Search Engine Optimization FAQs
This guest blog was contributed by John Pulley.
Why does your website need ongoing optimization?
If you’re like the majority of business owners, your inbox is inundated with numerous messages promising to make your website appear on the front page of Google. In this day and age of online marketing, most of us realize the inherent value of being on Google’s front page for our businesses and sales opportunities. There must be something going around the viral circuit, because I’ve been asked by numerous business owners, “Once we get to the top of the searches, why would we need to continue doing ongoing SEO?” – a valid question for those who are not acquainted with all that is involved with getting that ranking. For those of you who may not understand much about SEO, my hope is that this will be a good primer for you as you move into or are already actively working on your website’s SEO.
There are a multitude of factors involved in getting to the top of search engine rankings, and below you will find a few of the many factors that play a part in your need for ongoing SEO.
Being No. 1 means you took it from your competitor
Kudos to you for your accomplishment! Today’s knowledgeable business owners know that being on the top of search engine pages is vital for getting to new prospects who are no longer using the Yellow Pages to find vendors. Think about the last time you did a search online. Did you choose a vendor from Page 4 to get information from? Most likely no. The majority of surfers click on someone from the first page of their search. So now you’ve knocked off your competitor, but you can bet that they are going to do all they can to get back there – knowing that that position will gain them new business opportunities.
People search many different terms to find information
If prospects all used the exact combination of words to find your products and services, you would be able to capture an incredible source of leads. However, we know that different people search in different ways to get to you. For instance, some people may search for “Atlanta copiers” while another group may search for “copiers Atlanta” … not to mention the use of “MFP,” “MFPs,” “copy machines,” and the list goes on and on.
Having a Google-certified SEO expert to determine the most-searched-for terms in your specific cities, counties or states will be key for maximizing your reach online. Expert tools allow you to know all the terms that are related to “managed print services” and how many prospects have searched for them. For instance, some areas may search for “printer management” more often than “managed print services.” Like knowing where the fish are biting and dropping your hook and bait where they will bite, having insight into what keywords the majority of online searchers are using will allow you the greatest chance of successfully getting your business onto their screens.
Getting to the top of multiple searches must be an integral part of your SEO strategy. Getting there for one term will not suffice as a legitimate marketing tactic.
Tags, titles and descriptions
Another reason ongoing work is necessary is because there’s value in keeping up with not only what is being searched for but also assuring that those terms are appearing in appropriate locations on your website. Knowing, as they say, is half the battle. The other half involves the correct placement of terms in the content management system of your website. Like the blueprint of a home, your content, tags, titles and descriptions let search engines connect the terms searched for with the information in the front and back ends of your sites.
Search engine algorithms are constantly changing
The algorithms used by search engines are always changing and being tweaked. What worked last year, or even last week, may not work now. There was a good article written by Rand Fishkin about the changes in rankings factors and their value to getting on the first page. Click here to read more.
You may have noticed in the last few months that Google Places now appear in almost all of your searches. This alone created quite a buzz among those of us working in the industry, as they not only break up the results but also have a completely different set of rules for how to place there.
Without constantly tracking changes like this and aggressively altering your strategy, you’ll likely lose your No. 1 position in the rankings. Corey Smith wrote an article last year that explains a bit more on this subject. Click here to read his article.
Link building strategies
Search engines rely on links to find new and relevant Web pages. They will crawl every page of a website and index that site as well as the links that it contains to see where those links lead. The more links to your site that are found online, the more your site gains relevancy in the eyes of search engines. That being said, getting your links on many websites is tricky business. Search engines are very critical of the types of links you have coming in. Topical and authoritative sites linking to your website gain you much traction, while links on sites that are not relevant can cause your ranking to slide.
Many, many more factors must be attended to
Your website’s architecture, bounce rate, headers, site speed, URLs, fresh content as well as negative factors such as poor content, excessive use of keywords, hidden or cloaking spam, and many more factors must all be evaluated and held in a precarious balance to achieve and maintain successful rankings online.
Contact John Pulley at jpulley@dealermarketingsystems.com.
John Pulley
John Pulley is the business development director of Dealer Marketing Systems, a company with seven years of experience in deploying Web and print marketing strategies that drive managed print success.
Posted by John Pulley on 09/20/2011