Search Engine Optimization Tips Blog

You all know you have to do search engine optimization. It’s a little misleading to call it that, because it implies that rankings are all there is to the game.

This is where some people get tripped up and start focusing TOO much on the search engines - they get so obsessed with ranking that the start looking for shortcuts to the SERPs. That’s when you get your SEO gone wrong - first it’s gray hat, then flat out black, and pretty soon all you can think of is how to outwit the search engines.

There have even been cases of sites making it to the coveted # 1 spot by sheer volume of content and accumulated back links and PageRank alone - only to crash and burn within six months because of low conversions.

This is what happens when SEO is looked as a tool ONLY for SEO, and the reason for it is not fully realized. There are so many reasons for the components of SEO that really have very little to do with search engines.

Pretend, just for a minute, that there is no search engine. Pretend that the capability to conduct a comprehensive search with the assumption that the thousands of results will be sent back sorted in some order of importance is just not a reality.

How do you get traffic? You have to get out and promote your site, so people will want to visit you. You have to have top notch content, so when they run across it they will read it through and follow your links back to your site. You have to link from any where and every where you can, leading from great comments on blogs and articles in your field.

You need to make sure your website is easy to navigate. You need a map to show your visitors how much more your site is than just one welcome page. You have to take into account the different types of visitors, and what they might be needing, and make it your goal to attract all types and fulfill their needs.

You have to be good enough and interesting enough for them to tell all their friends and neighbors to visit your site and buy your product, and for that you need speedy service, a good contact number and a hook. You have to figure out how to draw attention to yourself, and keep that attention for as long as you can with terrific content and pertinent information.

You have to make sure you keep what you are all about at the customer’s eyelevel all the time by using words that grab their attention, remind them why they are there, and sell, sell, sell your product.

You have to - Wait!!! Doesn’t all this sound familiar? It’s SEO, ladies and gentlemen, without the emphasis on the SE part. O stands for Optimization, and we need to optimize for the consumers first and foremost.

All of the above tactics are what SEO is about, but they all are even more pertinent when it comes to attracting the consumer. Why settle for the traffic the search engine brings you by cutting corners and using tricks to climb the rungs of the SERPs? Do it right, and you can double your traffic from other sources. Don’t stop doing SEO. Just do SEO RIGHT.

A banana split isn’t a banana split without the banana. It’s just a plain Jane sundae. Likewise, without the ice cream, it’s just a weird banana with chocolate sauce and nuts. Leave off the chocolate and nuts, and you may as well throw the banana and ice cream in the blender for a smoothie.

SEO is like that. The content is like the banana. You have to split it between the site and the net for it to really work. It doesn’t do any good if no-one ever gets to see it, so you have to link it together with the scoops of ice cream so people can get back and forth.

The whipped cream is your pay per click campaign. It floats on top, making it look so tasty people have to dip in just to check it out. Hot fudge sauce is your advertising dollars. You have to be careful, or they will spill over the edge and be gone before you know it!

Chopped nuts are your keywords, sprinkled in judiciously where they do the most good. You don’t want to overdo it, but without them the split just isn’t complete. Finally, a widget, gadget or other neat piece of link bait is your cherry on top.

If you build your banana split carefully, you will have a website that is appealing, balanced and contains what many would consider all the necessary components for a good time.

On the other hand, lets look at what happens when you leave out an ingredient.

If you don’t have a banana, you got nuthin’. Your site will languish and die in a puddle of melting ice cream. No amount of cherries will save you! You HAVE to have good strong content or you may as well forget it. The nuts are important too, don’t get me wrong, but the banana, man… the banana is the foundation of the thing.

Next, the ice cream. I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream, right? Ice cream is universal. It holds everything else together. Your link network has to be strong to hold together your content on the link and translate back to the content on your site in the form of traffic and PageRank.

Hot fudge sauce. You might have a little bit of advertising dollars, or a whole gooey pile, but unless you use them wisely they won’t be enough to keep you going. Use the sauce to shore up your whipped cream. A good pay per click campaign can translate into loads of revenue!

Don’t forget the cherry. You already know how link bait can make your website go viral. This bonus traffic is really the perfect top off for a well done split - I mean site.

There are things you can add once you get up and running. A little caramel sauce in the way of an AdSense enrollment can help you mix it up, or even a nice pineapple or strawberry flavored affiliate program.

Just remember that it takes all the ingredients to make a whole, and don’t leave any of them out!

The wisdom to know the difference is key to the whole process, and will save you big bucks which can be used to pay for the things you absolutely can’t do yourself, and also for advertising which everyone knows can be a monthly drain on the budget!

Content is king. Without good content, you site will fail. If you have no sense of what it takes to write a good article and make it optimized for search engine relevance, you need to consider having a professional writer strengthen your site with some pages or articles while you take a crash course in what makes a site run!

On the other hand, do you have a pretty good hand on your content? If you can write well, understand keyword relevance, anchor text and duplication issues, then you may want to write your own. This is great if you have a strong command of the English language and a sense of what it takes to create optimized content.

Remember though, content alone won’t run your site; you have to have a handle on distribution as well. Content on your site or blog is important, but articles and posts out on the web are almost imperative for links and traffic driving. If you are weak in this area, you might consider looking for professional help. A good firm will be able to help you get your content in places it will be noticed.

If you are an avid blogger and net worker, you are probably in a great place to start building a back link portfolio. Talking people into giving you links by showing them how it benefits you is the name of the game, and if you see you inbound link count rising you are doing something right. Try to educate yourself about what makes a good link, and learn to research PageRank to see where you need to focus your efforts.

Then again, if you just can’t get that PageRank on your own site to rise, you probably want a push in the right direction. A little know how makes all the difference, and a quick SEO campaign to get the link juice flowing could be well worth the cost! You could learn valuable things about how link juice travels. If you are smart, every dollar you spend on SEO will also double as an education.

Consider changing the things you can, hiring out the things you can’t change and asking for help in discerning the difference! Your site will flourish and you will be able to concentrate on additions and niches to expand into. Best of luck!

Change is good. In fact, it’s an absolute in a world of inconsistencies and insecurity when it comes to the fickle world of search and find! We have to embrace change, to be ready for it at every turn. We have to have the ability to roll with the punches, and move with the times.

When it comes to our websites, things are usually in a state of flux. Change in necessary to success, as the world of search is constantly altering its focus to deliver more specific results, we must adapt to keep our site on the forefront.

Every tweak the search engines come up with must be met with some sort of corresponding action on our part. If they make links more relevant, we need to beef up our incoming PageRank giving links. If it is decided that quantity and quality of pages is of importance, we better find more content - like, yesterday!

Advertising by way of PPC is another area we are constantly trying to improve in, and attention to our keyword choices and search venues is required to stay abreast of search trends. In short, there are a hundred things that should be done at any given time to improve our sites productivity.

What do you concentrate on? Learning how to manage your time and your budget is critical if you hope to have a prayer of getting everything done. Prioritizing is an absolute necessity. How do you tell what you can change yourself, and what you need help changing?

Decide what your own personal strengths are. You can in all likelihood do some of your site work yourself and save budget dollars for advertising, but recognizing your weaknesses is as important as valuing your own possibilities as an SEO.

Knowing what to do yourself and what to hire out is important. There is no absolute formula for this kind of thing everyone’s abilities are different, and you might have a whole different skill set and level than the webmaster next door.

Most people need a little professional help to make their site ‘be all that it can be’ however, and tomorrow we will look at the different facets of a well done site, and discuss which avenues lead to success. Then you can pick out which ones you feel competent to push forward down, and which you might need a trained guide for.

Remember, there is no shame in not knowing how to do something! The only time to be ashamed of yourself is if you pass up the opportunity to learn. The ability to expand your horizons by (gasp) asking for help is what has made so many websites successful.

Believe it or not, there are hundreds of webmasters out there with accumulated experience who are more than happy to share their expertise. Hang around the SEO blogs and forums, and you might just learn a trick or two.

For those areas you still fall short in, there is always professional help.

Tomorrow: Figuring Out Your Own Capabilities.

 Subscribe in a reader

• Email Subscription by Feedburner