Your Search Engine Optimization Strategy

Search Engine Secrets: As simple as 1,2,3.

Part I)
Since I was in the New York Times way back in 1996, I observed in horror people who claimed to be experts touting the newest secret of the search engines.  Some will say to place white words on a white background, but they were defeated by newer search engine technologies. While I never did jump on board with tricks because much as in life in general, the easiest things to do are rarely the most effective and long term strategies. Example: One of my customers decided they would follow the rest of the lemmings over the cliff, even if this isn’t what they do, and get a Facebook profile page. Sounds great right? I mean, don’t you always do what every other person does because it is popular? And don’t run your business by blindly jumping into the next big buzzword! How about Twitter? How about NOT! Pass on these sites, at least until you have an actual plan!

Part II)
If you haven’t even produced a basic keyphrase strategy to develop your online marketing plan then you’re leaving your online strategy up to chance! Is that how you run a business? When you get into Facebook and twitter, how will people find you there? In Google? When you get into these, or other social networks, like CyberVillage, you need to have a strategy. This strategy includes the frequency you will post to your social network pages, what the titles of these posts will be, and keywords you will include in the text and tags. Otherwise you are flying blind.

Part III)
Your keyphrase strategy should include two basic components…

1) Strengthening keyphrases people already find you with. Implement Google Analytics, it is free, and spend a month watching how people find your site to establish a baseline metrics. Purchase Advanced Web Ranking basic edition and find out what keyphrases you already own.
2) Rolling up your sleeves and going after keyphrases you know people search for, but you are not listed with in Google. It is best to start with niche phrases with three or more words per keyphrase. We’ll also be looking at Bing to see if that is what they claim soon!

Once your keyphrase strategy is established, then you HAVE to make sure that you, and everybody in your firm, conform to the strategy when they write news releases, marketing material, web pages, etc. The next most critical thing is that page titles, tags (meta and blog), content, image names, link names, INBOUND referral links AND Web addresses MATCH some part of your keyphrase strategy. This is the only way to ensure that Google understands the keyphrases that best match your site and that will drive traffic, leads and sales.  Even if you just get the plan made by a third party then underpay and intern to carry it out. Trust me, the intern is not going to know how to build an effective plan just because he has 10,000 FaceBook friends!

Lastly, watch the metrics too see if the plan needs to be altered from month to month. This is time consuming and challenging at times, but a great long term investment.