(1) Meta-data:

Ensure all pages of your site have meta data eg relevant titles, descriptions and keywords. There are a number of SEO tools available that can check keywords density, title and description relevance to page content etc. It takes time to get the right balance and have the meta data and actual page content have relevance, but the time you invest with certainly be worth it.

(2) Images:

Put text/alt tags on images throughout your website. Not only does it provide additional descriptions and information to customers, but it also assists Google to understand better what you page is about and also assist screen-readers to more effectively analysis your website, making it much more user-friendly.

(3) Content & Internal Linking:

Write up a keyword rich homepage introduction to include the words relative to your products/industry + links into your cart categories and directly to your products.

(4) Google Stuff:

• Click here for the one-stop shop for Webmaster resources
• Click here for webmaster guidelines. These tips will assist Google to find, index and rank your site
• Create a site map - click here to generate your site map online
• Create a Webmaster acccount so you can add site maps, manage robot text files and more.
• Create a Google Adwords campaign focusing on keywords that people are looking for and be willing to pay more than necessary on the keyword/s for 1-2 months. Once you start getting the click-thru history then you can knock the cost back to less. Click here to sign up.

(5) Forums:

Find forums that you can give your professional opinion on. Don’t just go into the forum and tell everyone to come and visit your site – this is not the objective. Instead, find forums that you can assist others with your knowledge. Take the emphasis of trying to promote your business, and place it on actually answering a question to the best of your ability. Ensure, however, to put your website URL in your signature so that when you do post comments to a forum with your answer goes up your web address.

(6) DMOZ Submission:

Sign up in the DMOZ directory - http://www.dmoz.org/  (ensure to drill down into the specific category, one only, that you want to be listed under, then click on ‘Suggest URL’ from top of page)

(7) Resources/Links:

Actively seek to place your link on sites with good pagerank, or that are popular and within your industry type. We strongly advise against link-farms and simply exchanging links for the sake of it. You can also place on this page links to other sites that you feel your visitors may find useful. Ensure to have written into your Privacy Statement however that all external links are provided to them as a courtesy and that you are not responsible for the content or activities of the business etc should your customer visit the links.

(8) Be Proactive:

Make regular changes, updates, add pages to your existing website. Add pages but do not delete existing ones, not change the actual names of the pages. All pages of your site has ‘history’ attached to them and if you delete pages, or change their names that ‘history’ is lost.

(9) Constant Contact:

Keep in contact with visitors to your and customers. Provide the option of subscribing to your newsletter on your website and then use that email addresses provided to notify site visitors of everything happening in your business, from the launch of new products, upcoming events, specials, sales etc. Whether it be a weekly or even monthly newsletter, the aim is to keep your web address clearly in their minds – and what better way than via their inbox!

(10) Monitor your site:

How can you possibly know what is going on with your website if you don’t actively monitor what’s going on with your website! X-Cart comes inbuilt with a variety of statistics and analysis tools, however, if you really want to view your websites activities get yourself a program that enables you to see where people are coming from, what are the most popular pages, how many ‘unique’ visitors have visited, how did they get to your site eg by search engine search term, adwords link, or other referral link, and the click-path they took through your site. All of this information is invaluable to see how your website is going.

In conjunction with monitoring software/tracking script, keep you own journal of keywords and how you are ranking in the search engines. Just put together a spreadsheet and list down the keywords you want to rank well in. Then weekly take the time to actually type those keywords into Google and see where you are positioned. The only way to tell if you are improving is to check if you are actually improving! If you are, keep doing what you are doing. If not, then at least you are aware that things need to change in order for your search engine success to change.

(11) Add a Blog:

Just like the forums, a blog can be a fantastic place to provide resources and information to your customers and site visitors. It can also encourage regular interest in your site, resulting in repeat visits from people just to see the latest news, review and information you have on your blog.

(12) Reward your customers:

Have incentives to encourage repeat patronage ie all first-time customers you could send a $10.00 gift certificate to - they would have to either come back themselves to redeem it, or forward it on to another person - either way you get another sale, even if you loose $10.00 on the sale itself

(13) Offer regular specials / incentives:

Have ‘special offers’ or bonuses such as free shipping etc, especially o Special Occasions such as Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Valentines, X-Mas, Easter - basically utilise all the special times of the year as a good excuse to have a special, have a sale, have a bonus offer etc