay competitive and ensure relevancy of search results. It is therefore important to keep abreast of any recent changes in how search engines choose to rank sites so that any proposed optimisation is maximized. Google, as the most important search engine, requires particular attention. Google provides resources such as Google Rankings (www.googlerankings.com) to help keep businesses updated with appropriate SEO techniques.

5.Analyse The Competition
SEO is about getting the highest possible search engine rankings for relevant keywords. To achieve this process means optimising your site to achieve a higher ranking than your competition. It is therefore important to analyse your competitor’s practices, particularly relating to keywords, links, content and design.

6.Review Current Site
Even some basic changes to a website can assist in improving search engine rankings. Reviewing your current design, layout and code will allow you to determine optimisation opportunities.

7.Keywords
Careful consideration is required into all possible keywords or phrases that may be suitable or relevant for your site. It must be kept in mind that popular or common keywords will be more difficult to achieve high rankings for. There are various resources available to help with identifying relevant keywords. Some helpful tools can be found at Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com) and Overture (www.content.overture.com).

8.Monitor and Review
Following any optimisation, it is paramount that tracking and monitoring is done of all work undertaken. Results of optimisation can take time to filter through into higher ranked search results, so on-going review is required.

© Copyright 2003-2008 Ausnetech Pty Ltd   A.B.N. 35 104 843 450