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Search Engine Optimization Strategy

Search Engine Optimization Strategies

Everyone’s searching for ideal search engine optimization strategies to have their web site into the top search engines on site one. That easy search engines bump could be the deciding issue for 1000s of companies trying to stand out and take their internet business to the next level. Here are some of the most powerful search engine optimization strategies you’ll find online and the ways you need to be putting them to use right now.

On Site Optimization

Absolutely no search engine optimization strategy is as old and well tested as on-page optimization. It also is actually one of the least useful listed here. Once upon a time, these methods would make the difference. Today, it makes up maybe 15% of your total search engine ranking and Page Rank. However, if you do not use these strategies, it can hurt your site significantly.

On site optimization contains keyword optimization, alt tags in your images, deep navigation, seo friendly links, title tags, and SEO friendly code.

Article promotion

Marketing with articles is another search engine optimization strategy that has been around for some time and is highly successful. Essentially, you will write articles with a single keyword focus and a link back to your internet site. You then upload those articles to article directories that post them for free in exchange for the link to your site.

As soon as articles is posted, it provides a back link to your site that the engines like google pick up. Article writing is not a one time process, however. You will need to continuously post new articles over time to maintain the SEO value of those links.

Trusted Site Linking

Marketing with articles creates back-links, but if you want truly valuable back-links, you need to find trusted sites. Trusted sites are the type that Google holds in high regard. Something that ends in .GOV or .EDU is a trusted site. Additionally, high stage internet directories like DMOZ or Yahoo! are trusted sites, along with major forums or information resources.

Link Baiting

Link baiting is a search engine optimization strategy where you produce high quality content that will attract attention by itself. For example, if you had a dog training site, you can produce an article on the top 101 dog behaviour problems. The article will be massive and take hours to write, but it would also be a strong authority resource in the niche, drawing attention from a number of other internet websites.

Social media marketing

Web 2 . 0 is a common tool today, though many marketers misuse it. The goal is to use sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to set yourself and your company up as an authority as well as a recognizable personality and brand that can be trusted for niche information. You have to provide constant, daily value that your readers can take away from it.

Viral Promoting

Viral promoting, like social media and link baiting, focused on drawing people to you. As a search engine optimization strategy, viral promoting is the least measurable, but could be the most effective. Examples of viral marketing include video productions for YouTube, sending out free reports, building squeeze pages, and giving away free software.

No single tactic is going to make the main difference between a no-name site and the number one page in your niche. However, if you’re not using the strategies above in tandem, you’re missing a fantastic opportunity to get free traffic for your site. Search engine optimization strategies begins with a long term, detailed plan on how to get your site to the top. Use multiple strategies, test constantly, and adjust when necessary – only then will you find the free traffic you’ve been looking for.

Search Engine Optimization Services for More Sales

Search Engine Optimization is very important in the present day web environment when the numbers of websites are increasing day by day. Search Engine Optimization can be defined as a process through which a website is able to attract more and quality traffic when some words are used to search a website related to a particular subject. The search engine optimization is essential to survive in the present day heavy competition existing between various websites. Generally, a website appearing high on the search engines gets more clicks which is equivalent of being more in business.

As the companies are going on line and the business to an extent depends upon the websites of a particular company, firms desire that they appear higher when a target or prospective customer uses some key words in order to access a related website. Search Engine optimization services are offered by various firms today. There is requirement of such companies and more and more companies are opening today to cater to the SEO requirement of the website. SEO is an important Internet marketing strategy tool.

Search Engine Optimization is a whole some process and it involves the whole planning of the website. The SEO companies do the analyses of the behavior of people who search for a particular service. The key words used by such people are analyzed and incorporated in the website in order to give it high ranking in the search engine. The menus of a particular website, content, image, the design of the website is done in a way which leads to a higher ranking in the search engines. The content used in a particular website is very important as the contents help give the website a better chance to rank higher in the search engine rankings.

The search engine optimization has become necessary for the ROI or the return on investments. The companies want higher returns very quickly and to give a quick return on the ROI, it’s important to attract higher traffic to the website, which helps in attracting advertisements to the website.

Search Engine Optimization companies offer various SEO tools like tutorials and other programmes. There are tools like ‘WordPress Nova’ which helps in SEO. With the help of these tools the traffic to the website can be doubled or can be increased considerably. SEO is a wholesome process and the entire designing and content is important in SEO. Care and professional help should be taken when creating a new website otherwise it may be lost in the increasing web competition.

Wyoming SEO Firms and SEO Consultants use Search Engine Optimization Marketing to Triple Web Leads

SEO is one of the most important Internet marketing channels needed to get higher search engine ranks. This is especially true for medium, regional business owners who no longer get good returns on the phone book.

When you use search engine optimization for marketing to promote your online business, hiring an effective SEO consultant you trust is important to your profits and online marketing budget.

What should you expect from a good search-engine-optimization marketing firm? You should expect solid 1st page rankings for your keywords on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

The SEO firm should have credentials with a credible association, and they should be able to offer affordable SEO marketing options and high-end, search-engine-optimization marketing packages to fit your specific budget.

You’re probably not the only person on the Internet trying to figure out how to choose a Wyoming search engine optimization firm that will get you more website traffic. SEO marketing for search engine rankings is a mystery to many business people. There are some realistic, good tips to consider in this article to help in your choice.

One of the key methods to judge an SEO consultant’s quality is to check their current, SEO client case-results. That’s what you will be spending marketing dollars on…SEO marketing that provides quality, higher-ranking, keyword-specific, search engine results in Google, Yahoo and Bing for your company’s website. These 3 are the majority of the search engine marketshare.

A quality SEO firm will use ‘White Hat’ on-page and off-page search-engine-optimization strategies. Many website owners could benefit from some basic ‘white hat’ SEO information.

What does ‘white hat SEO’ mean? Does it mean your SEO agency wear’s white hats while they code your website and build inboud links? No, it means that they are pro-actively marketing with ‘best practice’ strategies that are Google, Yahoo and Bing friendly.

By the way, an SEO firm usually won’t specify white hat openly. It’s search-engine-optimization jargon. Just ask them if they do. ‘Black Hat’ SEO can get your site banned from search engine ranking.

Ask for sample SEO reports, so you can see how your website’s ranking and tracking
data will be reported to you and you’ll know what to expect.

Hiring a Wyoming SEO consultant to achieve “Organic” or “natural” search results will not be instant. It can take 1-2 months to see ranking progress. And it should be noted that 80% of web surfers only look on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing when they do a keyword search.

Some SEO marketing firms only do external link-building and don’t touch your website code. This will not cause your site to rank higher than your online competitors in the search engines. You need on-site and off-site search-engine-optimization work to have a successfully balanced SEO marketing strategy.

Many Wyoming seo firms offer a free seo-analysis of your website’s seo quality.
Realize it may be somewhat limited compared to an SEO analysis for 0-300. For a
small investment, you can have an seo consultant walk you through an seo report so you understand it in laymen’s terms.

Good luck with your search engine optimization and your search for a good Wyoming seo consultant.

Market business with Search Engine Optimization Packages

Due to the advancement of technology in the last few years, internet marketing has emerged as one of the most sought after marketing tool which a large number of online companies from all across the world are using today for the promotion of their business. But to provide a distinguished online presence to a website using internet marketing strategies is no child’s play. It requires perfection and skill which only a person that has an extensive experience in this line of work posses. Therefore, if you are thinking about starting your own online venture and wants it to succeed, then hiring of a consultant or internet marketing company which have been working in this domain from quite a time would a wise decision.

Internet marketing companies which are also referred as online marketing or web marketing companies are the enterprises which are designed to increase ROI and sales of their clients business by improving visibility of their site online. An internet marketing company provides a host of services including SEO, SMO, PPC, E-mail marketing and various others to accomplish this task. Out of all of these Search Engine Optimization (SEO) works best as far as the issue of the ranking of the site is concerned.

The objective of the Search Engine Optimization is to increase the ranking of a site on major search engines by using various strategies including:

On Page Optimization:- On page optimization focuses on the changes that are required in your site to help it to rank well. During this process, the experts of the company decides whether your site could be retrofitted or should a new site need to be created, what impediments are hampering the search engine spiders from crawling your site and how it can be rectified, what sort of content requires to be created etc.

Off-Page Optimization:- Search engines determine the popularity of a website on the basis of its relevant links from the other sites. Further, links also plays an important role in driving the traffic to a website. In off-page optimization strategy, approaches needed to get relevant links from various other related sites are decided.

The various techniques used in this process are:

RSS feeds
Blogs
Directory links
Article syndication

Almost all Internet marketing companies offer a variety of Search Engine Optimization Packages which provide different set of services. One of the advantages of these packages is that by utilizing them you can opt for only those services which you require to increase the ranking of your site and pay only for them. This way you can significantly minimize the Search Engine Optimization Cost.

Deciding to hire an SEO Firm or Internet Marketing Company is a crucial decision that can both improve your site or cause damage to its reputation. So, take this decision after doing some research and finding out about their prices.

Daily doing in-house search engine optimization practices

Search engine optimization is steady process to get your website listing in top 10 result in Google, Bing and Yahoo in most common and widely searching text phrases search by search engine users. Search engine optimization is most economical method to get targeted customers and visitors to your website.

For example If you have outsource payroll and accounting company then you know outsource payroll generates real business for your company and if you outsource search engine marketing to seo india seospidy then your website will rank in all similar text phrases in which you will get real enquiries to your website.

Many entrepreneur outsource seo to search engine Optimization Company many hire dedicated seo experts and rest of other entrepreneur start small business ecommerce website promotion from in-house seo team.

Follow this simple easy task to promote your website using in-house seo.

Link building: if you build inbound links by effective link building strategies like Manually directory submission, article writing and submission in high page rank article directory, blog posting in your sub domain and adding pinging to search engines. There are 3 types of link building.

1.       One way link building. Getting back-links means your website anchor text links from other similar industry website

2.       Reciprocal link building.   Exchanging links with similar industry website by adding partner or link partner category in your website and adding links of webmasters of similar industry while contacting them by email, chat or by call.

3.       3 way link building. Getting our website listed in other high page rank similar industry website and adding there text link in your different website like article directory, web directory or somewhere else.

Publish resource: we can publish E-books, tutorials, writing tips and tricks article of your niche business. When we write very useful post or article and about our product and services in author description page then when somebody likes our article then it might be possible reader wish to visit our website and 90 % readers visit website in this way we get backlinks from article directories and also real time visitors for lifetime by publishing article.
Social media marketing: Facebook and twitter are very common platform to more interactive with customers as everybody in this world have online existence in websites like twitter, facebook, myspace, orkut, bebo etc . if your business firm deals in garment or clothing industry then you can post your new catalogs and people will watch your catalogs in facebook and you will get regular orders from it.
List  building: collects email id of your customers by interactive email marketing, publishing newspaper and you can even buy database of email id from database collectors. Submitting latest detail discounts and coupens of your products by interactive email marketing generate instant enquiries and it is fastest way  to grow your business.

Search Engine Optimization Tutorial

Search engine optimization has almost become compulsory for all internet businesses nowadays. No online business can survive without proper search engine optimization. As a result more and more online companies are turning to professional search engine optimizers for help. These professionals, at a nominal rate, take care of all the SEO related matters and aid in placing the website at a higher rank on the search engines, something very important for generating traffic. However, these services of the search engine optimization firms sometimes come at pretty expensive rates and not every small business can afford it. It is at these times that the search engine optimization tutorials come in handy as they help the proprietors to themselves take care of the SEO needs of the website.

A search engine optimization tutorial is nothing but a manual that educates you on how to go about the processes of search engine optimization. Though it sounds complicated, search engine optimization is not so difficult to carry out and with proper training you can do it too. So if you feel that you do not have the resources or the budget to consult a professional SEO firm, you can try learning the basics of SEO from a search engine optimization tutorial and then proceed to do it yourself.

There are a number of search engine optimization tutorials available on the internet. While some are complicated, most of them are rather simple and in a step-by-step method teach you how to go about the SEO procedures. Like in any other form of education, search engine optimization can also be learnt if you approach it with an open mind. The SEO tutorials are good because they not only help you in saving money, they also teach you tools and tricks that can help you in many aspects of your online business.

There are both practical and theoretical search engine optimization tutorials available on the internet. All you need to do is search for them, and once found, apply them. The search engine optimization tutorials help you in understanding the basics of SEO. In this way you end up understanding the mechanisms of the World Wide Web more comprehensively and emerge as a better online entrepreneur.

Bangladesh search engine optimization training for higher online income in Bangladesh like other countries of the world

Bangladesh search engine optimization training course for marketer and freelancer:

Bangladesh search engine optimization training course is the learning method to optimize a website in Bangladesh and rest of the world for higher online income in Bangladesh like other countries in the world.

Search engine optimization is called in short SEO. It is not very old concept in Bangladesh. Bangladesh website owners yet are not taking the advantage of SEO.

SEO is the cheapest advertising method:

Comparing to other advertising method cost like newspaper advertisement, SEO advertising is the cheapest. In fact it is free if you can do it by yourself. However if you do not know how to do it you can appoint a freelancer to do it at a very low cost.

http://seo-tips-and-tricks.info> Bangladesh search engine optimization training is needed for website owners directly. Even if web designer knows it, still it is better if website owner understand it. Thus he can take innovative quick decision to apply SEO tips and tricks.

http://seo-tips-and-tricks.info> higher online income in Bangladesh is possible by SEO work in freelance jobs. Bangladesh freelancers are optimizing website of other countries. Bangladesh website owner can take the advantage from them.

An internet business can not run successfully without search engine optimization seo work. If you have a nice website but no visitor then there is no income. To earn in the internet from a website you need customer that may come from visitor. Search engine optimization seo is the best solution to get visitors and ultimately customers. So internet business success depends on seo to a great extent.

Search Engine Optimization Company from San Francisco: For Better Result

Have it encourage you the thinking of employing the services of an SEO company from San Francisco to obtain a large amount of internet visibility destined for your business? But if not, then you have to consider taking a closer look at those SEO specialists from San Francisco which supplements excellent and effective search engine optimization services to help not only you but your business as will to be excellent in terms of placing in several search engines for a particular keyword search.

A lot of SEO specialists claim to provide guaranteed SEO services but it is not justified to be correct. Thus, you should be meticulous and careful in evaluating the credibility of the SEO Company before obtaining its Search Engine Optimization services. Search Engine Optimization Company in San Francisco are practically concerned in relation to modifying and enhancing the search engine placement of your website with the use of the guaranteed formula in optimization processes.

The search engine optimization techniques and strategies are being followed to acquire more potential customers to a website. The higher is the search engine placement of a particular Website, the greater are the chances of being visited by tons of customers and clients. That is why the latest optimization strategies are being performed and executed by SEO Company in San Francisco to come up with the most effective marketing outputs.

The SEO companies in San Francisco with stellar marketing reputation are skilled team players in the realm of SEO. Their expert knowledge on search engine optimization aid you to modify concrete marketing strategies that will obtain guaranteed Search engine optimization results destined for your own website.

Getting the services of these SEO companies in San Francisco seems to be a good concept for those individuals who are eyeing to hype up their business strategies of their website in a quick and effective process. The proven formula of these SEO services executed by experienced SEO experts in Los Angeles assures positive marketing results.

Excellent SEO companies in San Francisco keeps on updating the personal attributes of its Search engine optimization services on a regular basis; this is done so that the clients can acquire optimum productivity out of it. Thus, one should have to evaluate for particular fundamental elements like feedbacks, testimonials, satisfied and experienced accounts, portfolio. You have to execute this although you have an idea that these SEO companies in San Francisco can supplement the services that you are truly looking for.

Acquiring ideas and concepts in terms of the latest approach on SEO techniques is not really adequate especially for companies having an objective to supplement customers the benefit for guaranteed SEO. SEO companies in San Francisco sees to it that they update their online marketing techniques to help clients continue in relation to brand popularity locally and internationally.

Getting the services of these SEO companies in San Francisco is tagged to be productive and advantageous because they give solution to their customers’ preferences and needs in an effective manner. Acquiring guaranteed SEO results is tagged to be a bit hard task and these SEO experts in San Francisco should pay attention on its marketing strategies having the freedom to customize it to address the requirements of the clients in an efficient manner.

Some of the internet solutions that SEO companies in San Francisco supplement are search engine optimization, website development and website design, internet marketing, and some more services that are regarded as a part of its guaranteed search engine optimization services.

SEO companies in San Francisco are considered to be some sort of a one stop shop locations wherein customers has the power to discover the greatest help that they are trying to find. These SEO experts will take care of everything from the designing and development of your website to SEO; to be able to hype up the operation of your website and help the owners of the businesses to obtain and acquire optimum profit as well as income.

Some other techniques and strategies such as pay per click and video and audio promotions are also executed by these SEO companies in San Francisco and have the freedom to use to come up with great outputs in a quick and more efficient manner. These tips and tricks have stellar demands in the market at this point in time.

It is very vital to know that SEO companies in San Francisco are eager to provide guaranteed search engine optimization are to choose the experienced and best SEO specialists and pool of members as well.

By this regard, they have the freedom to ensure a smooth operation of the projects of their customers and give them a higher search engine placement. On the other hand, as for SEO companies in San Francisco, the traditional duration as well as the on-time delivery of effective search engine optimization services should be positioned in appropriate manner before obtaining it.

If the quality of the outputs is tagged as unsatisfactory, it definitely will not produce any dependable output. Thus, the appropriate SEO Company in San Francisco should be appropriately chosen for and it has the freedom to construct positive results.

Meanwhile, we have to consider the fact that a lot of people are shelling out tons of their valued time surfing the internet and the essence of regulating and keeping a website in a proper way are growing that is why you simply need help coming from these SEO companies in San Francisco. Basically, individuals use search engines every time they are trying to find something in the internet.

Entities like SEO companies in San Francisco make themselves really accessible to potential clients with the aid of search engines stand a chance of performing more business in the near future. Websites have to be properly designed in a particular manner to ensure that they are showcased primer in the main search engine lists and we have to admit that individuals only look on the first page of the search engine results.

And in this manner, SEO companies in San Francisco can do this if given appropriate resources and time and you will just realize that you are on the top list in the main search engines.

On the other hand, people also come to a particular website simply because links from other sites were provided. SEO companies in San Francisco also supplement this type of trick to customers; the tips which are practically adopted to ensure not only the quantity but the quality of links are executed. This makes sure the website will develop in a significant given time when speaking about inbound and outbound type of traffic.

As stated in the paragraphs above, SEO companies in San Francisco uses the most excellent resources and applications and seasoned specialists to ensure that the website that they optimize are positioned in higher ranking by the main search engines.

These search engines look for and rank the said pages with elements more commonly known as the crawlers. In several situations, involvement in databases can be guaranteed by shelling out a particular amount of money. But this does not necessarily mean that your Website Design Company will be provided a good ranking.

SEO companies in San Francisco will always be there for you to help you in all the things that you need in relation to Search engine optimization, development and design.

Peeling Back the Onion: Metrics that Matter to a Good Search Engine Optimization Company

“I want to be number one on Google for (insert hyper-competitive keyphrase here).”

It’s usually the first thing we hear in terms of search engine optimization – a company wants to be in that coveted top spot on Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and MSN. No matter the industry or specialty, when companies approach us with their desired goals for an SEO campaign, it’s usually all about improving their rankings and positions…and often nothing else. Yes, achieving first page rankings or top spots on the search engines is an incredibly desirable accomplishment to many companies who want immediate and noticeable results. But with such a considerable investment in an SEO campaign, you’d think companies in need of search engine optimization services would also be concerned with their overall ROI, especially in light of the current economy.

Vastly improved (or even #1) rankings are rather easy to achieve in an SEO campaign, even by a novice search engine optimization company. I once wrote an article demonstrating that top rankings were simple – and proved it by optimizing the article for the phrase “Leprechaun Repellent.” To this day, that article, on various sites, takes up nine of the top ten spots on Google for the ridiculous phrase. The obvious question, then, is what those rankings ultimately accomplish. And so we peel back the layers of the onion until we get there.

The First Layer – Rankings

Rankings, rankings, rankings. This is by far the most popular metric for any SEO campaign. Occasionally, a search engine optimization company may not be concerned with your bottom line because it can offer guarantees and focus exclusively on achieving this goal (even though, as in the ‘Leprechaun’ example above, it’s really not getting you anywhere significant in the long run).

Rankings by themselves mean little, and the problem with companies obsessed over rankings is that it doesn’t demonstrate the usefulness of search engine optimization. For a company website, high rankings are great (and impressive for an SEO campaign), but they are just the first layer of the onion. As any good search engine optimization company will demonstrate, our goal is (and yours should be) to bring and/or improve the levels of high quality traffic to your website, meaning visitors who come to your website via a search are already reasonably interested in your products or services.

The Second Layer – Search-Engine Referred Traffic

Increasing search-referred traffic is not a perfect metric because, if visitors are not converting on your website, there’s not a big value proposition to be had. Alone, the metric relies heavily on the right keyphrase selection by your search engine optimization company during the beginning phases of your SEO campaign.

Say that a farming supply company who wanted to be number one on Google for “affordable farming equipment” decided to try a different tactic while attempting to improve its search-engine referred traffic. If the website had been optimized for ‘Britney Spears,’ for example, traffic levels would undoubtedly be high (if the site ranked well for the term – admittedly a huge challenge), but few visitors would be converting, and business, in turn, would be far from booming. Visitors will jump ship immediately and serve as an immediate reminder of the negative impact that poor phrase selection by your search engine optimization company can have on your long-term ROI.

The Third Layer – Take Rate

Essentially, the take rate refers to the number or percentage of search-referred visitors showing interest in your products or demos (your POA or Point-of-Action). The take rate merely signifies a visitor who demonstrates an interest in your POA, for example, by clicking on a “Contact Us” link. The data you’re gauging here is simply overall interest, since not all of the visitors will follow through and actually convert.

Fortunately, there are ways to improve your take rate during the SEO campaign – making the point-of-action blatant and clear on every page is usually the most effective (but overlooked) method. Collaborating with your search engine optimization company to make certain that the primary POA on your website is indeed the most desirable action that a visitor can take is of paramount importance.

The Fourth Layer – Conversion

Strictly speaking, “Conversion” is the percentage of visitors to your website that actually follow through with your POA. Once your search engine optimization company has helped you improve your take rate, you should work on getting more of those people to actually convert. Is your form too long? Do you show a prominent privacy policy promising not to use or sell personal data? Is it a quick, easy process or do people have to jump through hoops? A good search engine optimization company will be able to help you to identify the elements that are serving as barriers to conversion.

The Fifth Layer – Offsite Metrics

If a client allows it, we like to get involved in the nitty-gritty of offsite metrics as part of the SEO campaign. Though the usual search engine optimization company doesn’t go this far into the process, this area alone proves invaluable to demonstrating your ROI.

By analyzing offline metrics on a granular level, your search engine optimization company can examine and report on your average dollar sale for search-referred traffic, the average dollar value of each search-referred lead, the average lifetime value of each search-referred lead, and much, much more.

A software system is usually required to report the data acquired during your SEO campaign; we use Salesforce, a leading CRM (customer relationship management) solution that can be implemented to track these statistics for you. Though it requires diligence to analyze (as well as follow leads from cradle to grave), your company can analyze which engines attracted the most visitors, which keyphrases were the most profitable, the value of customers, and retention levels.

More than Rankings

All layers of the onion, so to speak, are important to an SEO campaign, but the closer you get to the actual dollar return, the more accurate your assessment of success or failure will be. Rankings alone are no indication of success. For that matter, neither is search-referred traffic if the visitors don’t take an action on the site that can lead to a sale. And when the lead finally comes in, there is no way to track the value unless you follow up with offline metrics to determine exactly how much leads from your website are worth.

These are all base metrics – many campaigns are much more involved and use thousands of different data points. But if you are new to the conversion/ROI game and are thinking about hiring a search engine optimization company, make sure that its goal is to be attuned to your bottom line.

(C) 2009 Medium Blue

Search Engine Optimization Part II

SEO: What NOT to do and What TO DO

The one thing I DON’T recommend is to just “throw money at it,” and walk away. SEO is an on-going, critical activity that needs to be managed for the long haul. It is important that someone at a senior level in-house gain enough knowledge about what is important, to be able to monitor it from a management perspective. Otherwise, you risk really going off track, regardless how you decide to handle the implementation. In particular, there is a tendency to simply “outsource” activities that management isn’t comfortable with. The problem is that there are a number of “quick fix” artists in SEO, who claim to bring you a lot of traffic fast. They use questionable practices that can get you in trouble with the Search Engines, and in the long run have the opposite effect from what you are seeking. If you don’t have a senior manager that understands the implications of what’s being done, you can get burned.

RECOMMENDATIONS

So let’s say that you’ve decided to “do it yourself”, or at least want to get a basic understanding of the SEO process. Where do you start?

Here’s what I recommend:

*Buy and read a popular Search Engine Optimization or Search Engine Marketing book to become conversant
*Purchase one of the Search Engine Optimization Software Packages which are available for a few hundred dollars—I use Web Position from Webtrends

Once you’ve become familiar, here are the important basic steps that you’ll want to make sure that you understand:

1. Select keywords to optimize you site for, ones that are important to your potential clients and your business. Look at your own website and other marketing materials, look at your competitor’s sites, and use tools like WordTracker and the Overture and Google Adwords Keyword tools. This is a critical part of the process—you need to select keywords that are both relevant, and not so competitive that you are still able to “own them”—in other words, appear in the top 6 listings when they are searched.

2. Make sure that your Page titles and Page URLs are rich with the selected keywords. This is very important, and is why new websites should be optimized for search, when they are initially built (which usually doesn’t’ happen, unfortunately).

3. Include keyword-rich “link text” in your content, and make sure to label all images with keyword-rich text.

4. Make your main body text keyword rich—and probably more text intensive than your graphics designers would like. Even though the designers (and senior executives) may think its ugly, search engines love—and only understand—text. Some engines will even completely ignore pages with less than 300 words. If your pages appear too “clean and pretty”, there’s a good chance they will be ignored by the search engine bots when they do their indexing. So you need to make some compromises between SEO and look and feel.

5. Start a “never-ending” campaign to get external websites to create links into your site. This is also critical, because search engines use this is a measure of how “important” your site is, relative to your competitors. The more relevant and popular the linking site is, the better, but any link is better than no link. PR is a great way to build relevant links—but you can also have a clerk trolling for simple opportunities to list your company’s website, in the myriad directories available on the Internet.

SEO is actually a very complex field with lots of important, but mundane technical details. Much more can be done past this process to optimize your site. But these are the basics—if you run through this process, you will as a senior manager, be much better prepared to buy external SEO services, or hire people for your internal staff. As a C-level manager, you wouldn’t feel comfortable being ignorant as to how the PR process works, would you?

In the Internet age, neither can you afford to be ignorant about SEO!

As always, your feedback is welcomed.