Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Keywords
Keywords? SEO? What are we talking
about here?
If you choose to launch your own website to
promote your ebook, you need to know a few things about search
engine optimization or SEO for short.
Your website can't help you sell ebooks unless you have traffic
to your website. In order to generate enough traffic to your website, it
needs to rank high on search engine listings, especially Google --
the most popular of all search engines.
Your website can't help you sell ebooks unless you have traffic to your website. In order to generate enough traffic to your website, it needs to rank high on search engine listings, especially Google -- the most popular of all search engines.
There are four main elements that will influence how highly your website ranks on Google and other search engines: website design, page content, back links and keywords.
Website Design
It's not enough to just have a pretty website. Just like people, a pretty face might be attractive initially, but if there's no substance on the inside, we're unlikely to hang around very long. With your website, what's on the inside is just as important as what's on the exterior.
If you open a webpage in Internet Explorer and
click on View, then Source, you'll see the source code that is used
to create the page. This is what search engine spiders are
looking at when they index your website.
Unfortunately, the most user friendly webpage software, like
Microsoft Publisher, create a lot of garbage code that confuse the
search engine spiders and interfere with your page ranking.
The best advice is to keep your webpage design simple and easy to
navigate. Like so many other things in life, LESS IS MORE!
Search engine spiders are totally oblivious to fancy graphics,
images and flash animation. So it really doesn't pay to invest
too much time or money in such things.
Page Content
Providing original, high quality content is absolutely critical to establishing your credibility with potential customers, other webmasters and search engine spiders.
When you're first getting started, don't worry so much about sales. Instead, focus on creating quality content that is useful, accurate, informative and relevant to the product that you're selling.
Keep in mind that the average person visits a website 15 times before they actually make the decision to buy. So you need interesting and relevant content that will keep them coming back to your website.
Back Links
Backs Links are links to your website from other websites. Back links are an important part of Google's page ranking process. Back links are like popularity votes that Google counts to determine how highly your website should rank.
Not all back links are created equal. A back link from a credible, well known website is more important than a back link from your brother-in-law's personal blog.
A back link from a credible website lends credibility to your website.
The issue of website credibility is important. A study conducted at Stanford University suggests that "Web users are becoming more skeptical of information they find online and may be wary of Web-based experiences."
One way to establish credible back links is to post messages on popular, well-known blogs and forums. Include a link to your website in your post.
Keywords
Search engine spiders scan your website for the most frequently occurring words and phrases and index your website accordingly. If the most frequently used phrase on your website is "park ranger jobs", then these are your keywords.
In other words, people who enter this phrase into a search engine are most likely to find your website. As you're developing the content for your website, think about the words that users would type into a search engine to find your website.
There are many keyword services and programs available on the market but the Google Keywords Tool is free and a good place to start your keyword research.