SEO Quotient™
Get found on Google

Is your website ready for takeoff?

You conceived a great website concept, selected the perfect web designer, agonized over design decisions, worked hard to get great images and content onto that website.  Finally, you are about to launch your website.  Well, hold off on the champagne.

Have you…

• Thought through your online marketing strategy?
• Defined your target audience?
• Figured out the right keywords?
• Search engine optimized your site?

Do you have…

• A social networking campaign?
• A social bookmarketing strategy?
• An online public relations plan?
• An inbound link strategy?
• Blogging agenda?

Does any of this terminology mean anything to you?

If you answered no 2 or more of these 10 questions then you might want to lower your expectations, set aside some resources to tackle these issues and/or rethink that website launch.

Ignite your performance

Ideally, you would have thought about many of these things before you even started your website design project.  But, it’s never too late to get on the right track.  Here are a few things you should consider before you get too far down the road.

Top 10 online marketing steps

1. Define your target market.
   1. Who, exactly, do you want to visit your site?
   2. What is your goal, purpose or mission for this set of visitors?
   3. What is the call to action, what do you want these visitors to do?
   4. What key words would these visitors Google to find sites like yours.
   5. Repeat sub-steps 1-4 for each market segment.
2. Optimize your site for the keywords identified above:
   1. Ensure your <title> tags contain these key words
   2. Ensure your <h1…h3> headers contain these words
   3. Ensure your images are named after these words
   4. Ensure the image ALT attributes contain these words
   5. Ensure your file path contains these words
   6. Ensure that you write topics about and that include these words
   7. Ensure that you use <strong> tags around these key words
   8. Ensure your bullet lists and ordered lists contain these key words
   9. Ensure that people use these words as anchor text when they link to you
3. Create social marketing profiles on sites like:
   1. LinkedIn
   2. FaceBook
   3. Flickr
   4. Twitter
   5. BizNik
   6. YouTube
   7. Seesmic
4. Submit and bookmark your pages on sites like:
   1. del.icio.us
   2. Digg
   3. Technorati
   4. Reddit
   5. StumbleUpon
5. Submit your URL to search engines:
   1. Google/addURL
   2. Yahoo/submit
   3. MSN (Live Search) URL Submission
6. Plan and execute your blog strategy:
   1. Determine the topics you want to cover
   2. Create a list of subjects that you can write about
   3. Stay focused to this set of topics and subjects
   4. Research your topics well
   5. Make sure you have a blog implemented on your site
   6. Write thoughtful, relevant and useful articles
   7. Complement these articles with compelling photos
   8. Reference third-party websites and sources
   9. Reference current affairs, hot topics and trends in your posts
   10. Write no less than once a month, preferably once or twice a week
   11. Submit articles to third-party sites along with your byline
7. Install Google analytics on your site
8. Test and analyze your site for SEO using SEO tools:
   1. WebsiteGrader
   2. Alexa
   3. SEOchat
   4. WebConfs
   5. SEOmoz
   6. iWebTool
   7. GoogleRankings
   8. ExactFactor
   9. SelfSEO
   10. LinkVendor
   11. SEObook
   12. SEOCompany
   13. SEOtoolset
   14. Raven SEO Tools
   15. Bad Neighborhood
   16. Whois
9. Create well-written handbooks, e-books and guides on PDFs with links to your site.
10. Get your family, friends, colleagues and associates involved:
    1. Ask everybody to bookmark your site on del.icio.us and other BM sites
    2. Ask everybody to Digg your articles and blog posts
    3. Get everybody to reference your site on Twitter
    4. Get co-workers to link to your site from their LinkedIn accounts
    5. Get everybody to submit your link from their Facebook pages
    6. Ask other friends who are bloggers to add you to their Blogroll