Where does your web site end?  Not just with the pages listed on your dotcom.  The words and phrases that are associated with your dotcom, away from your web site, have a big influence on where your web site shows up in search results.  This 30 minute  activity will help you get a grasp of how others, outside your Web site, see you and your business and help you get better search engine listings for your business.

1. 5 Minutes: Make a list of the keyword combinations, words and phrases that accurately describe your tourism business. Think about the questions a searcher might use to look for your service.  For  keyword combination ideas, view the tutorial on keywords for tourism/travel web sites.
2. 10 Minutes: Use your favourite search engines and search for your business name – in Quotation Marks like this: Google: “your business name”. Record the number of Web pages that include this text. Visit the first 10 links that are not on your dotcom. Make a list of these web sites and record the keywords or phrases that are most prominent in connection with your business.
3. 10 Minutes: Next do a search for all the businesses that link to your web site. Use a tool like http://www.linkpopularity.com to get started. Again, list the top 10 results and the keywords that are connected with the hyperlink.
4. 5 Minutes: Think about these results. How well does your expanded web presence match the words and phrases that you want people to associate with your business?

Improve your search engine positioning.

• Use your preferred keyword combinations and see what can be done to include these words and phrases in the listings and hyperlinks from other web sites to yours.
• Next, do some searches for your preferred keyword combinations.   Make note of where your Web site shows up in the search results.  Record the top search result web sites that are not on your dotcom.  Ask these web sites for hyperlinks to your dotcom.
• Over the next few weeks and months, you should see some improvements in the visibility of your dotcom within the search results pages

This post was inspired by a recent corporate retreat we hosted for Doctors without Borders, a not-for-profit organization that transports medical doctors around the world to locations experiencing social/environmental crises where medical intervention is an important tool in alleviating human suffering.

That’s not a typo…… its a hybrid word….. Think and Link different.
Here is a four step five minute process that will twist your head around and get you thinking correctly about the links in the navigation bar of Your Web site.

Step 1: On a notepad, far from your computer, write down each keyword combination that you would like your Web site to show up for in search results. (strive for 4 or 5 unique keyword phrases that are two to three words long) Do not go on to step two until you have completed this!
Step 2: Look at the navigation bar on your Web site and match each keyword phrase to the best page of your existing site (if there is one).
Step 3: Create new pages that fit the leftover keyword phrases and get them into your navigation bar.
Step 4: Rethink the links to pages that don’t fit your keywords. How important are these pages? Most Web sites could stand a spring cleaning, by getting rid of many of these pages that do not fit a desired keyword phrase.

The quality of the incoming links to your web pages is a critical element to getting found by search engines. The only thing to consider when getting links is, “What will google think of these links?”

Google thrives on relevant incoming links. So consider the following:

NOT GOOD for SEO:

• paid links (relevant cluster content like that found in membership clusters like http://www.paddlingontario.com are still ok, listings generally are frowned upon).
• irrelevant links based on content
• reciprocal links

GOOD Inbound Links for SEO:

• inbound links from relevant blog posts – your own or others
• local links – think Google Maps (edit your biz listing and develop a MyMap)
• links from press releases – send your own free press releases at prlog.org
• links from relevant image libraries, articles, twitter posts, blogs
• directory links (be sure your url is listed in relevant directories and search engines)
• DMOZ.org – Getting listed here is vital… This is a peer-reviewed listing of Web sites. Find your category and suggest your URL.
• articles – media, stories
• forum posts – on sites like tripadvisor.com and other travel advice sites and social web sites like Facebook.com
• comments on other people’s relevant blog posts (use the website box to enter your url where given the opportunity, never embedded in the body of your comments)
• XML sitemap – OK, this is a bit geeky, but telling Google about the link structure of your site is free with Google Webmaster Tools. Webmaster tools also helps you find link errors in your site.