Think ahead and succeed

Planning ahead your SEO strategy (and designing your web site around these plans) makes a lot of sense.

Think ahead and succeed

You remember last week I blogged about planning your website’s search engine optimisation before you build. This week I want to focus on the importance of planning ahead, especially when it comes to your online marketing and sales.

A few years ago we optimised a client’s website for “commonwealth games accommodation”. No prizes for guessing what they were offering.

It was a good eight months out from the actual Games themselves. We did the usual SEO; created a new page on the site called “commonwealth-games-accommodation.html”, optimised the Title Tag, Meta content description, H1s, H2s and then created lots of highly relevant content etc.

Google loved it, and two weeks later the page was ranking 1st.

The page also had strong “call’s to action” (CTA’s), and urgency; “rooms booking fast, don’t miss out!” and a form at the bottom where people could make a booking.

The great thing about this campaign was that there were no competitors at Google for that key phrase, but there were lots of people around the world searching for “commonwealth games accommodation” (early planners like us!).

The result? All 27 rooms booked in less than two weeks with an average stay of 2.5 weeks. It was a huge success!

Soon after, the first competitors began to appear at Google, and before long the top 10 was saturated.

We left them to fight it out among themselves. We’d already packed up and gone home with a full bag.

With so many events coming up next year, have a peek at your calendar and see what’s coming up that suits your business.

Here are just some of the big events to hit our shores in 2008:

• 14th – 27th Jan – Australian Tennis Open
• 14th Feb – St Valentine’s day
• 2nd Feb – 3rd March – Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
• 20th Mar – 2nd Apr – Sydney Royal Easter Show
• March – Melbourne Grand Prix

Of course the list goes on and on.

Given that it can take a little while for Google to rank your website (or web page), make sure you plan and execute your campaigns with plenty of time to spare.

And let’s not forget Google AdWords! An AdWords campaign can have you showing almost instantly, and possibly very cheaply.

Next week’s “Christmas Special” blog should be fun. If I’m allowed, I’m going to “out” some naughty websites I’ve discovered recently using Black Hat SEO techniques, and show you what not to do!

Ho Ho Har.

Chris Thomas heads Reseo a search engine optimisation company which specialises in setting up and maintaining Google AdWords campaigns, Affiliate Programs and Search Engine Optimisation campaigns for a range of corporate clients.

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