So Where Are You Now?

The first step in improving your website is knowing where you are starting. So right now identify 5 pages on you site you will work on. best choices are the most highly visited pages or those that should be the most highly visited. Your Home page should be on the list. Forget the Contact Us page.

Start Your Tracking System

Use whatever tool works for you to track this process–a spreadsheet, pencil and paper, the back of a cocktail napkin. You will be updating this information as we go along so just make sure you keep it handy and have enough room for more updates.

Identify Your Keywords For Each Page

The key concept today is that each page of your site should be optimized for a set of keyword phrases (1 - 3 phrases). Think in terms of each page, not your site as a whole. In order to get the most traffic you want to have pages optimized for different phrases. This makes you a bigger target for searches. Why settle for a postage stamp when you can get your business on a billboard?

So write down your 5 pages and the keyword phrases you think are appropriate for each one. Then test to see how well you come up in the search engines.

Find Your Starting Position

A handy way to test is to use the tool at MarketLeap:
http://www.marketleap.com/verify/default.htm

Just put in your web URL and your phrases and see how how well you rank in each of the major search engines.

Do The Same For Your Competitors

Now go through the same process for your major competitors. Don’t despair if you rank lower, even much lower! Remember this is just the start.

OK. That is all for today. See that wasn’t so hard and now you are on your way to improving your site’s search engine visibility!