MARKETING
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization’s goal is to get your web site at the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) for the keywords that matter most to your site. There are multiple layers that are applied to search engine optimization, and each layer needs to be lined up with the ones below it, in order to make a good SEO picture.
Sometimes being at the top isn’t as important as being the site that most interests your potential visitor. Remember that the only tools the searcher has to choose from in a typical search engine, is the content and text you place in your page titles and description tags. Landing your page(s) in the search engine is the final step, your SEO path actually begins with page architecture and then building interest in your site.
Below you see the steps we take in conducting any search engine optimization campaign:
Steps to Successful SEO
#1 Web Site/Web Page Evaluation
You must always have your house built on a strong foundation. Building your web site on a shoddy framework with ugly code may look decent in the web browser, but that’s not good enough. We as the site visitors see the face of the web site (the images and content), whereas the search engine bots that crawl your site only see the code. This is why you need clean programming, contained styles, and W3C complaint HTML, XHTML and CSS.
#2 Valuable Content and Copywriting
The next thing you need on your web pages is original and value added content. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the spiders crawling your page won’t pick up on the articles you grabbed from a different site. One of the fastest ways to destroy all your hard SEO work and investment, is to skimp or cheat with regards to content and become banned or classified as a duplicate page. Make your content value added for your actual customers and site visitors; you are the authority on what your site is about, act like it.
#3 Submitting to Authoritative Directories
Put the site name out there and make certain it is logged and classified as soon as possible. Being categorized in detail with a site directory like DMOZ can get your site noticed by engines that might normally skip you, as well as validate your existence when they do. This step requires patience, as DMOZ for example, is human maintained and your addition may take a while to be applied to the actual directory. Likewise, you may not be accepted, which is why this should be monitored. While you wait for this step, you can safely move on to the next without worrying about your foundation.
#4 Link Building Campaigns
You need a method of telling the search engines that you are here, and plan on being here for a long time to come. And while you are here, you are making relationships with other sites related to your site’s, and they deem you an authority enough to link to you. There are many do’s and don’ts when it comes to link building. Smart links will be targeted to your internal web pages, from the linking site’s internal page(s) and be a contextual link at that. The more your site is being referenced from within content on another site, the better!
Paid Search Management
Paid Search Management is a step outside the realm of being noticed for who you are, and placing yourself in front of potential visitors and purchasers based on a budget. You can effectively drive traffic to your site by two different means with paid search management: Pay-Per-Click (like Google Adwords) and Paid Inclusion.
Both of these examples can be seen in search engine results pages on Yahoo for instance. Top placement on SERPs is reserved for those who have budgeted to purchase that placement. This is not because the search engine ranks them higher or a more accurate site for the search submitted, rather they are the highest bidder for the search terms entered by the visitor – this is Paid Inclusion. Pay-Per-Click is more akin to the Google Adwords and sites you see when displaying Google Adsense ads. Whether the listing display based on a search term, or contextual content from the page and meta data, these sites pay a premium each time their ad is clicked.
Both methods put your web site and/or targeted product right in the face of potential customers and site visitors. The up side to this kind of marketing is that you always generate traffic. The downside to this marketing is that you can be upstaged easily by a competitor with deeper pockets.
We recommend this marketing aspect for those businesses with a specified audience and demographic that can be easily targeted based on search terms or the kind of sites future clients are visiting. This kind of marketing also goes very closely hand-in-hand with copywriting and content management. Once you obtain the traffic flow you are seeking, you must be certain that you are capturing their attention and retaining them on your site. If your content is lacking and they quickly abandon your pages without purchasing or flagging your site as a favorite, chances are they wont be coming back – and your investment is gone for that potential customer.
