Good search engine optimization is like a good marriage.

February 15th, 2010 by Colleen Bogart

A strong website is central to the overall success of your marketing communications efforts, and search engine optimization (SEO) continues to be an important component of that strength. The ultimate goal is to get your website to rank high in the organic rankings, so that when a prospect is in the market for your services, you are positioned prominently and with frequency.

But like almost any successful endeavor, the best SEO can’t be executed by one person or even by one team alone. To be truly successful, both the SEO and website development teams must collaborate on common goals, contribute based on their strengths, and be willing to compromise in order to deliver the best outcome.

Be sure to start with specific goals in mind.  For instance, consider describing the ideal user experience.  Also, understand what content is required and preferred, and compare your organization’s website to your competitors.’ Importantly, make your goals measurable: establish benchmarks for number of pages visited and time spent with the pages/site, determine and develop conversions, and aim for particular rankings based on the keywords you develop for SEO.

As there are many facets to search engine optimization, it’s imperative to address them all by employing both onsite and external strategies and tactics. Start with all of the onsite tactics, including: URL, navigation, content, keywords, page objectives, keyword concentration, page titles, header tags, meta-tags, and Alt tags.  Additionally, you can add news and events; post articles, stories, white papers, and case studies; and maintain a blog.

Improving your search results involves more than just your website, so consider external factors like posting articles, repurposing press releases, and updating the local listings/maps for each of the search engines, Don’t forget the importance of a linking strategy.  And maximize social media by combining it with SEO to improve your rankings.  Social media contributes heavily to Google rankings. We expect it to carry more weight with Yahoo and Bing.

Since there are several moving parts, it’s quite helpful to assign responsibilities and build a calendar so that time doesn’t slip away without updates.  So, back to the marriage analogy: you’re in this for the long haul. You will build and/or update your site, and address optimization—but you can’t stop there. Things change: your competitors update their sites; search engines alter their algorithms; and social media are evolving the way search engines value them.

So how to keep our long-term commitments to SEO and site development? Keep your site current by frequently adding content.  And monitor, measure, and optimize.

As with all things in life, balance is critical.  And with the help of an agency, you can ensure that you’re delivering a positive user experience on your site with appropriate content and ease of use/access—all while delivering strong search results.

- Colleen Bogart

This entry was posted by Colleen Bogart on Monday, February 15th, 2010 and is filed under MF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.