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 | | Search Engine Optimization | Getting To The Top
If it was an easy task to get listed in the top 10, 20, 30 on the major search engines, everybody would be doing it...right? Understanding how the system works is the first step to building a plan to improve results.
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Infrastructure That Works
Your web site should be designed to work with the search engines on their terms. The first thing to realize is that search engines are trying to produce the best list of individual web pages for any specific key word combination run through the search algorithm. The search engines do not simply generate a list of websites, they generate a list of web pages that contain the information being requested.
Search Engine Scoring
Many search engines will score each of the websites that it knows should be listed. The better the score, the better your ranking for the search term being used. There are programming aspects to generating a good score, and there are marketing aspects to generating a good score. Among the programming elements are: Meta Tag Title, Meta Tag Description, Meta Tag Key Words, Body text and Correlation. Each page of your website should contain these elements. An often overlooked element is correlation – the extent to which all of these items reinforce the search term being used.
Programming For A Better Score
If I type in Barber Shop in Google, the pages that will score best will have the term Barber Shop in each meta tag category: title, description, key word and in the body of the page. The more the term Barber Shop is used throughout the page, the better the score.
To ensure that each meta tag field is being populated accurately, and to build a better scoring profile for each page on our websites, we serve the content of each page out of a database. The title of the product or service automatically correlates to the meta tag title. The opening paragraph which summarizes the item being described will automatically be correlated to the meta tag description for an exact match in correlation – producing the highest possible score for each page of your website.
Marketing Techniques That Improve Rankings
A major factor in creating a good search engine score is popularity. The more popular your website, the higher it will rank. An indicator of popularity is the number of sites that reference yours for content. Reciprocal linking is the process of getting vendors and key trade contacts to reference your website. The best results come from sites that reference specific pages in your website and use the same terminology describing your content as you do.
If you invest in trade associations, chamber of commerce activities, sponsor events, etc. you should manage the process of ensuring that your site is referenced and linked appropriately to those sites.
Pick Your Keyword Battles Wisely
Focusing on the keywords and phrases that profitable customers use to describe your company is the first place to start. Amazingly few businesses start the keyword process with a survey of their best customers. A brief phone or email survey could produce amazing results.
Take a sample of clients, create your best list of key words and present them – asking for them to circle or indicate the ones they felt describe your company best. Include in that list key words borrowed from your competitors’ websites and from industry websites.
We have found that the words used by clients are often different than those used by company insiders. The battle you want to win is to be ranked higher using the key words your clients use, not the ones you expect them to use.
Once you know your key words, use them everywhere you can within the context of your website to build a better correlation. Use those same key words in press releases, and make sure that any site referencing yours uses those key words in the reference. A solid key word strategy shapes the website content around building a better key word score.
What Is That Word Worth?
A solid search engine optimization strategy will help you understand the real dollar value of individual keyword placements. Setting up a system that quantifies and correlates keyword data to sales activity takes the mystery out of resource allocation. We use databases to serve up website content. In addition to making the website easier to update and search, a database platform is ideal for statistical analysis. We can track the increase in activity to specific product queries as it relates to a higher ranking for specific key words. We can also track the increase in orders or product inquiries.
Doing the math is easy. Determining what impact a higher ranking for any particular key word will have on business then determines how aggressive your ranking strategy should be. You can sponsor key words and pay-per-click for traffic to your site. This strategy simply requires back-end measurement to determine which key words to invest in.
Moving Targets
Anybody with the time and money can take your ranking at any point in time. Getting where you need to be and then maintaining that position once you are there requires regular testing and adjusting. The process should be routine.
We recommend a quarterly cycle of measuring rankings, reciprocal linking, modifying site content and key word coding, and investment in key word sponsorships. Every day new websites will be published or your competitors will try to take your positioning. Specifying your targets and knowing the plan of attack will prevent key targets from being missed.
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