Getting Noticed on Google – An SEO Guide

Everyone wants to get their blog or website to rank as high as possible in Google’s search results.

Imagine if someone typed some search criteria into Google and of all the results that came back, your site was listed in the top one hundred.. or top ten.. or even better, number one!

It’s not easy, I can tell you that.. and there are many, many factors to consider when optimising your site for the highest possible listing in Google.

Google has a hidden algorithm that it uses to evaluate websites to determine their relevance. This algorithm weighs up websites to see how relevant they are compared to Google’s image of how the most relevant website should be.

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is the process of optimising your website so that it appears higher in Google’s search results. SEO involves the optimisation of many different parts of your website including,

• keywords
• meta data
• content
• inward links
• header tags
• alt tags
• internal links
• website structure
• website code

Once optimised, websites will stand a much greater chance of being found for their desired keywords. This is the whole reason for having a website.

Web CEO

You can optimise your site manually.. or you could use a piece of free software called Web SEO that will greatly help with the process of optimising and analysing your website.

Web CEO is available as a free download with no ongoing fees or charges to pay. It can dramatically assist you and make your life much easier when it comes to optimising your site.

Web CEO is jam packed full of features which include,

• Web analytics
• Keyword research
• Search engine optimisation
• Ranking checker
• Link popularity analyser
• PPC campaigns manager
• and much more

This guide will step you through using Web CEO and how to get the most out of it.. at a high level.

It also assumes that you know a little bit about SEO.. somewhere around the intermediate level, and are comfortable with making technical changes to your site, either manually or using an SEO plugin and configuring email.

Download and install the free version of Web CEO,

When you first run Web CEO you will need to create an account by clicking on <Create Free Account Now>,

Next enter your email address and a password, then click <Create Account>.

If you are notified that a new update has arrived, click on <Download>. Once this update has downloaded.. click on <Yes> to install it.

Add Your Website to Web SEO

To start with you will want to add your website or blog to Web SEO.. to do this click on <Add New Site> in the Web CEO quick launch panel,

NB - This Quick Launch panel can always be reached by clicking on the blue <Go> button at the bottom left-hand-side of the screen,

Enter your website address and a description, then click <Next>,

Click <Next> again,

Double check your details are correct then click <Finish>,

Now that you have added your website to Web CEO, you will be able to use all of the tools that WebCEO offers.

Find Keywords – Web CEO

When optimising your website, choosing the right keywords is extremely important. Probably the most important thing when it comes to optimisation. Without keywords your website most probably won’t rank at all in Google.

Keywords should be identified and incorporated throughout the whole of your website. This will ensure that your content stays on track and is more relevant to your searchers, but also lets Google can see how relevant your website is.

Some of the most common mistakes made when targeting keywords are

• using too many keywords
• using individual keywords
• poor representing keywords
• not using different variations of keywords
• using keywords that are too broad
• using stop words such as – and, a, the, of, in, on, of, etc..

Another common misconception is using single keywords. The correct way to choose and target keywords is to select multiple keywords that are very relevant and make a search more specific.

For example, as my site is to do with social media, I wouldn’t use the following as keywords,

• social
• media

.. I would use “social media“.

In order to choose your keywords you need to have a rough idea of the ones you think will be relevant to your site.

In Web CEO click on <Find Keywords>,

Select your site from the list, then click <OK>,

Click on the <Get suggestions> tab, then enter your keyword phrase in the Keywords field,

Then click on <Start>,

The results displayed for the keyword phrase you just entered, give you an idea of approximately how many monthly world searches are performed on that keyword phase and competition using the same keyword phrase,

Repeat this process for more suggestions..  when you are done be sure to copy your selected keywords to the basket so that you have them for future reference.

To do this, select the row.. then click on the blue arrow,

You can always come back and add/remove keywords at any stage.

Optimising Pages and Analysing Your Competition

One of the most important things when optimising your site is to know who your competition is. Which other websites are in the same genre, and which of those are more popular and rank higher than yours?

What keywords do they use? What have they done better or worse than you?

To see what you need to achieve for your website, it is useful to see how well optimised a competitor’s website is compared to yours.

Click on the blue <Go> button to bring up the Quick Launch dialog box,

You need to add your competitor’s website to Web CEO.. click on <Add New Site>,

.. and repeat the same steps you took when adding your site to Web CEO, but this time enter your competition’s URL,

Click on <Optimise Pages>, in the Quick Launch dialog,

Select your competition from the list, then click <OK>,

Click <Web page>, then the add pages link,

In the Page list manager dialog box, click on Enter URLs link,

Enter the URL of your competitors page that you want to analyse.. or just click on <OK> to analyse their home page,

Then click <OK> again,

This site will now be displayed in the main window.

Now click on <Retrieve keywords from page>,

This sites keywords will be displayed in the boxes at the top of the page,

Now that you have retrieved the keywords from one of your competitors.. you can run a report to get further advice and analysis on their site.

Click on <Optimisation Advice and Analysis> tab,

Select the keywords you want to perform analysis on,

Then click the green <Start> button,

Web CEO will then generate a report detailing the problems with your competitor’s website, and areas for improvement,

This report will enable you to spot the weaknesses in your competition and ensure your website does not suffer from the same problems as theirs.

Optimising Your Website

Now run through this same process using your own website and generate an advice and analysis report. That way you can compare your site against your competition.

This report will outline the actions you need to perform so that your page is optimised to meet the necessary criteria for your keywords. It is important that your website is as close to this as you can get it, as it will be in line with the top sites for your selected keywords.

Optimising your pages

1. Take the first point on the report and investigate how you can bring your page in line with the report
2. Implement changes to your web page
3. When you have done this, run the report again and check the results are in line with the changes you have made
4. Move on to the next point and repeat the process

Submit your Site to Search Engines

You can submit your website to many different search engines (not just Google) using Web CEO. Most of these search engines you wouldn’t have heard of and a lot are from different countries.

Another great way to enable your website to be exposed to different markets.

On the Quick Launch dialog box, click on <Submit URLs>,

Select your site from the list then click <OK>,

Under Setup, click on the <General Information> tab and fill out your details, then click <Save>,

Next click on the <Page details> tab and enter the details relating to your site, including page title, page description and keywords,

Now click on the <Auto submission> tab, then Select Engines,

Then click on <List of engines> at the bottom of the screen,

Click <Check All> as you want to submit your site to all the search engines.. then click <OK>,

A list of all the search engines you are going to submit your site to will display.

Click on the <Submission> tab,

When you are ready to submit click on the <Submit> button,

Your website will now be submitted to those search engines.

Finding Link Partners

A lot of people find it hard when finding places to get links from, ie searching for potential link partners.

It is very easy with Web CEO.

Click on Find Link Partners in the Quick Launch panel,

Then select your site from the list and click <OK>,

When the Find Link Partners page displays click on <Configure> at the bottom of the screen,

Click on the <Search Mode> tab, then check the Search by keywords option,

Next, click on the <Select search engines> tab and <Check All> to select all the search engines,

Next, on the <Add keywords> tab select to import from Current Site – Meta keywords,

Check your website’s address is listed then click <OK>,

The keywords from your site will be displayed.. click on <OK>,

Finally, click on <Set Scan Rules> tab.. just leave these at the default, then click <OK>,

Click <Find new partners> and a list of potential partners will now be produced,

This may take a little while so go and make yourself a cup of tea.. it took ~60 mins for me.

When the scanning is finished a list of potential partners will be displayed, based on the keywords you searched on,

Check all the sites you want to send an automatic email to by clicking on <Organise sites>,

Then Check all,

Once all these sites have been checked, right click an any row.. then click Move checked to “Automatic correspondence”,

All these checked sites will be moved to the Automatic correspondence tab (under <Manage Correspondence>).

Now to setup your email so you can bulk send requests to all these potential link partners for possible partnership.

Configure Email

If you haven’t done so already, now would be a good time to configure your mail client on Web CEO so you can email these potential link partners.

Click on File, then Settings,

On the <General> tab, click on Mail transfer.. you can either click on <Add> and add your email details.. I am going to import my email details from my existing mail client by clicking on <Import>,

Select your mail client from the list and click <Next>,

Select the email account you want to import the settings from, then click <Next>,

Enter your password to authenticate, then click <Finish>,

Your email address has now been added to Web CEO and you can now email potential link partners.

Click on <OK> to save and exit out,

Now click on the <Manage correspondence> tab,

Then click <Configure> at the bottom of the screen,

When the Profile manager dialog box appears your email address should now be displayed,

Click on the <Templates> tab, select the first template then click <Edit>,

This template will be used when sending out requests for possible link partnerships.

Modify the Email Subject and Body as needed, and when you are finished click on <OK>,

Just repeat this process if you want to create follow-up email templates to automatically be sent out again to potential link partners, if you haven’t heard from them for a specified period of time.

Now click on <Automatic Correspondence Cycle> tab, and specify which email templates you want to auto send out including the length of time between emails,

Now click on <Email Search Rules>, and configure as necessary.. then click on <OK> to save all your changes,

Now click on the <Automatic correspondence> tab.. then when you are ready to send out link exchange requests click on <Send Bulk>,

Depending on how many emails are being sent, this may take a little while. Currently to free version of Web CEO allows you to send up to 20 emails at a time.

Ranking Reports

Running ranking reports will feed back valuable information to you regarding where your website is currently ranked in Google.

Ranking reports also help you to identify the following information,

• the keywords for which you have successfully optimised your site
• the keywords for which you need to do some more optimisation work
• which keywords are responsible for the traffic you are receiving

Click on <Check Rankings> in the Quick Launch panel,

Then choose your site from the list,

On the <Site rankings> tab click on <Configure>,

In the Profile Manager select the Search Engines for which you wish to check your ranking results,

On the <Add keywords> tab select Import From Current site – meta keywords,

Ensure your site is displayed, then click <OK>,

Select your keywords then click <OK>,

Now click on <Start> to run the report,

Web CEO will now go and query the requested search engines for your specific keywords phrases. It will provide information as to whether your website is ranked within those search engines and if so where.

I have only touched on some of the high level features of Web CEO and as you can see it is extremely powerful. Many of the Fortune 500 companies use this tool for their website and search engine optimisation.

For a demo of Web CEO checkout this presentation,

Further Reading

For more information how to get noticed on Google, download Google’s Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide (PDF).

As I have shown Web CEO is an extremely powerful tool and can greatly assist you when optimising your website. It’s a tool I currently use for my own search engine optimisation and has served me very well.

Download your free copy of Web CEO, optimise your website and watch the flood of traffic pour in,

Enjoy!