Yahoo Small Business-If You Can’t Beat ‘em Join ‘em: Creating High Performing Pages

BY MATTHEW SANTOS | BUSINESS 2 COMMUNITY

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Have you ever wondered how website pages made it to the first page of Google? Or better yet, ever wonder how they remain on that first page for what seems like ages? The answer can be summarized into four categories:

1. On-Page SEO
2. Off-Page SEO
3. Social Media Sharing
4. Call to Action (CTA)

On-Page SEO

In order to create high-performing pages on your site you will need to incorporate all of these into your optimization strategy. Let’s dive deeper into why these four categories are so effective.

The main emphasis with on-page SEO is consistency. Making sure that the keyword is uniform across several elements on a page can be crucial to organic success. So where should the main keyword be implemented?

Here are some best practices for implementing your main keyword for that page:

• Place it in the URL of that page
• Place it in the Title Tag element of that page
• Place it within the main header (or H1 tag) of that page
• Use the keyword and several variations within the content
• Place it within the Meta Description element of that page

Search engine bots want to see that you have given the proper amount of attention to a keyword by giving it a unique page. Pages that include multiple keywords that aren’t related could potentially harm your site since this practice usually causes a poor user experience. And your user experience is everything nowadays.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO is the practice of interacting with other websites. A large part of off-page SEO is link building. Building inbound links is crucial to your organic success since search engines view them as a “vote of confidence” to your site.

There are a few things that you can do to ensure that you are obtaining the right inbound links for your site:

• Measure the total number of inbound links that your site currently has with a tool like Majestic, or Open Site Explorer.
• Check your top-linked pages.
• Check the number of linking domains.
• Audit your anchor text and eliminate anything that looks remotely spammy.
• Compare these metrics with your competitors to see how you match up.

Monitoring your inbound links can help you discover new avenues for obtaining more relevant and authoritative links. It can also help you prevent any Google penalties, like Penguin.

Social Sharing

The next step is to adopt a social sharing method. Social Media is still considered the “Wild West” to most companies, and many of them are falling behind. The more likes, retweets, comments, and shares a specific page has, the more authoritative it will seem to your users and search engines.

That’s right I said search engines too!

Search engines are constantly working to develop more complex algorithms to understand social metrics and incorporate them into their ranking system. So why wouldn’t you utilize social?

Begin by creating and optimizing business profiles on these platforms:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Google +

Some platforms work better for certain industries, so do your research and focus on the ones that your buyer personas would regularly visit.

Calls To Action

Last, but not least, are your calls to action. This concept can be broken down into three main subjects:

• Calls-to-Action Button (CTA) – This gives a user an opportunity to take action on your offer. They can be placed on any web page.
• Landing Pages – When a user clicks on your CTA button it will take them to a landing page where they will be prompted to fill out a form.
• Thank You Pages – This is where you finally deliver your content offer to your new lead.

Make sure that you truly understand your buyer personas, and personalize all three of these areas to improve your conversion rates.

Now you are ready to convert more website visits into leads! Implement these tips and monitor your website’s analytics to ensure that you are increasing your organic visibility. The gobs of traffic you will receive from just implementing these four strategies will leave you breathless.

This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: If You Can’t Beat ‘em Join ‘em: Creating High Performing Pages