Cathy Liska This is 10 in a series of 24 blog posts on Business and Marketing.
When people look for something online, they use what are called search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Search engines provide a list of possible websites based on the words used for a search. As a new coaching business owner, the visibility of your website online includes Search Engine Optimization or SEO. The work for SEO begins when you are creating a website because it is incorporated with the design and set up of the website.
Whether you use a template or create a website design, the components of SEO include:
- Page Titles – each page on your website has a unique title that defines the page
- Page Description – each page on your website has a unique, short description that explains the page
- Alternate Text for Images – each image on your site has alternate text that is read by the search engines describing the image
- Page Content – on each page of your website is unique content that visitors read
- Keywords – for each page on your website there is a unique list of keywords pertinent to that page (some of the keywords are short and searched frequently generating more competition and other keywords or phrases are longer and because they are searched less frequently it is easier to be among the top possible sites found)
The words used in each of these components must match. For example, the page title is included within the page description, used in the alternate text for an image, contained within the content on the page, and it is one of the keywords. As a new coach, invest time in deciding which words to use for each of the above before setting up your website.
Other factors for search engines include how long the domain name is owned for, consistently adding new content, and having links to and from other websites including social media sites.
While larger companies invest heavily in ongoing SEO to ensure they are easily found, for many coaches it is a balance between the likelihood that someone will find a coach by searching online and the expense for the work that puts a website at the top of the search results.
