| Most people seem to have this sudden urge to have | | | | Choosing the Right Domain Name |
| a website, they register a domain name (usually with | | | | This to me is the really simple bit, some people |
| the name of their company) and throw up some | | | | agonise for ages over their choice of domain name. |
| images and a bit of content then wonder why they | | | | It should contain your keyword or key phrase |
| are getting no traffic OR they spend a fortune on an | | | | No numbers in it. |
| 'all singing all dancing' website with no regards as to | | | | .com is best unless you are going for a very specific |
| what keywords they should be targeting. | | | | geographical market, for instance if your market only |
| This is a guide as to what you should do if you are | | | | exists in the UK then .co.uk is best. |
| considering setting up your own website. If you | | | | If you can, get all the extensions like .com, .net, .org |
| follow this guide before you use a web designer it will | | | | etc. if you are going large! |
| save you a lot of time and money. | | | | No hyphens unless it is a really good mix of your |
| Keyword Research | | | | keywords, never more than three |
| Finding the right keywords is an art in it's self, I | | | | Short as possible |
| personally use software called Market Samurai but I | | | | I found the domain name 'thebestbutcher.co.uk' |
| have used every other keyword tool that is on the | | | | (available at the time of writing) in only a minute or |
| market and for my needs I think it's the best | | | | two of searching, this domain also gives you an |
| available or try Google's Keyword Tool. | | | | opportunity for branding, it doesn't matter if you're |
| Keywords will make or break your business, not just | | | | the 'best' or not, if you tell enough people you are |
| finding the right keywords but how you use them | | | | and supply fantastic service and value they will |
| throughout your website and the content you | | | | believe you and then you soon will be! (As in 'John is |
| produce. | | | | one of the top Search Engine Optimisation experts in |
| Once upon a time (back in the good old days) you | | | | the UK') Mind you in my case it's true! |
| could get ranked high in the search engines for just | | | | Sometimes I have clients who have slightly more ego |
| about anything but as the search engines evolve so | | | | than commonsense and buy domain names with their |
| must you, the major search engines now use | | | | name or company name in the URL, this is great if |
| something called LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing), | | | | you are building a brand but not if you want to rank |
| what this basically means is that the search engines | | | | on the first page of Google for your keyword! |
| are starting to think more about what you really | | | | On Page Optimisation |
| want, these days if you built a page around just one | | | | On Page Optimisation is what is required to change a |
| keyword you won't rank as well in the search | | | | website itself to make it more likely to get higher |
| engines but if you build a page around that keyword | | | | rankings for a particular keyword (or set of |
| then sprinkle in other relevant keywords then you will | | | | keywords) in the search engines. |
| get a higher ranking, for example if I were to use | | | | It includes such things as improving the page content, |
| the keyword 'butcher' then other words that come | | | | using keywords in page titles, using ALT tags for |
| up in my research are 'meat', 'chicken' etc. | | | | images (i.e. keywords in the text description for an |
| Competition Analysis | | | | image) and managing outgoing links. |
| Next before I decided to use the term 'butcher' as | | | | As you build your pages your keyword phrase needs |
| my top level term I wanted to see how easy or | | | | to correspond to that page, make sure the : |
| difficult it would be for me to rank on the first page | | | | Page name |
| of Google's search results because unless you are on | | | | Page heading title |
| the first page you are nowhere unless the market is | | | | Page title meta tag |
| huge and you have a lot of keywords in your mix. | | | | Page description meta tag |
| I would regard this as an easy market to dominate, | | | | Page key word meta tagall use the keyword phrase. |
| let me tell you why, its all to do with how you | | | | Website Hosting |
| optimise your website (more about this later), in this | | | | Now you need somewhere to host your website |
| example I looked at the top ten sites in Google's | | | | (the place your website lives). |
| search results for the term 'butcher' and there is only | | | | I use HostGator for one reason, they are fantastic, |
| one of the sites that has a properly optimised | | | | there is virtually no down time, the support is great |
| website (the no1 site), that has the keyword | | | | and they offer value for money, I think they are the |
| 'butcher' is in the page title, in the URL, in the | | | | best on the market. |
| description and in the main headline on the page. | | | | Under no circumstances use a free host, there are |
| If I was to build a butcher site I would make sure | | | | many reasons why not, just don't do it!!!! |
| my site was optimised, get at least 100 backlinks | | | | When you have all of these parts in place you now |
| pointing to my main page and put some great | | | | have the majority of the work done and are ready |
| relevant content on the site and from experience I | | | | to get your site's design work done. |
| would get to the first page in a matter of weeks. | | | | |