SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

As its name suggests, SEO is the process of optimizing a website so that it ranks high in search engines. In an ideal world, your ‘all singing all dancing’ website should be up there in the top 10 when a surfer types in one of your keywords into his search engine. If you’re down at the bottom, worse still if you’re not even on the first page, chances are the surfer, with his short attention span, will surf on by.

Search engines want to provide their users with a valuable service, so the user instantly finds results relevant to his search. So when you launch your website, these search engines use a sophisticated and automative system of algorithms to determine rankings, and they’re changing them all the time. That’s why it’s essential to have a quality website with all the relevant keywords linked to it to attract visitors from the off!

There are two important components related to this system, and which determine your ranking:

7. Links

8. Content

If you have a quality website, in theory it should attract regular visitors, and this will show up on the search engines. In addition, if you get good links from other websites, this too will show up, and overall, will improve your rankings.

Patience is the watchword when it comes to search engines.  Whilst they are remarkably sophisticated, they have their work cut out to keep up with demand.  There are hundreds, if not thousands, of websites and blogs being added every day, and all requiring the 'once over' before they go live.  Even the big hitting search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, take time to crawl your website, so it could be days, even weeks, before you're picked up and dumped at the bottom of their rankings.

Anything that attracts your website to the search engines is the way forward, and even the slightest alterations or additions can help.  That's why links are so important, as this generates traffic which in turn is picked up.

Finally, whether it's a website or blog, content is king.  Regular refreshing is essential to hold the interest of the search engines, so a tweak here or there, or simply adding new content, even a line or two, will keep you in the frame, and with perseverance, you will move up the rankings, and with luck and application, you will reach the Holy Grail of the first page.

AFFILIATE MARKETING

With your new website up and running, you’ll need something to sell. You may have your own products, if so, fine and dandy, but even if you’ve just re-invented the wheel, you shouldn’t overlook the marketing possibilities of affiliate partnerships. There are literally thousands of products for sale on the Net where the sellers will offer you a slice of the action for every sale made through your website or affiliate link, or both. Their commissions vary from program to program, and product to product, but don’t ignore them. If you’re running on a really tight budget, and don’t want to spend money until you’re ready to launch, then an affiliate website will cost you a good deal less, and usually free.

I deal in detail with affiliates later on, but here is a brief summary of how it works:

Assume you have a website selling recipes for the best potato salad in the world, so you set up affiliate links to other sites selling similar products.

When a visitor comes to your site in search of potato salad recipes, and sees other similar products, hopefully he’ll buy your product and other affiliate products from your website.

Affiliate programs link direct from your website to their product with the click of a mouse, and with your affiliate link bedded into your website, when the visitor buys the affiliate product, you’ll get a share of the sale, at an agreed commission. It’s good business for you, and good business for them.

And there’s no reason why the process can’t be done in reverse. You invite other websites offering similar products to link in to yours, and in return, when they send visitors to your website who buy your product, you give them a share of the sale. It’s ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’!

You’ll need to make sure your products and theirs are similar. It stands to reason that when visitors come to your website, they’re expecting to find recipes for potato salad. If your affiliate programs are selling scuba diving equipment, there’s little chance they’ll follow the affiliate link, and all you’re doing is taking up valuable space on your website that could be put to better use.

A word of warning – don’t smother your website with affiliate links, otherwise your visitors won’t be able to see the wood for the trees! The main purpose of your website is to showcase your own products, and if your visitors are confronted with too much choice, they’ll leave. Don’t forget that the attention span of the average surfer from one site to another is very short, so if they don’t see what they want at first glance, they’ll be off! So much to see, so little time!