Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is…

…an area of internet marketing that involves improving the quantity or quality of traffic to a website, or both, by gaining top attention from the most prominent search engines.

In the old days of online marketing SEO may have involved focusing on a few essential keywords or phrases people used when searching online for what you sell or do. Then creating a bunch of content that has those words and phrases strategically repeated throughout a site. Today that’s not enough.

Search engines algorithms are more complex and exacting than ever. The goal is to eliminate trash and deliver the best visitor experience possible for web surfers. From a marketer’s standpoint the three critical areas of focus are on-site content, off-site content, and visitor conversion.

On-site content goes beyond uploading articles to a site and adjusting meta tags. That’s old school. And ineffective. That process works only when competion is low or non-existent for the terms you wish to rank for.

Satisfy The Mind Satisfy The Search Engines

There’s a better way to gain top ranking than drowning the search engines in a ton of useless keywords. Attention should be give instead to the buying cycle of keywords. Basically the human mind works this way: first order of business is to gain knowledge of a topic, second is to decide on the relevance and implementation value of the topic, and third is to take action.

Web surfers follow this same path when searching for whatever it is that you sell or do. Your on-site content must follow this same process when selecting a keyword approach. And your site must be ’staggered’ in such a way as to attract all three levels of surfer-awareness.

In other words, you build your content upward from a foundation of education-based content, through the implementation or ‘technical’ aspects, on into direct response or ‘action’ oriented content and keywords.

The value to you is you can rank higher with fewer inbound links than competitors who are focused solely or primarily on offsite SEO tactics. We recommend both approaches. Not just one or the other.

Your SEO content along these lines may involve onsite and offsite article and blog content, forum postings, video promotion, social networking, publicity, offsite publishing in relevant offsite publications, and more. The approach varies depending upon individual company needs.

‘Tweaking’ meta tags and title tags and the old school efforts of hammering out a bunch of computer generated senseless keyword weighted content will not help a site survive or thrive in highly competitive markets. Such content gets ‘nixed’ from the search engines. And often the sites trying those approaches get banned.

Why SEO?

Is all this really necessary to consider? Yes.

Studies have shown that 87% of businesses use the internet before selecting new vendors and according to the US Department of Commerce, by the year 2012, 43% of consumers will make purchases influenced by the internet if not directly transacted online. Businesses not properly positioned online will be left behind.

Each company needs to pursue SEO differently. The “best” approach for pursing local SEO domination depends upon overall marketing objectives and the level of online competition that may or may not exist.

But there are no hard and fast rules to absolutely guarantee top search engine placement. That’s because search engines are constantly changing their methods of ranking and scoring sites and individual pages.

That’s why Search Engine Optimization should be viewed as on ongoing marketing process. SEO has never been nor never will be a case of ‘once ranked always ranked’. But this does not require hiring a full-time staff and doesn’t require spending tens of thousands of dollars to compete locally.

So How Does SEO Work?

Despite what some people may preach, there is no single right way to rank high in the search engines.

If you asked ten carpenters how to build the perfect house you’d get varied responses on what materials to use, how to lay a foundation based on the particular terrain, how to design the house and each room for long-term stability and beauty, and so on.

Just as there are literally hundreds of ways to design a house, there are hundreds of ways to approach Search Engine Optimization. The approach that works best for you varies according to your circumstances and overall marketing objectives.

Still though, like building a literal structure there are common ‘materials’ and ‘tools’ that are essential for building your Search Engine Optimization strategy.

I’ve been online since before the world wide web existed. And began charging for consulting and ecommerce consulting in 1994. Over the years I’ve seen a few consistent methods for improving search ranking results…

Successful SEO Principles

When it comes to SEO best practices, content is king… usually. But not always.

The words and pages within your site are critical in two main areas. The first is for gaining 3rd-party endorsement. When you present quality content 3rd party sites are more apt to link to you and endorse your site to their visitors.

A second area on-site content is effective is when marketing in less competitive ‘waters’. Getting to the top of search engine results using nothing more than the words on your page is easy when competition is low.

And a third ‘hidden’ area few search professionals speak of publicly is structuring a site to take advantage of the buying cycle of keywords.

The easiest area of SEO dominance now are local or regional ‘organic’ listings. Few businesses target local SEO. For an explanation of why read my blog posting: Local SEO Gets Sexy

When Competitors Are Clueless… or Lazy

For the most part gaining high positioning in local listings requires a few basic SEO approaches. On-page factors contribute to high positioning simply because fewer competitors exist at the local and regional level.

Where competition is fierce, especially on national and international levels, off-page factors carry a greater weight in gaining high position.

The greater number, relevance, and quality of inbound links, the higher your site is positioned in the search engines.

And now you should be content knowing your site is ranked well. Right? No. The next step is to assure your site is converting the maximum number of visitors into buyers as quickly and efficiently as possible. After all, of what value is it to have a high rank but few visitors become clients or customers? None.

Here attention must be given to the one most neglected area of SEO: visitor conversion.

Visitor conversion involves tracking visitor path throughout your site, abandonment, and visitor action. The process may involve a broad scope view of tracking every page of your site (recommended) to tracking the conversion rate of individual offers within your site (also recommended). This is a task best suited for a variety of onsite real-time tracking applications. The best approach varies according to your objectives and your webhosts capabilities. No single solution is best for every company. So I can’t give a recommendation here.

Nonetheless, this explanation of the SEO process is simplified to make the process easier to understand. The algorithms change constantly. And authority values constantly change too. This is why SEO is an ongoing process and should never be viewed as once ranked always ranked.

SEO Isn’t The End-All, Be-All Of Online Marketing

This may sound surprising coming from an SEO expert… SEO should be just one part of your online marketing strategy.

As much as 76% of all online traffic is generated by a source other than the search engines. That’s more than from Google and Yahoo - combined!

This additional traffic source requires a significant investment in time and effort if a company chooses to pursue it on their own. An entire staff member, in some cases multiple staff members are being dedicated to this one area alone. Costly yes. Yet it is very rewarding when done right — more than pays for itself many times over. But only if a company branches out beyond focusing marketing efforts solely on SEO activities.

Want to know more?

Attend our Search Engine Optimization Webinar online. Our 18-minute in-brief SEO Webinar is now playing and is currently free ($1700 value) to participate in online.