Search Engine Marketing and Optimization

Introduction To Search Engine Marketing and Optimization

Search engines use computers to search the Web looking for pages to index in their database. In order to ensure your pages are indexed for the words that will drive traffic, you need a long term strategy.

Every search engine uses a set of rules, an algorithm, to evaluate your site and rank each web page so you get found in search engine results pages for the queries that will produce relevant traffic and the response you want from the searcher.

There are several core factors to consider to ensure that a site to generates traffic and leads to conversions, a searcher taking some action.

A well developed list ot traffic-generating keyword phrases  that serve as the basis for targeting on the relevant pages in the site.

Having a consistent theme for the site centering around by the targeted keyword phrases.

Having a large enough site.

• One that competes with your online competition,  the larger the site the more relevant it is likely for Google to rank your keyword phrases competitively.
• A site that has enough pages for your targeted keywords, targeting 2-3 phrases per site.
• Search Engine "friendliness"; you must have a website architecture that Google can follow and index (Search Engine Focus).

Navigation and site pages that makes it easy to see your Marketing Focus and find relevant information.

• Clean pages that explain clearly your product/service.
• Clear calls to action, what you want customer/clients to do.
• Clean clear text with Headers for paragraph sections and Bullets when possible.

To increase search engine ranking and drive more traffic, there many essential things to do things to do on-page and off-page  to insure your targeted pages are indexed and you are ranked well for your targeted keywords.. True, it will take time, but the basics are clear, easy to understand, and implement. We'll go over the basics here and flesh out the strategies in the Chapters that follow.

Preceding everything for developing your SEO strategy is determining your Marketing Focus and your Search Engine Focus.

Your Marketing Focus is the "the purpose of the site," the benefit to the customer of your products/services, and your specific calls to action.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Who are our target audiences?
• What products/services do we have?
• What is our site all about?
• How do our products/services benefit the customer, what are their needs, and how can we meet their needs?
• What actions do we want our target audiences to take, and what are our calls to action?

Determining your Search Engine Focus is the second preparatory step.

• Develop a list of the best traffic generating keyword phrases based on your Marketing Focus.
• Decide what pages you need for your website in order to meet your Marketing and Search Engine Focus based on your targeted keyword phrases.
• Lay all this out in a document that everyone can use for the development or redevelopment of your site.

Now to the development of a comprehensive SEO Strategy.

The search engines consider two main areas in determining what your site is about and prioritizing it or ranking it for your keyword phrases.

On-Page Elements. These are the content elements on your web pages; this includes what text you have on you page and your website's back-end HTML coding. On-page optimization is basically about two things:

• Picking the best keywords around which to base each of your pages.
• Making it as clear as possible to search engines that your page is relevant to those keywords.

Off-Page Elements. These reflect the authority you carry on the Web; what others say about your site. This is primarily about the Links to your site coming from other websites and includes relevant sites of your site theme, testimonial sites, Social Media involvement, and Local sites like Google Places.

Let's look at an overview of key elements for your Strategy. We'll look at them in detail in the chapters that follow.

Content is King

Remember the two focal points. For your Marketing Focus you want content your audience finds valuable, engaging, helpful; rich informational and marketing focused content. In addition, it needs to lead them to a desired action.

Your Keyword Focus means you want content that is keyword-rich. This means including the keyword phrases that the search engine will recognize what you are about and On-Page formatting of the content to emphasize the phrases you're optimizing for. This includes Headlines, sub-headlines, bold text and helpful placement of your phrases on the page.

On-Page Elements

• Content as explained above
• HTML Page Title
• HTML Meta Description
• Headings
• Use of Cascading Style Sheets
• Images
• Domain Information
• MOZ Rank
• Google Crawl Date
• URL Structure
• Internal Linking Structure

Off-Page Elements

• Link Building: who is linking to you and how they are linking
• Testimonials
• Google Places and Bing Local
• Social Media to Spread Content

Everything recommended in this training is consistent with Google guidelines.  Here is a video from Matt Cutts at Google explaining that SEO is not Spam, there is also a link there to SEO Guidelines provided at Webmaster Tools. Does Google Consider SEO Spam?

In Chapter 1, Website Theme and Page Theme , here is where we begin preparing to improve ranking and increase traffic.