Hey Everyone,
Below are a few easy SEO tips for you. I noticed something about my SEO the other day which made me realize how I could get more traffic to my sites that were on the front page of Google but not yet in the number 1 spot.
What I’m about to explain is very easy to implement, but I know I’ve been guilty of rushing this and neglecting to do this properly.
When you’re building your webpages for the purpose of SEO, there are a number of vital things that you have to make sure you do, to each and every page to maximize the chances of it ranking high in the search engines and requiring as little backlinks as possible. I’ll be writing a seperate post on this very soon, however today I want to focus in on one aspect of this.
Most of you will know that when your site is listed in the search engines, the small block of text that shows in the results under the title is your description for the page. If you don’t know already, it’s important for you to include your exact keyword phrase in the description.
However what is also important, is taking the time to write a good title and description for the visitor to read. This is your advertsing box for SEO, and what I see far to often, is great PPC ads on the front page of Google, with excellent headlines and careful attention to every word used in their ad, however the sites on the free listing working on SEO, tend to fall down and be lazy here.
I’ll be the first to put my hand up and say that I’v been guilty of this, however the great news is that it’s easy to fix.
The way I see your description and title for your page is like a headline and subheadline for an advertisement. It’s what persuades the person scanning the Google results to click on your listing. I know I often click the number two spot in Google, if it has a better decription that caught my attention, and skip over the number one spot.
Easy SEO Tips: So what make a good title and description?
Well I think a good description is something that stands out from the crowd and is intriguing to the reader. This can be done with statements that reflect some form of a story or even mild controversy.
For example, if you were promoting a product called “Product XYZ” you might say something like:
“When I first tried used Product XYZ I was pretty shocked at….”
“Here’s My Story of Product XYZ, and what it’s really like….”
“I finally reviewed Product XYZ and you can find out the facts here…”
If you are not reviewing a product and instead targeting niche specific keywords, you might try something along these lines:
“I thought there was no cure for XYZ and then I found this….”
“I wanted to know to how to XYZ and after months of research I finallly came across this site…”
“My friend put my onto this product to learn how to XZY and it changed everything for me…”
Now if you haven’t actually tried a product, I don’t encourage to make things up, as that’s not ethical, but you can still write in a creative and appealing manner without having to pretend you have used the product, like most of the examples above.
What I do is create some form of interest in my site through the headline, and making sure their is some element of differentiation from the 9 other listing on the front page of Google, while arrousing the curiosity of the searcher at the same time.
This can help to ensure you get the maximum number of click throughs to your site. Not rocket science, just simple, effective, common sense marketing.
I you found these easy affiliate marketing SEO tips helpful, and as always I’d love to hear from you guys, so feel welome to share your thoughts below.
Thanks
Matt
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Hey Matt,
I’ve been following your blog and have purchased a few products through your affiliate link already. I am just wondering how this would apply toward sites targeted at physical products. I currently just use the name of the product, followed by a few LSI keywords. Is there a way to write titles for physical product niche sites?
Thanks.
Rachel
Thanks for sharing, good information as usual. These are the little things that we often take for granted.
Matt,
Great seo tips once again. It doesn’t hurt being in positions 1,2, or 3 though either! 😉 Have you used little ascii characters in the title tags before like a * or something at the beginning to make yours stand out even more?
Thank you Matt for some great tips. From few days I have been following the exact method. I give more importance to all those specific blog post which I want to rank in search engine. Anyway we can change meta description at any time since it doesn’t affect ranking. I have done it myself and still my blogs are ranking.
Thanks Matt, as always, really sound info and simple to implement! Off to review our site and thanks for the great advice…
Hey Matt,
Once again you have shared some very practical information with all of us. Thanks and I’ll definitely be fixing up my sites based on this suggestion.
Matt, thanks for the great tip. It’s funny how much we can learn by taking lessons from one aspect of IM such as PPC and applying them to another like SEO.
Matt,
good tip. I do use the desc, but never though of headlining it.
Have you found that you get more clicks or have you to fully test it out yet.
I’m looking forward to the future posts you mentioned.
Thanks,
Steve. \m/
Awsome post Matt. This is some very valuable information that you shared here. I for one am guilty of being lazy with that but after reading this post I will put more attention to doing what you suggest. Thanks for sharing man!!!
Matt,
What about the all-too-often cases where the search engine ignores the meta description and instead uses the first bit of text it finds on the page? On my aged pages, I had a problem with this because on the left side of the pages is a table with all the internal page links. And a search engine would grab the html from that table because it read top left first. (Google used to do this but not anymore)
In these cases, it never seems to matter what the meta description says.
Owen
Hi Matt
Just curious how I could go about including some type of story or mild controversy in my description. My target keywords are “Marketing Communications Melbourne”. I’m on page one of google in 5th spot and the other businesses above me also have fairly bland descriptions that tell visitors what they do. You’ve made me think about this but I’m wondering if it will make a huge difference if I change my description just to jump to the top of the page because where I am right now is good. Your thoughts would be most welcome!
Thanks
Ruth
Excellent advice, I just did that very thing to 160 pages on my new blog, looking forward to more tips and tricks for SEO
Hey
Your posts are always eye openers!
Thanks
Mark
I never know what to do with those things. Sometimes just getting a long tail KW in there requires creativity. But you are right it ends up blah–
I have written these suggested starters down, and will make good use of them. This kind of help is sometimes more valuable than detailed explanations. By using these concrete writing prompts a few times, that will let me absorb it and eventually make it my own in my own style.
I have started copying things like creative last sentences I come across an put them all in one document so I can read them before I write my call to action lead in…. that has helped too.!
Hi Matt,
Great stuff as always. Thanks for sharing. I have a question. I just got my first website going live. I found my page on the 2nd position on Page 2 for a specific keyword. Unfortunately I found a little error in the description and had to edit it. I haven’t seen my page on Google ever since. What do you think about this? Would appreciate a response from you.
Cheers
Rema
Matt Carter Reply:
September 7th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Hey Rema
Your site dissappearing like that would have nothing to do with you adjusting the description, unless you stuffed it with way to many keywords. Google often moves sites up and down when they are new.
Thanks
Matt
I agree. You need to target one or two strong keyword phrases on each page, and craft that meta description to contain both. This is so valuable to attract clicks. Good read. Thanks Matt!
i use a tool that helps me with this: go to http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html and there you can rehearse your title, metadescription, url, with different options.
Great advice Matt,
Keep up the informative IM posts! there awesome.
Thanks,
John Hutchison
Hi Matt,
Could you do a post on technorati tags? I think they’re the reason my alternative health blog is getting great SEO.
And I’m also curious-did you say you were from New Zealand? Just wondering if the unfortunate weather affected you?
Thanks Matt!
J. Gib!!
Hi Matt
Thanks for your help all knowledge is greatly recieved, As I “newbie” who is in that stage of “huge learning curve” Im always interested in any thing that will improve on my SEO . Having just put together my first website Im now at the stage of doing all the on and off page SEO and its a bit nerve racking to say the least. But as each day ticks by I pick up more information and increase my own knowledge which allows me to advance that little bit more. The journey is long but Im loving every minute of it .
Cheers
Lindsay aka Dory
Hello Matt,
I use “All In One SEO” for my blog, does that mean I will need to write All my posts Description manually from now on, if I really want to get a better click rate from my visitors?
Please advice me on that, really appreciate your help.
Regards,
Dev
Matt Carter Reply:
September 7th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Hey Dev
Yes you should take the time to write all your descriptions yourself using all in one seo, it is important.
Thanks
Matt
There is no doubt that these SEO tips are very helpful , but what about 1000 affiliates who promote the same product? All they want to be on the first page of search engines …
Matt Carter Reply:
September 7th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Hey Beger
Yes we all want the top of Google, but there are many keywords that you can target for a product
and be profitable.
Matt
So true Matt. We tend not to spend time on things that are deemed to be of insignificance, yet is so important.
Thanks for the post
All fair comments but how can you determine which piece of text Google will select as your description?
It would seem that sometimes they select a piece at random.
They certainly don’t appear to take much notice of the page description you put into your Google AllinOneSEO plugin.
Matt Carter Reply:
September 7th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Hey Sean
That’s a bit annoying for you, and I can’t say that I have experienced
that myself, all my sites have the description from allinoneseo…
Hmmm…strange.
Exactly my thoughts.
I’m in positions 5.6 and 7 for 3 of my keywords after 4 months of SEM but not seeing much more organic traffic since hitting page 1.
I’ve been looking at my descriptions wondering if they need tweaking so now I’ll actually do something.
Great post.
Cheers,
Simon UK
Matt Carter Reply:
September 7th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Hey Simon
Thanks for stopping by, look forward to hearing more from you.
Regards
Matt
Another thing I have found is to sort out the All in one SEO or Platinum SEO plugin first. If you set up the blog in your cpanel and leave it for a while, the description gets all jumbled and it does not look good!
Also, doing the post excerpts and filling in the SEO pack title, description and keywords at the bottom of the post also helps. It’s a right pain in the behind, but it’s the little things as Matt says.
Michele.
I’ve never used the post excerpts mainly because I wasn’t sure what they are supposed to achieve. I daresay though that they are SEO related, in which case one would imagine that the chosen excerpt would be a phrase from your page containing the main targeted keyword. Right?
It would seem though from what I’ve gleaned from forums I visit, that when the All in one SEO or Platinum SEO plugin is installed, it over rides other SEO tactics such as the excerpts.
Maybe Matt can enlighten us on that one?
Sean
so good advice,so good a blog!
Bang on the money this post.
No click – no visitor. End of story.
Often overlooked is the domain name – this can influence the click too.
thanks !
I too will admit, as a blogger, this strategy can seem tedious, however with SEO being so important, this can mean life and death of your traffic source. Thank you so much for the tips. I will be back soon.
Kelvin and Amber Jones
The King and Queen of No Bull Marketing
This fits another tip I read once that made a lot of sense, tho not SEO-related, and that was to one-by-one go through all your old posts and update them, freshen them up with new material if possible, add new links (lots of internal links, if possible). It would be a natural to freshen up your Title and Description at the same time or just make sure they’re the best they can be. Or, just take a website at a timeand methodically go through to make sure all the Titles and Descriptions are terrific. Also, I find I do a much better job of these and my post title if I START with my keyword and get these two items written before the post itself.
Thanks for this info Matt. I had no idea. Guess I have my work cut out for me today!
I’ll be back for more great tips.
Thanks for all you do!
Lesley
It’s all about patiance with Google.
This is a blog site I enjoy coming to quite often because the content here is very good and anything new that you come up with in improving our Internet businesses is excitingly welcome. SEO and backlinking are two subjects that, at least in my view, we cannot get enough of. I think both of these subjects are worth getting expert advice in not only in the development of our own businesses but to also get to the stage where we have our own expertise in the subject matter to be able to pass it along just as you have.
Thank you as always, Paul
Great Info thanks Matt
Thanks you
This is an old trick carried out by SEO experts since the days of 1999 and still rules. We just forget about some basic things and get lazy. I am going to retool all my descriptions .
The description has to be 155 words, so be careful because it does not shows up more than that on Google.
My 2 cents/
Excelent Matt, thank you for this info, the past and the future…
Matt,
Do you have a new title and description for each page? Say you had three products on your site. Would you optimize each page? I use a wordpress plugin that allows you to do that and would like to know if you recommend it.
Thanks
Bill
Matt Carter Reply:
September 10th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Hey Bill
The way I do it is to optimize it page or post for one product and one keyword phrase only and that’s all, so yes you will need to make sure you carefully optimize the title and description etc…for each post/
Hope that helps
Thanks
Matt
Thanks for the info Matt. I will have to look at my other pages that are not ranking. Thoroughly enjoy your helpful emails that are so easy to understand
I have been really working on this exact issue of descriptions and also titling. Not really sure if what i put in ‘all in one seo’ descriptions is affecting google ranking, but sure should make things look better if they are on page one and you want the click.
Also, my keyword is in the title just once…knowing the penalty points for how many keyword can be put in these areas on wordpress without suffering ‘the slap’ would be a great topic. Also interlinking on WP. Its all on the index page (posts) but how many times can u link with posts with the same keyword going back to the main page without worrying about stuffing?
thanks
This site is an excellent resource. I’m new to internet marketing so I appreciate all the advice you post here. Thanks.
GG
Thanks for your insight on affiliate marketing. I have a few tips of my own to offer. First, realize this is not an overnight business. It might take a few months after you start for the real income to start flowing in, especially when using whitehat methods such as SEO to bring in traffic. Second, resist the urge to promote every single cool looking offer or brand new product you find. It is better to focus on one product or service at a time, researching and finding everything you can about thet product or service, and throwing everything you can at the promotion of that product. Once promotion of a particular product or service is bringing in steady income for you, then you can consider promoting another product. Third, it is very important that you research and create a business plan before you start, and then always stick with that plan while you work. Affiliate marketing takes work, but if done correctly, everyone can make some money.
Hi Matt
great common sense tip. I’ve been doing this in some of my wp sites but not on other sites because i’m not sure how to. Is it just as easy to do on other sites?
cheers
Hey Matt ! Just love your site.
Question: Just a thought- it scares me just to think about it. Trying to learn SEO. I have 3 websites. Two are doing nothing. The one that pulls in a little money and has the most content, I was thinking about scrapping all of its keywords and doing it the right way. When I first built it I hadn’t a clue. But if I do this and do it wrong, I won’t make any money at all. Should I chance it? What would you do ?
Matt Carter Reply:
September 17th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Hey Angela
I don’t think you need to scrap your old site, you can just simply build more pages on it and do them the right way.
either way if you have an domain with some age and trust with Google you are in a good place.
Hope that helps
Matt
Hi Matt,
This is some great concepts on getting racking for SEO and getting more traffic thanks very much for you thoughts.
Thanks
Michael
Nice brief and this enter helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you seeking your information.
Thank you very much Matt. This tips really benefited me. I am also on niche marketing where I am also a virtual assistant of Niche Profit Classroom’s pro member.
Out standing post Matt.I have to admitt I have really been getting lazy with my seo. Have the time I put almost no thought into it whats so ever becuase I am in such hurry just to get to the next project.
I agree, nice description on search engine results can increase traffic tremendously.
Hello, I simply wanted to take the time to make a comment and say I’ve really enjoyed reading your site. That was a very great article Please keep writing because I love your style a great deal.
Search engines rank pages individually so it is very important to make the title are unique. It’s also important to note that when you or someone else is searching on Google, Yahoo or MSN, the title will be the first thing that they read, so it’s vital to be descriptive. This is the time you need to make an impression on the reader so that they will want to click on your link and visit your site. Without a title that encourages a clickthrough your site will be dead in the water and lots of time wasted.
know this was discussed again and again, but although the choosing of a domain name should take you very few time it is very important. You will have to spell your domain name thousand of times, you will have to write your domain name million of times. Your visitors will hear, read or type your domain billion of times.