Search Engine Optimization, usually abbreviated to the initials “SEO”, is the process of working on a web site in order that the web site comes up higher in the search listings when people search on relevant keywords that describe the content of the site. The purpose of this effort is to get more interested visitors (“targeted traffic”) to the web site, and in the case of a business site, to increase the web site’s revenue, whether it is revenue derived from selling products and services, or earned through advertising or affiliate commissions.

One of the most attractive things about search engine optimization is that unlikely advertising using AdWords or pay-per-click search engine, there is no cost associated with each individual visitor to your site. This means, a successful SEO campaign can be extremely profitable. However, there is also a negative aspect of this – it can be hard to predict the returns from search engine marketing. Indeed, it is even possible to spend a lot of time and money on SEO activities, but for these to generate no extra traffic, and in extreme cases, to even worse your existing search engine rankings.

The first step to successful SEO campaign is data analysis. You need to look at your site carefully, look at data from search engines, and find the comnbinations of keywords that you should focus on. These need to be keywords which are popular with searchers, but not extraordinarily competitive, and are also relevant to your web site’s content.

The second major step in SEO are activities designed to increase your web site’s ranking on your chosen keywords. These activities may involve modifying your web site’s design, modifying your site’s content, and getting other sites to link you.

Both steps involve working with large amounts of data, and carefully reviewing it. To be fair, they also involve a fair amount of repetitive work. Obviously if you are doing these types of things entirely manually, quite apart from the boredom factor, there’s lots of possibilities for errors. Furthermore repetitive activities involving large amounts of data are extremely time consuming. In short, this type of work that computers are better at than humans, and which suitable software will be able to make light work of.
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Have you ever really considered Search Engine Optimization (SEO) from the perspective of the consumer?

Usually I talk about SEO in terms of helping business owners get more business as their site shows up sooner in searches. While this is a noble and profitable goal I want you to place yourself in the shoes of a consumer.

In other articles I have talked about the entitlement mentality that is rampant among website users. They want information – and they want it right now.

That’s where your hard work with SEO strategies matches up with the consumers demand for immediacy. It is possible that a search engine user will need to back up and refine their search from time to time, but for the most part they’d like to find what they want to find on the first search. When you do an effective job and maximizing SEO within your site the consumer can access your information sooner.

The sooner they find you the sooner they can determine if they want to spend money with you. Isn’t that what you want?

Business is always geared toward the needs and expectations of consumers. Without that motivation the role of business would be stagnant with an unhappy buying public.

If your site caters to the needs of consumers within the site then you should pay close attention to the way they find you.

I’ve conducted thousands of online searches, just like you, and it can be frustrating when I really need to find something very specific and it becomes clear that the site I ultimately find it on hasn’t applied correct SEO to their site. If it weren’t for the fact that I really wanted a product I would have given up much sooner and determined I could live without whatever it is I thought I wanted.

In many ways your search ranking is a bit like a flexible yellow pages listing in a phone book. You have the power to improve the way search engines view and rank your site, but too many times business owners act as if this should be of little concern and their listing slips to the bottom of the list.

You may be able to improve visitation through buzz or viral marketing. However, since most business owners want to spend more time doing business than working on viral marketing then a firm foundation in SEO is a pretty important consideration.

Consumers don’t need or even want you to explain how and why you developed SEO strategies. Most of them won’t know what that is, nor will they really care. All they really know for sure is they wanted to find something specific online and they found it in your site.

If consumers really understood SEO they would be the first to tell you to make that a priority if you want their business. If you don’t use SEO to your advantage you are banking on the notion that your potential customers enjoy finding your business in the same way someone finds a proverbial needle in a haystack.

If you don’t want to pursue SEO for your own sake then at least think of your customer’s needs.
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SEO and SEM are similar sounding but two different terms which should not be confused with each other. The former means Search Engine Optimization, while the latter means Search Engine Marketing. SEOs have taken a front seat of late with hardly any payment made in direct marketing as such as in the case of SEM. Looking at the growth of the internet historically, SEMs are what drove the search engines of the past before the onset of Google.com – the giant that controls a lot on the internet in today’s day and age. SEMs meant that anyone with the money could buy a place on the search results of a Search Engine. This would mean a lot of profit for the engines of course, but that also meant that the users were simply restricted to content that was being paid for rather than really relevant content that they might have needed.

When Google arrived, all this changed. In fact, it could be arguably said that SEO, as a trend for greater ‘marketing’ of the site, is hugely affected and came into being due to the amazing technology and philosophy of Google. Google guys believed that users need to have relevant information delivered to them when they made a particular search. They should receive information that is relevant to what they have told the ‘computer’ and not simply get bombarded with huge amount of irrelevant ‘paid for’ marketing material.

Google went on to develop the coding that made sure their search engine gave the users information from all over the internet based on what they typed in the search bar. Of course, this did not happen through pure magic. There is a huge amount of coding and algorithmic calculations happening within Google’s computerized brains. This takes into considerations many factors that also include the appearance of the keywords or similar words that the user searched for within a particular webpage before showing the said page in the search results. THIS is one major factor that SEOs try to take advantage of. SEO is considered to be a method of ‘naturally’ bringing the web page on the higher search results. This means that the web page shows up on the results of Google as a web page that confirms to the conditions the search engine might have for ‘relevant’ information rather than the high ranking being the result of paid for marketing.

This could save a lot of money for site owners. It becomes a race of giving more ‘relevant’ information that simply having to spend high amounts on powerful and big brands that run various kinds of search engines. What does this mean for the end consumer?

It means that the site owners still have to make sure they have quality information on the page. No matter what amount of SEO is done on the page, when finally it only delivers a page full of relevant keywords with no useful information as such, any visitor would leave to never return. This in turn affects the search rankings since intelligent coding with Google and such sites takes into consideration how long the visitors stay on a site.
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If you are not getting enough traffic to your site and have tried all the social networks like Facebook, Twitter and My Space but still not reaching your audience the problem could be your link status. 

Many internet marketers do not take the fact that the quality of your links makes a big difference in how the search engines view and assess your rank especially Google.  The higher the page ranks you are linked to gives your site more authority and recognition in the search engines.  So how do you even find these high ranking page sites and how much time does this take out of your day? 

Most people can tell you it takes days and days of work, researching and linking if they are even accepted in the end.  Finding Page Rank 5 to 9 sites is no picnic and you can outsource this work but you would have to monitor your contractor to ensure the work is done properly which also takes up your time.  Today we do not have enough hours in the day -writing articles, spreading the word about our content, and ensuring that people are finding our sites on the internet.  There are billions of sites competing with you for the same traffic and it requires diligent effort to keep your site up on page one for your keyword and niche.

The software programs that currently are flooding the market promising to give your site authority and high page rank site links is a trial and error process.  Many simply do not measure up to what they promise until you find a product that automates this service and performs the task of linking your site to high page rank sites.  A woman by the name of Angela V. Edwards does the research for you and finds 30 High Page Rank sites for you each month. She does all the work and shows you the way to link to theses sites which adds great authority to your site which improves your rank quickly.

There is also a software program that Angela has teamed up with called Linking Loophole Software by Peter Drew.  This software was introduced just recently and already the newest version is creating much excitement with internet marketers and bloggers.  The software automates the linking process effectively and seamlessly which saves you days of time and effort and you will be pleased as I was with the results.

There is a one dollar trial offer to give it a spin and a video to show you how to use the software -but since Peter Drew is always perfecting his programs you can expect even greater results in the near future.   If you find yourself in the same boat of not linking to higher page rank sites -the solution is automate and let the software do all the heavy lifting at the push of a button.  I have personally tested the software and have dramatically increased my rank in the search engines and Google.  After several years of wasting my time with Page Rank 1 or Page Rank 2 site links, I did not realize this part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was part of the evaluation of my sites.

As I continue to grow-this software will be part of my tool chest to promote my site and grow my traffic in various niches which will improve my business and marketing efforts.  If you want to view a video on how this works you can see for yourself. Linking Loophole Video Demo
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“I want to be number one on Google for (insert hyper-competitive keyphrase here).”

It’s usually the first thing we hear in terms of search engine optimization – a company wants to be in that coveted top spot on Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and MSN. No matter the industry or specialty, when companies approach us with their desired goals for an SEO campaign, it’s usually all about improving their rankings and positions…and often nothing else. Yes, achieving first page rankings or top spots on the search engines is an incredibly desirable accomplishment to many companies who want immediate and noticeable results. But with such a considerable investment in an SEO campaign, you’d think companies in need of search engine optimization services would also be concerned with their overall ROI, especially in light of the current economy.

Vastly improved (or even #1) rankings are rather easy to achieve in an SEO campaign, even by a novice search engine optimization company. I once wrote an article demonstrating that top rankings were simple – and proved it by optimizing the article for the phrase “Leprechaun Repellent.” To this day, that article, on various sites, takes up nine of the top ten spots on Google for the ridiculous phrase. The obvious question, then, is what those rankings ultimately accomplish. And so we peel back the layers of the onion until we get there.

The First Layer – Rankings

Rankings, rankings, rankings. This is by far the most popular metric for any SEO campaign. Occasionally, a search engine optimization company may not be concerned with your bottom line because it can offer guarantees and focus exclusively on achieving this goal (even though, as in the ‘Leprechaun’ example above, it’s really not getting you anywhere significant in the long run).

Rankings by themselves mean little, and the problem with companies obsessed over rankings is that it doesn’t demonstrate the usefulness of search engine optimization. For a company website, high rankings are great (and impressive for an SEO campaign), but they are just the first layer of the onion. As any good search engine optimization company will demonstrate, our goal is (and yours should be) to bring and/or improve the levels of high quality traffic to your website, meaning visitors who come to your website via a search are already reasonably interested in your products or services.

The Second Layer – Search-Engine Referred Traffic

Increasing search-referred traffic is not a perfect metric because, if visitors are not converting on your website, there’s not a big value proposition to be had. Alone, the metric relies heavily on the right keyphrase selection by your search engine optimization company during the beginning phases of your SEO campaign.

Say that a farming supply company who wanted to be number one on Google for “affordable farming equipment” decided to try a different tactic while attempting to improve its search-engine referred traffic. If the website had been optimized for ‘Britney Spears,’ for example, traffic levels would undoubtedly be high (if the site ranked well for the term – admittedly a huge challenge), but few visitors would be converting, and business, in turn, would be far from booming. Visitors will jump ship immediately and serve as an immediate reminder of the negative impact that poor phrase selection by your search engine optimization company can have on your long-term ROI.

The Third Layer – Take Rate

Essentially, the take rate refers to the number or percentage of search-referred visitors showing interest in your products or demos (your POA or Point-of-Action). The take rate merely signifies a visitor who demonstrates an interest in your POA, for example, by clicking on a “Contact Us” link. The data you’re gauging here is simply overall interest, since not all of the visitors will follow through and actually convert.

Fortunately, there are ways to improve your take rate during the SEO campaign – making the point-of-action blatant and clear on every page is usually the most effective (but overlooked) method. Collaborating with your search engine optimization company to make certain that the primary POA on your website is indeed the most desirable action that a visitor can take is of paramount importance.

The Fourth Layer – Conversion

Strictly speaking, “Conversion” is the percentage of visitors to your website that actually follow through with your POA. Once your search engine optimization company has helped you improve your take rate, you should work on getting more of those people to actually convert. Is your form too long? Do you show a prominent privacy policy promising not to use or sell personal data? Is it a quick, easy process or do people have to jump through hoops? A good search engine optimization company will be able to help you to identify the elements that are serving as barriers to conversion.

The Fifth Layer – Offsite Metrics

If a client allows it, we like to get involved in the nitty-gritty of offsite metrics as part of the SEO campaign. Though the usual search engine optimization company doesn’t go this far into the process, this area alone proves invaluable to demonstrating your ROI.

By analyzing offline metrics on a granular level, your search engine optimization company can examine and report on your average dollar sale for search-referred traffic, the average dollar value of each search-referred lead, the average lifetime value of each search-referred lead, and much, much more.

A software system is usually required to report the data acquired during your SEO campaign; we use Salesforce, a leading CRM (customer relationship management) solution that can be implemented to track these statistics for you. Though it requires diligence to analyze (as well as follow leads from cradle to grave), your company can analyze which engines attracted the most visitors, which keyphrases were the most profitable, the value of customers, and retention levels.

More than Rankings

All layers of the onion, so to speak, are important to an SEO campaign, but the closer you get to the actual dollar return, the more accurate your assessment of success or failure will be. Rankings alone are no indication of success. For that matter, neither is search-referred traffic if the visitors don’t take an action on the site that can lead to a sale. And when the lead finally comes in, there is no way to track the value unless you follow up with offline metrics to determine exactly how much leads from your website are worth.

These are all base metrics – many campaigns are much more involved and use thousands of different data points. But if you are new to the conversion/ROI game and are thinking about hiring a search engine optimization company, make sure that its goal is to be attuned to your bottom line.

(C) 2009 Medium Blue
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