Continuing
my Digital Marketing Fundamentals Series, I’ve added a few marketing insights
with regard to Search Engine Optimization. Note that key to SEO is an SEM strategy that is complementary. Companies need to be realistic in the SEO
efforts and know that they may be able to achieve better Search program results
by redirecting their Search budgets from SEO to SEM.
As always, begin
your program with a Search strategy and be sure to measure and optimize your
program. The below outlines some fundamentals to improve your site’s organic
search results across multiple search engines.
Keywords: Select key words should be placed
in title tags, meta tags, alt tags, text links body copy on each page of the
site. Site should focus on 3 to 4 keywords per page for optimization.
Copywriting: Site content should be written with two audiences in mind: 1. Target
Consumer, 2. Search Engine Spiders that index sites. Text blocks and paragraphs should be led with headlines with keyword-rich copy.
Linking: Site linking strategy should focus on inbound, outbound and on-site links.
Inbound Links: Quality of links matter over quantity. Links should be acquired
consistently, not all at once. Plan to work with referring domains so that
links are formatted using keywords and embedded in external content. Outbound Links: Plan to use keyword-rich
anchor text for links leaving the site. On-site Links: The site should be designed
with adequate link navigation between all top-level and keyword-rich content
pages. Always consider creating a site-wide site map with content and links for all
site pages to facilitate optimization.
Creative
Execution: Search Engine Spiders cannot index text or
audio that lives in images, Flash components or media files. Therefore, develop spider-friendly and keyword-rich HTML content that will live on the
same page as the Flash files. Additionally, avoid using images to
render text, where possible, so that keywords can be indexed. Note that alt
text on images do not receive as much weight from spiders as plain text
rendered in HTML.
Development: Development guidelines should be created and shared with site developers
so that code is optimized for spiders. Optimization tactics should include; meta
tags (titles, descriptions, keywords)- though meta data does not receive as
much weight as they used to, Using HTML with proper title tags, heading tags
and alt attributes that are given more weight by spiders, use flat directory
structures in Web applications as spiders view content as less relevant the
deeper it lives on the site.
Measurement: Post-launch benchmarking is critical to ongoing site optimization. Once
in market, reports should be generated to demonstrate site ranking compared to
competitor site rankings across selected keywords. As part of the ongoing
maintenance of the site the site will be optimized according to best practices
to demonstrate improvements in keyword rankings.
