SEO - The Executive Summary

If you are a senior executive, then you should know that there is no better way to increase the quantity and quality of your website traffic than with an investment in search engine optimization (SEO). This is a brief introduction to the complex art and science of SEO intended to give the senior executive enough information to understand the why's, how's, risks and ROI of an SEO marketing program.

The Purchase Process Now Begins With Search Engines

A recent Eloqua survey of 1,500 business professionals in B2B companies found that a staggering 93% start their purchase process with online research, and 64% go first to search engines. The entire selling process has changed as a result of the fundamental shift to online research and buying. No matter what business you are in, the fact of the matter is that your buyers will most certainly be using the search engines to learn everything from what solutions are available to how happy your current customers are. Conclusion: good visibility of your website in search engines is now paramount.

Search Engines Provide Highly Targeted Search Engine Traffic

As frightening as the new sales paradigm is, there is also an upside - the clicks that come from search engines to your website are as well qualified as any sales leads you will ever get. They are actively seeking information about a problem they face and have self-selected your website as a possible source of information and/or a solution. Conclusion: Getting that search engine traffic to come to your website is the vital first step to success.

Google Rules the Search Engine Market

Hitwise released their Feb 2008 search engine market share numbers and, to noone's surprise, Google is still way out in front with 66.4% to Yahoo’s 20.6%, and MSN’s 7.0%. Even more impressive still, Google enjoys over 85% of all B2B queries. Conclusion: SEO initiatives focus first on optimizing for top rankings in Google.

What to Expect From Top Rankings

The difference in traffic generated by a first place ranking vs. a 10th place ranking is a factor of 10! Google shows 10 "organic" search results per page, and usually the top 5 results are visible without scrolling down the page. Don't confuse paid search listings with organic ones either because users know the difference and they click on organic listings 5 times as often as paid search ads. Conclusion: Getting onto the first page of organic listings is good, but ranking in the top 5 is much better, and achieving that coveted first place position in the organic results is the real SEO goal for your optimized web pages.

How Google Ranks Webpages

There are 2 factors that Google uses to rank web pages: Relevancy and Importance. Relevancy is Google's measure of how closely the content of each of your pages matches the intent of the user's search query. Google determines the Importance of your web pages based on the quality and quantity of so-called inbound links (links to your web pages from other websites). The algorithms that Google uses to determine Relevancy and Importance are closely guarded trade secrets, but Google is clear that it will reward good content with good listings. Conclusion: Good content is King with search engines and to try and get to the top of the search results without it is folly.

Getting To The Top of Google - How We Optimize a Website

SEO specialists have been able to gain enough insight through carefully studying Google's methods that we are able to achieve a great deal of success in propelling websites with relevant content to the top of Google's search engine results pages (a.k.a. SERPS). We follow a well-defined and proven 8-step SEO process which focusses first on modifying specific parts of your web pages to improve their relevancy for your selected search phrases. Then we turn to analyzing and building the quality and quantity of inbound links - an ongoing process that is similar to the outreach programs for public relations, industry analysts and investors. This latter part of the process can involve online community-building through new "social media" marketing techniques including blogs, tagging and social networks. Conclusion: This SEO stuff is a lot more involved that you might think and it takes a special combination of business and technical skills to do it well.

The Risks of SEO - What to Avoid

With all there is to be gained by optimizing a website, there are also significant risks if it is done incorrectly. Google has an army of PhD's who are dedicated to figuring out how to identify websites that are attempting to "cheat" their way to the top of the SERPS. This collection of practices is referred to as "black hat" SEO (or unethical SEO) and is expressly forbidden by Google. To ensure the continuing value of its search results to its users, Google will and does impose severe penalties on those that get caught using these deceptive practices. Conclusion: If you have any doubts at all, make sure that you hire a proven SEO expert to supplement your own team's expertise, and that this expert is very knowledgable about what constitutes unethical SEO.

The Rest of the SEO Success Pyramid™

Of course, getting that highly-qualified traffic to click through from search engines is only the beginning. Now you have to convert those visitors into prospects. This doesn't happen all at once, nor is there any easy formula for maximizing your conversion rate. Instead you need to be smart about how you woo your customers. This takes lots of effort and lots of experimentation and is enabled by a good foundation in the form of a well-designed website and an effective web analytics system. This latter system, like Google Analaytics (free) allows detailed measurement of visitor traffic sources and behaviors once they arrive at your website. Conclusion: Once the website has been optimized for search, shift the focus of the web development team to optimize visitor conversions to truly maximize the ROI on your investment in SEO. If this is a new process for them, make sure that you hire a seasoned web analytics expert to help ensure that they are successful.

 

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