Search Engine Optimization Strategy
In order to rank well organically, search engines must consider your pages to be both relevant and credible. Search engine optimization strategy development focuses on assuring that each page must meet guidelines for relevancy and credibility. With this in mind, much thought and thorough research must be applied to the development of an SEO strategy.
Search engine relevancy has everything to do with how your page content relates to the search query. Search engines quickly examine on-page elements including meta tags (Title, Description, Header, Keyword, and Alt Image Tags) as well as content to determine how relevant your page is to the search query.
Search engine credibility includes age of your URL and the number, nature, and relevancy of incoming links from external sources. Incoming links are considered to be votes of confidence, and a strong linking strategy is a major factor in successful search engine strategy development.
The development of a successful SEO strategy includes:
- Defining your audience and understanding how they search
- In the B2B world, engineers search differently and also have a need for different information than a purchasing manager would
- B2C customers will search differently depending upon age and education demographics, and the nature of their need
- Uncovering the universe of keywords that have economic value to your business is the first critical step and will define:
- Design and development elements that should be part of your website
- The depth and breadth of your site
- Calls to action to engage your visitors to take a step that is meaningful
To find out how people search for what you provide, it is important to:
- Get input from internal staff members. Anyone that has interaction with customers has input that can be valuable.
- Talk to your customers - direct users and anyone involved in the sourcing process, distributors or independent sales representatives can be a good source of input.
- Use a keyword research tool to validate your list and expand upon it. (Perhaps even consider optimizing for a few common misspellings.) Most keyword tools offer a free trial period. As an example, Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com) offers a free seven day trial. While the free version is not as extensive as the subscription version, it will still provide valuable information.
The importance of thorough keyword research cannot be overstated. This is where the tail wags the dog! Take time to go beyond just identifying general keywords that identify what you sell. The long-tail keywords will identify prospects that are more qualified and most likely much closer to making a purchase or sourcing selection.
- Development of vertically aligned, single themed pages is critical in SEO strategy.
- Title tags, description tags, header tags, and page content should all be in alignment.
- Write relevant and valuable content that serves your prospective customers desire for information. Think about the top questions you are asked when talking with customers and address your pages to provide that information.
- A major part of your SEO strategy must focus on incoming links. This is where the credibility aspect comes into play. There is no short cut when it comes to incoming link development. This is an on-going process and requires hard work.
- Research relevant content and make a personal inquiry to the owner of that site. You will have to be creative and convincing to assure that your request is not deleted from the inbox. State a case for the benefit of having a link to your page. Ideally, you would like to get as many one-way incoming links as possible as they hold more merit than reciprocal links.
- Research relevant directories and submit your site for inclusion. Expect to pay for inclusion in many.
- Content links and keyword or anchor text links carry a lot of weight.
- Links from .org, .mil, and .edu domains carry weight but are also difficult to attain.
- Pursue a healthy mix of links (forums, blogs, directories, related content sites).
- Each page on your site must stand alone so focus on deep links to all pages.
- Avoid link farms at all costs.
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