Optimization

Tired of not showing up on search engine results pages? 

Search engine optimization - by that we mean a solid SEO program - is every bit as important as online advertising, e-mail marketing, web site design and content. 

SEO is the process of optimizing your site so that you will:

  1. rank better with search engines  
` 2. be found faster by potential customers
  3. increases sales 

Step one - optimize your site organically.
This is how search engines will find you, without having to pay them for it.

Benefits of optimizing your site organically

By improving content, search engines will quickly see that your site has relevance.  Optimizing navigation and layout gives search engines the usability needed to scan and index your information quickly and, ideally, often. 

Designing for visitor and search engine usability goes a long way in getting people to your site and keeping them on your site. 

The expense of advertising to get them there, through say pay-per-click (PPC) is then worthwhile, as you will have a much higher conversion ratio.  

A Word of Caution

One the of best SEO magicians around, Gordon Hotchkiss, will tell you ... no died-in-the-wool SEO professional (so far) gives a hoot about user experience or conversion once visitors land. To them, it's all about gaining number one position with the search engines.   And that is all well and good but ... behavioural targeting is changing all the rules.

Geographcs, demographics and users' personal histories are quickly transforming how search engines deliver results.   What this means is that a keyword search in Vancouver will yield different results than the same one in Arkansas. 

Why? Because searh engines are targeting users differently to that they deliver better and more relevant results.  Think about it.  Not only will you (quickly) find a Chinese Restaurant just down the street from your hotel, search engines will also remember you like Szechwan without msg.

More SEO considerations

• Competitor research    • Keyword analysis
• Link building   • Data collection
• Navigation    • Site analytics
• Content creation    • Site maps

Once all these areas are dealt with, the seo task is still far from complete.   Continuous ongoing  maintenance is necessary; otherwise your investment in SEO can be lost, and your competitors quickly gain ground on your hard won positioning

Ways to Build a Stronger Online Brand

Search engines are continuously finding new ways to identify relevant content and good web usability in delivering search results to users. 

Taking this one step further, think of all the ways you can connect search queries with your brand - press releases, video, podcasts, customer reviews, images, blogs, white papers -  all great ways to intersect your branding message with search.

3 Things You Can Do

1. Keep your site's content fresh, using keywords in your copy;
2. Use good (simple) user friendly navigation;
3. Try some new search friendly web technologies to further establish your brand.   

... and LINK BUILDING!

When your site has great content, other webmasters will want to link to you, which substantially increases your Google PageRank and therefore visitor traffic. Today quality links to your site is a vital component to successful search engine optimization.

It's a worthwhile investment to hire a professional link building service as we have learned that sites need 60-100 quality inbound links to be Google-worthy (a goal few of us have the inhouse resources or time to achieve on our own).


What search engines are best?

Google, Yahoo/ Overture and MSN are the search engines we concern ourselves with the most in assessing sites and optimizing them to achieve better rankings.


Tired of not showing up?  We can fix that.
Call or email me today.   Phone: 604.805-5869

Our SEO services improve the visibility of your site in the organic search results. You get meaningful results while reaping huge savings on PPC keywords. 

To ensure maximum results to our clients, we work with an expert optimization technology partner - assuring you that just about any online search challenge that can be posed by your website will be handled, profitably.

A word about content ...

As we talked about earlier, one of, if not the, most important things that search engines look for is relevant, useful content.

Word of mouth ranks highest in credibility amongst all forms of marketing, online or off. When visitors discover a useful website, they naturally refer others with similar interests.  And search engines are no different - they too strive to provide users with the best sites in whatever area the user is searching.

So do make sure your site is current, has well-written easy to access information, and try to update articles at least once a week... and don't forget the growing population of bloggers and podcasters (technology never sleeps!). 


Need help getting your content up to scratch? 
Let's Talk.  Phone: 604.805-5869
Call or email me today.


Top Search Engines:

Google
Google has a well-deserved reputation as the number one crawler-based service providing both complete coverage of the web and great relevancy, not to mention the host of complimentary add-ons and plug-ins.  

Yahoo! and Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture Services)
Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture Services which was acquired in 2003 by Yahoo!), is an Idealab spin off originally known as Goto.com, that was the inventor of what is known in the search engine business as P4P, or Pay For Performance.

Through partnerships, Overture enabled portals such as MSN and Yahoo! to monetize the hundreds of millions of web searches made each day on their sites.   The business model and its crucial attendant patents were later copied by several competitors, including, most famously, Google under the trademark AdWords.  (source: Wikipedia)

MSN Search
A very popular search engine MSN Search allows you to search for information using tabs for web, news, images, music, desktop, etc.

In the past the service relied on different search engine companies as sources, such as Inktomi. In February 2005 MSN Search released its own search engine index which now includes more than 5 billion documents, 400 million images, and 3 million instant answers. MSN is now also providing other search engine portals in an effort to better compete in the market.

Ask.com
Formerly Ask Jeeves, Ask.com initially gained fame in 1998 and 1999 as being the "natural language" search engine that let you search by asking questions and responded with what seemed to be the right answer to everything. Today these results come from the Teoma search engine that it owns, which is described below.


More Search Engines:

A9 (Amazon)
Alexa
AllTheWeb.com
AltaVista
AOL Search
BlowSearch
Business.com
Clusty
Dipsie
Eurekster
Feedster
Gigablast
HotBot
Jux2
LookSmart
Lycos Search
Mooter
Open Directory
Search Tuna
SearchLimo
Snap
Soople
Sootle
Technorati
Teoma
Vivisimo
sourced in part from John Battelle's Search Blog

Want to Know More?
Call or email me today.   Phone: 604.805-5869

Send me an Email to learn more about how our SEO service guarantees improved results in your search engine ranking.