Fall Teleseminar Series 2006 – Call 6 of 9 – with Jennifer Laycock

Episode 6 of FreshBooks “Build Your Business” Fall Teleseminar Series

Introduction to Building Traffic to Your Website (59 minutes, 48 seconds)

Listen using the MP3 player below or download the podcast.

Jennifer Laycock, editor of Search Engine Guide, talked to Michael about how search engines can help attract visitors to your web site. Here are brief notes and timelines of their call:

(0.17) Call agenda: introducing the fundamentals of search engine optimization

(2.40) What has changed the most in search in the last year? Don’t just focus on Google

(5.25) What is the business case for driving traffic to a web site?

(6.44) Definition of organic marketing

(7.26) Results of eye tracking studies show searchers perceive an organic link to be of higher quality than a paid link

(10.08) How conversion rates differ for generic versus brand keyword terms (e.g. tennis shoes vs. Nike)

(10.57) Optimizing your site for organic search levels the playing field between big and small businesses.

(11.30) How many searches a person carries out before making a purchase, and what this means for your search terms.

(13.25) How search engines rank web sites – the Pinocchio effect

(16.41) Why text is so important to search engines

(17.17) Can search engines read the text in Flash?

(18.09) How to structure your web pages (like an essay or newspaper article)

(19.46) Suggestions for how to judiciously incorporate your keywords into a web page.

(21.00) What is a keyword phrase, and how do you rank for your keywords?

(23.35) The steps to follow to find your keyword phrases

(24.46) PPC a great way to test your keywords before optimizing your site

(25.35) Scanning and skimming – what it is and how to structure your content so it can be scanned and skimmed

(27.42) Keyword density – how to know how often to include your keywords

(28.21) Using highlighting or links to call attention to certain keywords

(29.54) Introduction to “offpage” factors: links, domain age

(31.05) About the different types of links (reciprocal, incoming, paid, text or image)

(32.51) Google bombing

(33.32) Why link quality is important

(34.16) Why link age is important

(35.20) The sand box concept, and what the real barrier to entry for new sites is

(37.44) How to get a competitive edge in presenting your product/service

(40.05) What do you do when your chosen keywords don’t do well in keyword effectiveness tools (e.g. WordTracker)?

(43.38) How do search engines look at dynamically generated pages, versus regular HTML pages?

(46.00) Use of site maps – how many links are too many

(46.45) About WordTracker and Keyword Discovery

(48.54) An additional benefit of these tools: identifying future products/services

(49.46) Use your competitors’ web sites to look for variations on your keyword phrases

(50.10) Do you need to submit a site to search engines and directories?

(52.16) Do framesets make a difference in optimising a site?

(53.44) Linking strategies will be talked about in more detail next week

(54.04) The key budgeting guideline: you should always earn more from the effort your SEO professionals put in than what they’re charging you.

(56.43) Jennifer can recommend search engine optimization providers

(57.39) Be patient. It may take a while to see benefits from an organic campaign.

Thanks Jennifer!

Links:

• Jennifer Laycock’s web site: Search Engine Guide

• Jennifer’s email: jennifer [at] searchengineguide [dot] com

• WebTracker

• Keyword Discovery

• Web 2.0 Summit hosted by O’Reilly

Next week’s teleseminar: Sign up for call two with Jennifer Laycock: Advanced Traffic Building Techniques for Your Website