When I mention SEO to my clients they get a look on their faces like I am speaking about black magic or a secret potion. Everyone can understand Search Engine Optimization without knowing every bit of technical jargon. This will be a good starting point to the SEO virgin.
What is SEO?
A marketing and positioning tool to improve the ranking of a website in organic(non-sponsored) listings.
SEO Objectives:
- Achieve top ranking on the major search engines
- Enhance the website's marketing quality and attractiveness
- Amplify promotions strategy
- Turn the website into an effective business positioning too
There are 3 components to SEO:
- Copywriting
- Link Building
- Coding
Defining SEO Strategy
Todd Malicoat put it best in a recent interview on the Pronet Advertising blog
For a company to do SEO properly, they need to educate their SEO provider on very in-depth information into their business model, revenue model, value propositions, marketing methodologies, customers, vendors, partners, and more.
It is imperative to at least identify the following items:
- Who the target audience is (personas, information foraging trails, etc)
- Website goals
- Target keywords
- Site structure, interaction design, and usability solutions
- Where to include keywords
The Art of Copywriting
Rule #1: Content is King
Rule #2: Use a natural language(generally, 3-4% keyword density is optimal)
Rule #3: 250-300 words minimum for informative sites (very accordingly for graphics oriented sites). In any other case, less is more.
Tips
Do not neglect the navigation structure, interaction design, and the conversion page. This helps streamline the copywriting workflow process.
Place keywords within your copy, closer to the top
Place keywords in headers and subheaders
Keywords in link anchor text increases value
These tips will give more weight to your website, but remember, do not misuse them. Spamming using these techniques drags the rest of the honest SEOs out there through the mud.
Link Building
Google is ignoring reciprocal links and penalizing three-way links. Link pages are also being disregarded. Be forward looking and pay attention to these trends.
Make reciprocal links natural either through RSS feeds or deliver quality press releases. RSS feeds are a great way to keep people revisting your site and to build natural links.
Do not judge in bound links solely by PageRank. Keep in mind relevancy, quality, visitor statistics, and authority of linking websites
Coding
Increase the relevancy of keywords by including them in the <title> tag; 2x is okay, 3x is spam.
Use short but descriptive titles. If your brand name does not include a targeted keyword, place it at the end.
With Meta-tags, pay attention to marketing quality and do not keyword stuff. Each page should have unique meta-tags.
Use text versions of JavaScript and Flash or use "disabler-agent" tags such as <noscript> and <noframes>
Avoid keyword studding, invisible text, hidden links, doorway pages, cloaking, link farms, header tags, multi-domain spam, and links to bad sites.
That is a top-level view of the "magic world" of SEO. If all fails, focus on one thing: Provide quality content in a usable environment that your target market can actually benefit from.
Content from this post was either copied or edited from an internal company presentation to new employees by Johnny Chan, our Chief Marketing Officer.
