Interesting – you think you don’t need to wasting your time blogging on Twitter?  Well, here is some refreshing news for you, if you think your website and business won’t benefit from using the power of micro-blogging.

There have been several recent announcements that Microsoft’s search engine Bing will be intergrating Twitter and Facebook updates in their search engine results.

What does this mean to you and your website?

Well, the way I see this, is that not only will you be missing out on the Search Engine results opportunities that you could be capitalising on by having your site optimised through search engine optimisation, but you could be missing out on potential additional followers and also potential additional traffic by not actively being involved in micro-blogging sites like Twitter.

Obviously, it is still early days as far as how well this would work across the results displayed in Search Engines, the deal to allow integration of Tweets from Twitter into Bing’s results only being announced at the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.  Which I am sure Google will be hot on the heals, to strike up a deal to allow the same search results to appear on their search engine.

This move is very interesting, in light of the recent announcement by News Corp, moving to block the distrubution of their news content on the Google search engine results pages.  What I see it doing, is providing up to the minute news from the social community, even without the search results from big news publishers like News Corp.  Although it will be interesting to see how people adjust to having more user generated content in their search results.

Although, still in its early days, the searche engine results will appear based on a variety of criteria, however, once again, it strengthens the case to have a presence on the micro-blogging platforms like Twitter and be active in creating news and interesting posts around your website, niche or business.

Although I don’t know the exact details of how the search results will be ranked through this integration, it may be important to target keyword specific comments into your Tweets around your business, website or niche to ensure your chances of ranking are increased.

Either way, times are certainly changing rapidly, and it will be interesting to see how search engine marketing changes over the coming months and how users change and react to the appearance of user generated / social community based content from Twitter and Facebook in the search engine results pages.

Either way, your business and website should be moving to capitalise on these changes in the social media space, because it could result in some great additional traffic and interest in your business or website.

Ok, today I am going to get on my soap box. Here is the problem as I see it – your business is potentially losing hundreds if not thousands of dollars in potential leads, sales and … bottomline profits, if your website is not being found on search engines. Why?

Because, in case you missed it, something called Google is being used by millions of people in your local country and billions of people world wide to help them find information, services, websites, businesses and even… yes, you guessed it, find a problem to their solution.  If your website or business is not being found when they type into that search box, the keywords that will help them solve their problem or give them the information they are looking for, then guess what?  You and your business miss out, and that person goes to your competitor.

“But, my web designer said that he knows how to get my website ranking on the major search engines!” I hear you say.  Yes, they may have told you this… but, here’s the simple truth

The simple fact is… YOUR web designer, no matter how good he or she is, generally will have no real idea about optimising your websites so that search engines just love your website.  Most web designers are just that … designers.  They know how to make your website look pretty and have bells and whistle that make you feel like you are getting a great website.  But, if your website is not being found for key words or phrases that your target audience is searching for, it is like having a nice looking sports car, with an empty tank…. your going no where, even if you look super good behind the wheel. 

This was highlighted to me recently and hence the reason for this rant.  I heard an ad on the local radio station for something I was interested in.   Now, being a male and trying to do too many things at once, I missed the contact details for the business in question and by the time I got around to looking them up, I had forgotten their business name or brand.  So, guess what I did first when next I thought to look them up.  Yes, that is right, I hopped on Google and did a search.

Now, their website or offer was no where to be found on the particular keyword phrase that I typed in.  I tried several different combinations and found nothing.  This annoyed me, but it would be even more annoying for the business who had just spent, most likely a fair investment on radio advertising, just to have me as a lead lost (unless of course I hear the ad again and remember to take down the details). 

What could a scenario like the above be costing your small business?  Maybe you are even making the same mistake and don’t even realise you are missing out on leads or sales, and all because your website “looks pretty”.

Obviously, the above scenario is only one of many that could be creating lost opportunities.  But there are a few basics things you can do to correct this.

Now, Search Engine Optimisation is a massive topic to get into, and too be honest, your actions after reading this blog post should be less on trying to learn how to be an SEO expert (unless you really want to be), and more on finding and outsourcing to SEO experts (not simply your web designer), to help you implement some of these key points, so you don’t keep missing out on potential leads and sales.

Some basics for you to undersand and look to improve on your website, that could dramatically increase your website rankings and more effectively reach your target audience that are searching for exactly what you have to offer online. 

There two parts to basic SEO

1. What you do on website to help your website rank better on search engine results pages (SERPs), called on-page SEO.  This is part I am going to talk about right here and,
2. What you do off your website called off-page SEO.  This is includes what inbound links you have from relevant and related websites, that are basically making your website look like, to a search engine, that your site is an authority site on that particular topic.  Now, one great way to get good quality inbound links to your website from relevant authourity sites, is to use Article Marketing.  Check out my blog post on this, but for now, I am going to focus on things you can do on your site.

• Keyword Research:  Ok, this should be the first place you start.  Yes, you can guess the keywords and phrases that people will type into a search engine to find your website, but hey, you are not your target audience, so would it  not be smarter to do the research first and then optimise your site.  Of course right, because without knowing this, you could be optimising your site around keywords that your target audience won’t even be searching on.  Avoid the guess work – try the Google Keyword Tool (remember, you can set this to be pulling information for your local country or territory) or for something more serious, try Market Samurai
• Targeting your keywords in the <h1> heading tags.  Ok, so you have done your keyword research, now what.  Well the first place to start targeting your keywords, is by creating pages on your site that target that particular keyword or phrase.  You can do this in the heading of the page, normally referred to as the H1 tags in website HTML code.  This basically helps search engine spiders understand what this particular page is more than likely to be about.  If the heading is the summary of what the page is about, and it contains your target keyword, then you can target your keyword in the heading.
• Targeting your keywords in the title tags: This is something you can have your outsourcer do for – it is information that should in the HTML code as well.  Basically it is what appears in the blue bar of your browser if you are using Internet Explorer, but it is also the text you would see in the link through to your website when you website appears on a search engine results page.  Having the keywords targeted in here is also a very smart move.
• Targeting your keywords in the meta tags and page description.  Once again, this is information that is not actually visible on your website, but rather in the HTML code.  The meta description and meta keywords should include your target keyword and relevant synonyms that relate to those targeted keywords.  The description is what will appear, once again, below the blue link (page title), that will appear when your website ranks on a search engine.  If you don’t have this, then Google for example will simply just pull in random content off your website, that it’s robots basically think is the best representation of what your site is about.  Not good, if it simply displays parts of your website that are not relevant to someone’s search query – like for example the terms of service, privacy policy etc.

Are you just getting started with your new site?  How about you create a website that the search engines will love from the start!  Check out a system called Wordpress.org.  This is normally used for setting up blogs, but can just as effectively run your entire business website if you get the right person with the right skills to set this up for you.  This will also become what is called a CMS or Content Management System for you, so you can login to your website at any time and

Now, it really pings me off, when I see web design companies offering their own CMS systems, that they charge $1000s of dollars to their unsuspecting clients, because their clients simply don’t know any better.  Wordpress.org is a free service, all you need is hosting and a domain name, and then you can find someone to set this up effectively for you and you are away.  No ongoing fees for someone to manage your site and be charged for simple changes, no huge CMS setup fees to pay up front.  And, the best part is, the website will be using a platform that search engines love.  Keep adding regular content to the website, even run it with a blog for latest news, and target specific keywords and phrases in your content or blogs and you.

“Great ideas Tim, but I don’t have the time!” No problem there either – I would recommend checking out a system for helping you Outsource none core part of your business, including the setup of a search engine friendly site by using Outsource Method. 

PS.  If you are going to do offline advertising that links back to a specific offer on your website (eg. radio advertising for a $20.00 discount in store), then instead of saying, go to www.yourbusiness.com in your ad, why not create a landing page on your website specific to your offer.  Then in your ad, say for this special offer, go to www.yourbusiness.com/radio and have that page entirely focused on your radio ad.  Also, have and SEO expert make sure that particular part of your website is optimised for target keywords that your target audience may type in to a search engine, if they forget the website address.  This is called intergration of your marketing campaigns.  Making sure you integrate your communications offline with your communications online.  And, as I said, if this is all to much for you to setup – Outsource using the Outsource Method System!

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Ok, so training is well and truly back on track for the Sydney Gong Ride.  After some really windy and rainy days recently, I eventually got my training back on track.  Trust me, doing 50 kms on a bike in the gym while it is pouring with rain outside, when all you have to stare at is a bunch of sweaty blokes… ah, and the occassional hot fitness instructor (but don’t tell my wife : ), you crave getting back on the road for training. 

Now, since launching this donation page, I have not done a lot of promoting of this page, so I thought, if I want to reach my goal for donatons to support multiple sclerosis and Sydney Gong ride, I better start promoting it.  And, well, let’s be honest, 90km is no easy feat on a bike – so just to show you that I am actually seriously going to do this, I decided to take a snap of the “The Beast”.  Yes, my trusty Cannondale that will be my steed for the fully 90km ride from Sydney down to the “Gong”.Check out the photo below.

So, help support MS and sponsor my “Sydney Gong” quest. 

If you are business, remember to read below what I am doing if you make a donation over $100.00.  I am going to be posting this page to Twitter and Facebook, plus trying to do some “Search Engine Optimisation” around “Sydney Gong” ride, so may even be able to get some free website traffic from people clicking on the below ads.

Businesses*:  If you are business making a donation over $100.00, then I can set the below type of advertising image up on each blog post that I make.  It will appear at the top and bottom of each blog post for my “Sydney Gong” quest.