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PERSPECTIVE
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SEO: It matters today – and tomorrow.
As an Internet-marketing firm, we quite often find ourselves introducing clients to the concept of search-engine optimization as one of the most-effective means to improving their Web site traffic.
Why? Simply put: it makes your Web site jump up and down, screaming, “I have what you're looking for!? to the people trying to find you. And it does it by relying on substance rather than gimmicks – making it an effective long-term solution.
Like anything dealing with the Web these days, there are many ways to approach SEO, as it's commonly called. But one thing is for certain: any business hoping to reach the top 10 listings on an organic search-results page needs to buy in to this concept now - because chances are, your competition already has.
SEO Explained
SEO refers to the idea of building an Internet presence that best meets the standards by which search giants like Google and Yahoo categorize and catalog Web sites. By creating this “optimized? site, companies hope to improve the position in which they are placed on organic search-results pages. Many Internet pundits place varying degrees of importance on aspects of the SEO process. Our services place emphasis on content over linking, but we strongly support an aggressive, strategic approach to both.
SEO can be broken down into two distinct parts: on-site optimization and off-site optimization. The first step is on-site optimization, which focuses on building a Web site with search in mind. The site's code and navigation must be correctly programmed using methods common to the search engines, and it must be full of pages with high-quality content. It also needs to follow an impressive visual design to ensure traffic flow translates into sales or quality leads.
Once the site is built for search, it is ready to be marketed. This is where off-site optimization becomes essential. Its goal is to improve the site's visibility on the Internet by focusing on a domain's external link structure. Without a quality link strategy, all of the work noted above, including a regular supply of content updates, will get your site nowhere in the rankings.
There are myriad ways to approach linking strategies, and unfortunately, many companies wind up on shakey ground with the search engines after trying the do-it-youself method or hiring an undereducated SEO firm. Worse-case scenarios from unethical SEO include having the domain eventually blacklisted by the search engines or spending a lot of time and incorrectly building link popularity only to end up exactly where you started in the ranks.
Taking the Time
Companies learning about SEO for the first time might find themselves surprised by the amount of time and substance it takes to build ranking – an average of six months, but up to one year. We believe waiting time doesn't have to mean wasted time, though. While a site jumps through the various search-engine hoops to build its rank, we encourage clients to move on in their SEO development. We spend that time creating long-term plans for content and link updates, and then implementing those plans so the site stays fresh.
The PPC Challenge
Part of the challenge in SEO today comes down to cash. The hot trend of pay-per-click, or PPC, is sweeping the Internet and playing an almost dictatorial role in the business plans of search engines. They recognize the battle between marketplace competitors, and logically are “capitalizing? on that competition.
For two reasons, we warn our clients against ignoring SEO and getting caught up in the PPC craze as a sole means by which to promote themselves on the Internet: (1) the customer considers the organic search results to be more-authentic and relative to what their looking for, and (2) exposure to and longevity of your company's Web presence are left up to your budget, not the applicability of your services to the customers' needs.
So, while we believe PPC is a great mechanism to get you started, it is not the end-solution to reaching customers. That's what a well-planned, functional, optimized site is for.
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