CHAPTER 10

BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

Objectives:
Describe PEZA and BOI registered enterprises
State the Barangay Micro Business Enterprise

Website 101
When you want to compete in the Internet market, everything you do is geared
towards driving site traffic, or people surfing the net, to a desired website. That could be
your website’s sales page, your homepage, or even another provider’s page if you are
an affiliate of theirs (an affiliate is someone who sells another company’s products in
exchange for a commission on the sale). But if the website that the visitor is directed
to is not optimal, you will not get the sales that you want.
Design Basic

Your website should be designed with your end goals in mind. For example, if
you want to sell products on your website, you will need some e-commerce software
and applications so that you can create a product catalog and complete a sale. But if
your website is designed to be informational so that you can draw visitors and build a
reputation for yourself, you won’t necessarily need e-commerce applications. Here are
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some basic considerations for creating a website that will help you with your Internet
marketing goals.

Functionality and Maneuverability

The key question you need to answer when designing your website is this: what
do you want it to do? Make a list of all the things you want your customers to
experience on your website. Do you want them to see every product you make? Do you
want them to be able to fill in a form that will result in a customized offer? Do you want
them to only read the contact information plus a few facts that let them know who you
are so they can call you on the phone or come in to your shop? Or do you want your
site to be THE place that visitors come to when they have a question related to the
product or service that you offer?

Introduction to SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a buzzword with Internet
marketers. In fact, it is so important for drawing targeted traffic to your site that there
are companies that exist only to help you optimize your site for the search engines.
Therefore, this is an introduction to SEO and how you can use it to your advantage;
however, it is not an exhaustive explanation. Plus, the rules that govern how search
engines read your site and how they rank your site are always changing.

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 However, there are some basic SEO rules that will help you with your Internet
marketing by helping the search engines find your site when people are looking for
information that you have on your web pages. After all, any marketing strategies you
enact should be designed to drive traffic to your site in hopes that they will make a
purchase or complete the action that you hope they will complete.

Keyword Placement
There are several places on your web pages and website where you should
place your keywords so that the search engines will find your site when someone is
looking for a site like yours. These are a type of easy-to-miss Internet marketing
strategy that you can use to optimize your website for the search engines. Think of it
as “behind the scenes” Internet marketing.

META Tags
Web pages are built using Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), which is full
of different commands that execute what you see when you load the page in your web
browser. When designing your webpage, you want to be sure that your keywords are
used in your <META> tags. This tag on each page defines the date, purpose, author
and name of a web page. The search engines read this information and use it to
help “catalog” your site in comparison with other sites.

Alt Tags
HTML for a site includes an <ALT> tag that is used by the browser to describe
an image if the image cannot successfully be loaded. However, since it is more
information about your website, it can be used strategically to give the search engines
another dose of information regarding what your website is about. For example, if your
weight loss supplement has a picture on the main page of a smiling, fit woman, you
could use the <ALT> tag to describe it as “healthy weight” or, if it is a picture of pills,
describe it as “weight loss pills.”

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Page Name
Every web page has a file name that is used to identify that page, or file, on the
web server. Although the ending of the file name has to be either .htm or .html, you can
create the rest of the page name so that it includes your keywords as well. For
example, if you have an order page, instead of calling it order.htm, call it order-weight-
loss-supplements.htm. Or, if you have an order page specific to a product, name it by
the product name such as “metabolism.supplement.order.htm.”

Article Marketing

Article marketing is a way for you to generate interest in your site by someone
first reading an article that then guides them to your website. You can think of it as one
way of building the reputation as an expert in your field. You generate (or pay
someone else to generate) unique content for your articles that is rich with the
same types of keywords as the ones you have used on your site. You can even write

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articles that are not directly related to your website, but that would be of interest to
people who would find your website interesting as well.

Using Blogs and Forums

In a similar vein to writing articles, you can also create blogs or forum posts
that will help build your reputation and can guide readers back to your website. “Blog”
comes from the term “web log” and was once a type of online diary for individuals. But
now, businesses use them to create an interactive environment with their readers, and
to add an additional location in cyberspace where they can demonstrate expertise to
readers who might want to know more about you, your company, or your products and
services. You may also have a blog on your own site where you spend the majority of
your time interacting with customers - but this strategy requires that you create
additional blogs out on different sites.

Press Releases
Yes, press releases are still around, even in the age of Internet marketing. You
should not underestimate this traditional means of drawing attention to your company
and any news-worthy events or announcements that you might have. However, you
will not just send them to the traditional press outlets that you would have before the
Internet; you will also use them to splash backlinks to your website around the
net.

Internet Advertising
There are several different forms of Internet advertising. Since the goal of
Internet marketing is to draw visitors to your site, this section will look at advertising of
your site, not advertising on your site. However, you may want to look at adding
advertising to your own site in the future, when you have enough traffic that others

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would be willing to pay for space on your site. This is one form of what is known as
“monetizing” your site, and is outside the topic of this ebook.

Advertising on Other Websites

When you decide to purchase Internet advertising, there are two main forms of
advertising you can invest in. The first is paying for advertising on other websites
where you know your customers will already be. You have seen this kind of advertising
on many websites that you have visited. The ad will be a “banner” at the top of a
webpage or to the side of the webpage and will be designed to entice the viewer to
leave the site they are on and visit your site.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

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 When you want to only pay for Internet advertising that gets a response - a
“click” - you want Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. In this case, you are usually
talking about text ads that appear to the right of search engine results or on
websites that have monetized their sites by allowing advertisers to place ads on the site
that the advertiser believes that site’s customers will be interested in. This is different
from purchasing ad space directly from the website because instead you are allowing
the advertiser to choose which site(s) your ad should be shown on.

Affiliate Marketing

The final major category of Internet marketing is affiliate marketing. In affiliate

marketing, you get other people to drive traffic to your site in return for a percentage of
any sale that is made as a result of that visit to your site. In other words, you allow
others to do part of your marketing for you. However, affiliate marketing is not suited for
every product. In order for it to work, you need to have:

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a. A high enough profit margin that you can afford a commission for your
affiliates
b. An attractive product or service that other people will be motivated to
promote because (a) you pay a good commission and (b) the product is
relatively easy to sell
c. You are able to support the demand in your product that affiliates could
bring in
d. You are able to support the additional customers that affiliates could bring
in
e. You are able to support the affiliates themselves with training, advertising,
and other promotional materials
f. You are willing to pay for a service (or software) to help you track your
affiliate sales
g. You have the time to monitor your affiliate’s marketing efforts so that you
know they are representing your company as you would want them to in
their promotions

For further discussion please refer to the link provided: Search Engine Optimization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYgn7eY2RXY
For further discussion please refer to the link provided: Affiliate Marketing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-Bof0SU7ZI
For further discussion please refer to the link provided: Pay Per Click Advertising
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GuaADkztuE

Reference Books:
Introduction to E-Commerce
(Combining Business and Information Technology)
By: Martin Kutz, 1st Edition 2016

Internet Marketing
(2011, The Internet Marketing Academy and Ventus Publishing ApS)
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