Want to get your company out there? Here’s a few tips on what an effective SEO strategy is and how to create one.

Search engine optimization is described as a number of strategies and techniques used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by increasing the websites visibility within search engines (Parikh and Deshmukh, 2013). A strong SEO strategy is crucial for the successfulness of a business as it builds brand trust and credibility.

“When done correctly, SEO can deliver the most highly targeted consumers to both the business’s website and to its physical business location” (Long, 2013).

 

Tips

Here are a few tips in how to create an effective SEO strategy:

• Keyword research – Decide what key words you should and should not target in relation to your target market, the more specific to your target market the better!
• On-page SEO – Create good internal linking, good navigation, efficient page load times and unique content to ensure once the user is on your page they stay on your page!
• Off-page SEO – Attracting inbound links to your site is key. Try to naturally attract links to your site too by making connections in your industry and with your target audience.
• Google Analytics – use Google Analytics to monitor organic traffic to your website on a frequent basis. Knowing what is working and what isn’t is key!

Example

Companies like Amazon use SEO effectively and it pays off majorly! Amazon’s navigation on their website is exceptional despite their huge catalog of products, they use flyout navigation elements that that slide down when the user hovers over the ‘Shop by Department’ header in the top left hand corner (Kocher, 2014).

References

Kocher, J. (2014). SEO: Why Amazon’s Navigation Works So Well.Available: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/66592-SEO-Why-Amazon%E2%80%99s-Navigation-Works-So-Well. Last accessed 18th Feb 2015.

Long, J. (2013). How to Create a Successful Local SEO Strategy.Available: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230036. Last accessed 18th Feb 2015.

Parikh, A., & Deshmukh, S. (2013, November). Search Engine Optimization. InInternational Journal of Engineering Research and Technology (Vol. 2, No. 11 (November-2013)). ESRSA Publications.

I signed up to ASOS as I sometimes shop on their website and as part of the order process you must subscribe with an email address. As a result I receive unpersonalised emails from them on a daily basis usually promoting a sale or a new line of clothing they have added. I rarely open the emails and usually delete them straight away unless I am interested in what they are offering me. The emails are usually unpersonalised with hyperlinks directly to the website encouraging quick access. In the most recent email there is a countdown till the sale ends encouraging the consumer to shop as soon as possible. There is also a hashtag encouraging  them to raise awareness on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pintrest. Other emails from ASOS have provided a student discount code meaning they have taken notice that I am student from previous purchases, which is quite interesting because most of the emails are not personalised. From my own experience I am more likely to make a purchase if something is offered to me or the email is personalised with my name or female related links.

This particular article explains the importance of big data directly to businesses and how it aids them in measuring different aspects of their business leading to improved decision making and performance. The article clarifies the link between big data and analytics but states three key differences as volume, velocity and variety. 
They questioned whether the evidence that using big data intelligently will improve business performance and assessed it by leading a team at the MIT Center for Digital Business, working in partnership with McKinsey’s business technology office and testing the hypothesis which was that it is expected that data-driven companies perform better. Interviews were held with executives at 330 public North American companies about their organisational and technology management practices which allowed them to gain information indicating how important the data is. The findings revealed that the more companies characterised themselves as data-driven, the better they performed on objective measures of financial and operational results.

To be continued…

McAfee, A., & Brynjolfsson, E. (2012). Big data: the management revolution. Harvard business review, 90(10), 60-66.

Welcome to your brand new blog at University of Brighton Blog Network.

To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options available to you.

For assistance, visit our comprehensive support site, check out our Edublogs User Guide guide or stop by The Edublogs Forums to chat with other edubloggers.

You can also subscribe to our brilliant free publication, The Edublogger, which is jammed with helpful tips, ideas and more.