Search Engine Tactics
Search Engine Tactics Many companies still believe in the of "if you build it they will come" theory only to find that very few web surfers find their web site, let alone qualified potential customers. They are left with a pretty site that no one sees. A persistent, well-planned, ongoing and executed Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and campaign will bring qualified visitors to your site. Done correctly, a campaign will provide a traceable method for increasing both traffic and sales -- traceable back to the source of where your visitor came from, ensuring that marketing programs can be proven, enhanced, cancelled, or targeted at the true source of your visitors interest.
The majority of website's are found through search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Web searches search databases of information rather than the web itself, you need to drive visitors to your site through the search engines' information databases. Although optimizing your site and strategically submitting is time-consuming, it is a traceable method of attracting qualified customers. ------ and extremely important!!
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making your site friendly to search engines. Performing SEO requires you to look at your website from the point of view of internet users trying to find services, products and/or information like that available on your website. It also helps to be familiar with some of the underlying technologies of search engines - but this is not a critical requirement for performing SEO.
Today, designers develop sites with many usability and technical requirements in mind. What most of them aren't adding to the functional requirements of the web site is a easy set of steps to ensure their website is search engine friendly - search engine optimized. Setting up your site correctly from the beginning (or during a site redesign) is your best bet to get yourself noticed by all of those web crawlers (spiders, robots) and human-edited directories. The web grows so fast, optimal search engine positioning requires a persistent approach. This process is on-going and unfortunately never complete.
Search Engine Optimization campaigns are divided into tactical areas. By paying attention to the common sense steps described in each tactic you give your company the advantage of a low-cost method of driving self-qualified traffic to their website, as well as out positioning any competition who has not implemented SEO tactics. Your code, your keywords, your choice of web technologies and site architecture all must be friendly to and optimized for search engines for all aspects of the campaign to achieve high placement in the results of visitor searches.
If your code, keywords and architecture are up to SEO standards, your site will magically rise to the top and you will be successful.
Next week I will discuss 4 tactics areas to help make this happen.
See you at the top
- Bob Liddle -