Do you avoid the crucial step and wait until everything is right? Do you do your research to make sure you’re not doing anything wrong? Well you are not alone. Many people who could make big bucks online miss out because of their internet phobia. Companies that know what they are doing go out of their way to create an effective website. But with all the millions of searches happening every minute, there has to be room for us!
There are.
First off, you need a domain name, a hosting company, and a little understanding of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). Domain name registration and hosting accounts are very affordable services offered by many companies and they are all pretty similar in offering. Once you have registered a domain name and hosting account, you can upload your images and pages to the web.
Your website consists of pages, images and other files that need to be readable by Internet browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, etc. Most pages can be created in Notepad and saved with an HTML (.html) extension. HTML codes for the page layout are beyond the scope of this article, but I’ll talk about a few meta tags that every website NEEDS: title tag, keywords tag, and description tag. Additionally, you need keyword-rich pages with content relevant to your description, title, and keyword tags.
You must also maintain links on all your pages to all other pages. This allows the search engines to find all the pages on your website. I strongly recommend placing titles within the code of your links. This should be the title of the page it leads to and emphasizes the importance of both the page with the link and the linked page.
Your website is a collection of information. It’s like a book, an electronic digital book. Every book has a title. But once in, each chapter is also titled. The table of contents is like the menu. Your website must have an interactive menu that links to pages with a title, keywords, and description for each page. Search engines love this and the more they love your website, the higher your page will rank. You want to recommend websites with organized, well-indexed information and relevant content on every page. This is probably the most important part of making your website “search engine friendly”. You must match the title of each page within your site with the description of the page (description tag) and the keywords (and keywords tag) used on the page. Don’t get overwhelmed, it’s a lot less confusing than you think.
Once your website is indexed in search engine databases, you want to increase your page rank. The most powerful way to increase your page rank in search engine results is through valuable inbound links. These links from other websites to yours are extremely important. The higher the website is ranked, the more valuable the link is. I mean, if you’re reading a good book and it talks about an amazing vacation, wouldn’t you start planning that vacation as soon as you put the book down? Do you know how many people buy a book because Oprah puts it on her book list? When an important, well-accepted website links to your website, search engines also believe that your website must be remarkable.
Keyword selection is an important part of your online marketing plan. At first, don’t expect to rank high in search results for phrases that are highly competitive. Common words like “car” or “cheap” will bring up millions of results in front of your site, no matter how well organized your page is. Bidding or paying for these types of keywords can be a better way to get to the top of the list (in sponsored or paid search results).
So that pretty much sums it up. You need a domain name, a hosting account, and something to write about. Think about what people are looking for that you can help them with. Use keyword tools to find common but under-contested search phrases related to your content. Use these phrases on your pages, make them bold and use them in your meta tags (title, keywords and description) and in your link names and titles. Then find other companies in your industry or websites related to your topic and contact them to link to each other. And don’t forget good old-fashioned word of mouth. Traffic is not only the desired effect, it actually increases the value of your site and your position in search engine results.
Be proactive. Much luck!
