Basic Search Engine Optimization
What is Basic Search Engine Optimization and why is it important?
Showing up as one of the top ten listings on a Google search engine results page (SERP) is tremendously valuable to your company.
If your website does a good job of converting a visitor into an inquiry, or some other desired form of action, the ranking is worth thousands and thousands of dollars in revenue.
One of my clients, a caterer, attributes $1MM (yes, million) of new sales in a 24 month period to their top ranking at Google.
As you might imagine, it creates a significant competitive advantage.
Top Ranking Benefits
More Qualified Traffic
More Inquiries
More Sales and Revenue
More Company/Brand Awareness
More Trust with Consumers
I’ve seen people spend $25,000 in print advertising and get a NEGATIVE return-on-investment.
I’ve worked with companies and spent half of that, or less, to get a website top ranked, and it generated a POSITIVE return-on-investment. In almost ALL cases, several times over.
And while it won’t be free, and hiring an expert who knows what they are doing isn’t cheap, you should get a good or VERY GOOD return-on-investment for every dollar you put into hiring an SEO expert.
The process of getting your website’s home page and sub-pages top ranked for a keyword phrase search is called search engine optimization.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is not a “quick thing” and it’s not an easy thing to do.
If you are a business owner is it very unlikely you have the time to do search engine optimization, for no other reason than you have a business to run and clients to meet with – you don’t have the time it takes to do SEO correctly or effectively.
SEO requires…
Knowledge
Expertise
Hours and Hours of Work
Patience
BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZAITON, creates what I would call a minimum amount of online visibility or “findability.”
ADVANCED SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ultimately results in top ten rankings for your targeted keywords and keyword phrases.
BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, while a necessary part of your overall Internet marketing strategy, will not result in getting a top ten ranking for your website. The marketplace is simply too competitive for that.
Here are the five elements I consider BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION:
Website Design
Keyword/Keyword Phrase Research
Content Optimization
Meta-Tag Optimization
Tools
Website Design
Most website designers would rather eat worms than talk in detail about search engine optimization. Ask one what “conversion” is and they’ll tell you it’s when you get married and change to your new wife’s religion.
The first part of BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is having a search engine optimization expert work with your website designer – before they actually design the site – to optimize the design and make sure it is “search engine friendly.”
This is also called “crawler friendly design.”
In other words, can search engines actually (a) find your website and (b) move from your home page to sub-pages, (c) move back and forth easily between pages, and (d) read the content on each of the pages in such a way that they can determine relevancy?
If you have a website built entirely in FLASH you don’t have (b), (c), or (d). Sorry, but three strikes – you’re out of the search engine optimization game.
BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION in most cases involves between four and five hours of work with a designer, depending on how receptive they are to the process of collaborating for search engine optimization.
Usually, when I remind designers that online visibility leads to traffic which leads to inquiries which leads to sales which leads to THEM GETTING PAID… they get very interested.
Keyword and Keyword Phrase Research
The next part of BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION involves identifying the keywords and keyword phrases people are most likely to use, or might use, when looking for your products or services.
This is sometimes referred to as “fat head” and “long-tail” keyword research.
In other words, these are the keywords, but more likely the keyword phrases, used by people searching at Google (Yahoo!, Bing, etc.), and you want your website to show up in the list of results.
This part of search engine optimization, keyword and keyword phrase research, is critically important. If you identify the wrong keywords/phrases you end up optimizing for searches no one is using.
SIDE NOTE: This is what SEO scammers typically do, take your money and get you top ranked for a keyword phrase virtually no one searches for. “Hey Chris, we’re top ranked at Google!” (sure, for “wedding photographers who charge less than $500″)
Once you have identified the keywords and keyword phrases you will be using for BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION you then create a plan to integrate them into your page copy, meta-tags, and use them when creating inbound links from your blog posts to your website (i.e. anchor text linking).
Additionally, in this phase, your SEO consultant will also identify the biggest competitors for these keywords/phrases. Identifying the currently top ranked websites and their potential weaknesses is very important. You can’t move INTO the top ten until someone is pushed out.
Keep in mind “Baltimore weddings” and “Baltimore wedding” are TWO DIFFERENT KEYWORD PHRASES. One is with the “s” and one is without the “s.” When doing BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION as well as ADVANCED SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION it is important to be aware of this “pluralization” issue.
Keyword/keyword phrase research typically takes between two and six hours to do correctly.
Content Optimization
Content optimization builds on website design optimization for search engines and keyword/keyword phrase research and identification.
Once you have identified the appropriate keywords/keyword phrases, the next step involves “weaving” them into compelling and engaging page copy. This is known as creating keyword density and creating keyword relevancy.
Frankly, this is pretty tricky stuff. It’s not easy and here is where a lot of people fail.
Not only do you have to have page copy that is “search engine optimized,” but your page copy must get your web page visitor to actually TAKE ACTION as a result of reading it – assuming they are a qualified visitor.
Here a search engine optimization expert works with a copywriter to integrate the appropriate keywords/phrases into each of the pages at the website. It also involves using the correct “heading tags” which search engines look for and weigh significantly.
Don’t assume your marketing copywriting person understands SEO. In most cases, it’s best to have them work with your search optimization consultant to achieve the appropriate desired result.
Meta-Tag Optimization
Contrary to what some say, meta-tags are not dead.
They certainly do not have the same weighting or impact they had in the past, but they are still valid.
Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t know what they are talking about or is misleading you either intentionally or out of ignorance.
Meta-tags are behind-the-scenes code on each of your web pages that search engines look at and in some cases record or “index.”
There are several meta-tags and one of the most important is called a page-title-tag.
This “tag” is the title of a page as seen in someone’s browser when they visit a page.
It is also the text that shows up in a search engine results page (SERP) at Google (and other search engines) as the “title” of your page above the description of your website.
Another important meta-tag is your description tag.
Some search engines place more value on meta-tags than others. In any case, meta-tags should be optimized with the appropriate keywords and keyword phrases relevant to your page copy.
Will meta-tags alone get you “top ranked” with search engines?
No.
Sorry, it’s not that simple.
But meta-tags are not dead and they do play an important role in your overall search engine optimization strategy.
They should be well written and optimized as part of BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION.
Meta-tag optimization for a 10 page website probably takes between three and five hours to do correctly, including the installation on the individual pages at your website.
Tools
The final step in my BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION model involves setting up the appropriate tools and back-end systems to track and monitor everything.
Would you buy a car without a gas guage, oil guage, or speedometer?
Certainly, not.
How would you know what’s going on?
The same principal applies to BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION.
If you don’t take the time to measure and look at the results you won’t really know how well you are doing.
In this case the tools are Google Analytics (i.e. website statistics) and a Google Sitemap (i.e. sitemap.xml).
Google Analytics is the free website tracking application that tracks and records your visitor sessions; how many people visited your website, what did they do while there, where they came from, how long they stayed, how many pages they looked at, what search engines they came from, what keywords they used when searching that “landed” them at your website, and dozens of other data points.
I include Google Analytics as part of BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION because, in my opinion, the more Google knows about your website the better.
Another way of looking at it: having Google Analytics at your website is like inviting Google to keep a “finger on the pulse” of your website.
SIDE NOTE: Read the terms of service when signing up for Google Analytics. They ARE watching everything!
A Google Sitemap is a file that helps Google identify and then “crawl” all (repeat: ALL) of the pages at your website. Google Sitemaps must first be created and then configured in Google Webmaster Tools.
Both of these tools should be created and configured with a Google Account.
Set-up of a Google Account, configuration and installation of Google Analytics and a Google Sitemap via Google
Webmaster Tools takes about four hours.
Monitoring Results
BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION also involves reviewing your ranking and positioning with search engines and determining if you are moving up as you expected.
Usually I take an initial “snap-shot” and then perform the same review at 30 days, 45 days, and 60 days. It’s best to do these reviews manually and each takes an hour to do correctly.
During these reviews I also review and note all of the competing websites that are ranking for my targeted keywords/phrases. Keeping a close eye on the competition is part of BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION.
“Going-forward” analysis and monitoring should probably be done at 60 day intervals.
Summary
BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is the process of getting your website and its pages optimized for more visibility or “findability” in search engines.
BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, assuming it is done by an expert, will take between 15 and 30 hours, depending on the complexity of the site and the number of pages involved.
Design and Planning – 2 to 5 hours
Keyword Research – 2 to 5 hours
Content Optimization – 2 to 6 hours
Meta-Tag Optimization/Installation – 4 to 5 hours
Tools: Configuration/Installation – 2 to 4 hours
Monitoring and Analysis (first 90 days) – 3 to 5 hours
In most cases, BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION will not get your website or its pages “top ranked,” in other words – into a top ten position on a search engine results page. A year or two back it actually would, but that is no longer the case, in part to changes in Google’s ranking algorithm and in part due to increased competition.
But BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is the pre-cursor to getting top ranked and without BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION you can’t get to the next level – a top ten position on a Google search engine results page.
ADVANCED SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is required to get a website top ranked. Only after an ADVANCED SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION program will you start showing up in one of the top ten positions on a search engine results page (SERP) for your keywords or keyword phrases.
Keep in mind, the more competition there is for your keywords and keyword phrases the more difficult it will be to get top ranked.
ADVANCED SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION involves:
Inbound link building (from other websites and/or blogs).
Blogging with keyword rich blog posts that link back to your website (home page and sub-pages).
Buying links, if necessary, from appropriately high ranked websites that are thematically similar to yours and that passinbound “link value” (this is very difficult to do and very time consuming).
Appropriately using social media marketing using your targeted keywords and keyword phrases in your “tweets” and “posts” (i.e. Twitter, Facebook).
Optimizing for local search.
Optimizing for image search.
Optimizing for video search.
Increasing your overall online visibility (i.e. article marketing, online press releases, etc.).
Monitoring your competition.
Monitoring your position.
Making the appropriate adjustments to your strategy.
Keeping up-to-date about changes to the algorithms and ranking variables of Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.
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