SEO Overview
Search engines generate nearly 92% of all Internet traffic and are responsible for 60% of all E-commerce transactions. The essential objective of each Search Engine is to provide the most relevant results to its users. Today, it is essential for all online businesses to make SEO an integral part of their online business strategy. It’s extremely important to use proven set of ethical, white-hat techniques, optimized online content, navigation, code, etc to make it more search engine friendly, and therefore, naturally rank higher.
SEO People
Sergey Brin (Co-founder of Google)
Larry Page (Co-founder of Google)
Matt Cutts (Software Engineer Google)
Jerry Yang (Co-Founder of Yahoo)
Danny Sullivan (Search Engine Watch)
Bruce Clay (Bruce Clay, Inc.)
Greg Boser (Web Guerrilla)
Jill Whalen (High Rankings)
Patrick Gavin (Text Link Ads, Inc.)
Jessica Bowman (SEMInHouse.com)
Rand Fishkin (seomoz.org)
Jennifer Slegg (Jensense.com)
Vanessa Fox (NineByBlue.com)
David Naylor (Dave Naylor Search Marketing, Inc.)
Eric Ward (EricWard.com)
SEO Pictures
SEO Companies
According to Promotion World the following SEO agencies are the 10 ten player in search engine optimization.
- SEO Image, Inc. – New York, NY
- Increase Visibility, Inc. – Laguna Niguel, CA
- Server Side Design, Inc. – Houston, TX
- Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing – Atlanta, GA
- Bruce Clay, Inc. – Moorpark, CA
- Intrapromote, LLC – Stow, OH
- SEO, Inc. – Carlsbad, CA
- Nebo Web, Inc. – Atlanta, GA
- Zeta Interactive, Inc. – New Yor, NY
- Direct Hit Solutions, Inc. – Libertyville, IL
SEO Methodology
The SEO methodology can be broken down into 6 well defined iterative stages. The starting point can vary from business to business as some businesses may have already had a previous strategy in place. However, most search engine optimizers start from the market analysis.
Stage 1: Market Analysis
The first course of action is to determine whether or not a market currently exists for the terms you believe to be relevant to your web site and it’s business. The Market Analysis investigates the type of businesses and the competitors you will be directly up against.
Stage 2: On page optimization
Deals with all usability and accessibility issues that your web site may encounter. It also addresses the more well known Search Engine Optimization (SEO) issues such as keyword research that allows you to highlight who your target audience is, and what they are searching for. Finding out how many people are searching your product domain can help you focus your efforts, maybe the expected volume of traffic from the top ranking in Google would be too much for you and your web site to handle, and getting visitors to a site that cannot handle the load is only bad for business. The reverse is also true, maybe your expected market is too small and a change in strategy is needed. It also gives you an idea of the web sites you will be in direct competition with, what they offer and what it will take to beat them in the rankings.
Stage 3: Competitive Analysis
Examining who your competitors are and what they are doing, how they portray themselves online, what revenue streams they generate can drastically improve your chances of succeeding online. Not only does it help determine what is needed to compete in the market it will also help you understand what it will take to rank highly within the search engines. Are they doing something that you have not thought of? Is the style of their web site more attractive and easier to navigate around? Do they provide a good level of customer service? All of these are important factors to customers, maybe not too important to the search engines but in the end it is the consumer that matters. This is one of the most important factors in Internet marketing and a company should be constantly keeping an eye on its market, understanding changes that happen within the market, monitoring new players that bring something new to the table and give them the competitive edge. Giving your company the chance to be proactive in an ever changing climate is always a good start to succeeding.
Stage 4: Off page Optimization
Internet marketing and Search Engine Optimization is not just about keyword research and analysis it is also about other factors that affect a normal user’s view of your web site. Such as server down time, which web sites share the same IP addresses and the quality of links that feed into your site.
Stage 5: Link building program
If incoming relevant links are of great importance to your web site ranking then it is fair to assume a proactive campaign is needed to create these incoming links. Highlighting market specific web sites that are relevant to your site is a start, but getting them to link to your site is more difficult. There are a few things that can be done to increase the number of incoming links:
- Make it clear on your own website that you want links.
- Play an active part in online discussion groups and forums.
- Publish a regular newsletter and republish the content on your website.
- Publish articles on other websites.
- Create an interactive tool.
- Create great content.
- Submit your website to legitimate award sites.
- Praise and link.
- Become a source of quotes.
- Volunteer to become an editor for several directories.
101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website
Stage 6: Check your ranking
The final stage in the SEO methodology is to track how your web site ranks after all of your changes. How does your web site fare? Is there more that is needed to improve your web site? Keeping track of your web site will show you how well your internet marketing strategy.
Re-Optimization
Search engines are constantly changing the way they index web sites in order to improve the results they serve back to there users. Keeping on eye on trends and shifts will make sure your web site does not start to fall down the rankings or disappear altogether. The SEO methodology is iterative and infinite in order to keep on top of the rankings.
Challenges
- Site needs to be up next week
- Duplicate content
- Affiliates
- Pages are not indexed (JavaScript, Orphan Pages, Flash, Images, Etc.)
- A/B Testing
Return On Investment (ROI)
Being Found On The Internet
Everyone knows how important it is to be found on the internet. But not everyone understands what it takes to be found.
Turning Visitors Into Customers (conversion)
The key to turning website visitors into customers is providing what those visitors value. You know what they value. They value their time, they value solutions to their problems, and they value trustworthiness.
For more information, please read Predicting the ROI for Future SEO Efforts
