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Factors to consider before starting an SEO project
Before
you start the search engine optimization (SEO) of your
website, there are a few important factors that you
need to account for. These factors are the
following:
-
The
amount of work required to successfully optimize
your site depends on the type of business you
compete in. For highly competitive areas, the
process can be time consuming, because you will need
to create a lot of copy (text). Depending on the market
value of your keywords, the time required to
optimize your website can range from one week to
several months or even longer. To make a rough
estimate of your market value, type your most
important key phrase (do not type one key word) and
look at the total number of returned results. This
number will give you an idea of how competitive your
area is. For
example, the phrase “source code analysis” generates more
than 20 million pages on Google; it has an extremely high market value.
Please
note that there are no scientifically approved or
officially certified rules on calculating these
numbers and determining ratios. As I always say, the
search engine
optimization (SEO) field is
strictly empirical by nature (due to intellectual
property preservation and patents kept by search
engine companies), so all "rules" are determined
by observation, trial and error.
Personally, I found that,
as a rule,
the market value of 4 million is okay to deal with.
Anything over 4 million results for a given web search
will require a lot more work
(it may take a few months to get to the first two pages).
Below are some
relations I noticed while working on multiple
competitive analyses for my clients.
Depending on the market value of your keywords (i.e.
number of search results returned for your keyword
query), your
site should have the following amount of
keyword-rich copy in it:
-
2
million results – at least 50 pages
-
2 – 4 million results – 50-100 pages
-
4 – 6 million results – 100-150 pages
-
6 – 8 million results – 200 pages
-
8+ million results – 250+ pages
It is difficult to say
how many links you need to create, because the more
links you have coming from and going to your website, the
better it is for your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. As a rule of
thumb, have at least 5 links per page, but make
sure that these links are highly relevant to the page
content. Irrelevant links (and content) will do you harm by diluting your
"specialization and expertise" and hence lowering
your SEO ranking.
-
Once your copy and link
creation and search engine optimization (SEO) work is complete, the results may not
become apparent for another few weeks (usually 4-8
weeks). At this time, it is important to start
implementing marketing programs to help increase
your visibility on the Internet (e.g. Google's AdWords, Overture, etc.).
All these programs are quite intuitive and easy to
use, but it will still take some time to become
familiar with them and learn how to use them to the
best advantage.
-
If you already have a
website, you need to be prepared to make changes to
it. In some cases, these changes can be small
while in other cases, they can be quite significant.
What needs to be changed and/or added will depend on
how ambitious your SEO objectives are and how
aggressively you decide to pursue them. In some cases, it is
necessary to re-structure the navigation structure,
i.e. rearrange folder and file hierarchy in order
to ensure better SEO results.
-
You need to be prepared to
post as much
documentation related to your business as possible,
i.e. how-to guides, newsletters, white papers, technology overview, product
description, PowerPoint presentations, demos, etc. This will ensure that
search engines rank your site highly for "relevancy"
and "expertise". Note that it is important
NOT to provide unrelated materials and to have
keyword-rich copy on all your documents; otherwise, your content
may not be ranked as
"relevant".
-
You need to have the cooperation of other members of
your team or, in the case of a larger company, other
teams or even departments, to help ensure smooth
project development and fast results. When it
comes to websites and especially website
copywriting, everyone thinks they are an expert.
To achieve successful SEO results, you would need to
keep your management and your peers convinced that
there are good reasons behind your decisions and
that you know what you are doing. So if you are
NOT the decision maker, but you are the only one
who has researched the topic and understands why
certain things are required for successful SEO
results and how to go about completing them, then
you may find yourself frustrated when trying to
implement proper SEO principles, while also
risking management and peer disapproval.
One very effective way
to avoid this type of turbulence is to hire an
expensive search engine optimization (SEO) consultant to do the job. It is
very rare when someone appreciates quality of
information or service coming their way if they did
not have to pay for it. It has been my experience
consistently that it is only when companies pay
big bucks that they tend to value the service.
Sadly, the higher the price the higher the level of
appreciation (not that I am complaining personally,
of course).
And finally, before you
start your SEO project, make sure you get a
preliminary idea of what your competitors are doing
for their Web Marketing and SEO. Create an Excel
sheet and provide answers to the following questions
(here
is a good format you can adopt):
-
Do they advertise on
Google and other search engines?
-
How aggressively? How
many keywords do they buy?
-
What are those
keywords?
-
Do they have a large
site?
-
Is their copy well
written?
-
Do they provide white
papers, manuals, etc.?
-
Do they offer web
seminar using third-party software? What kind?
-
Do they offer product
demos?
-
Do they offer product
trials?
-
Do they offer
newsletters?
-
Do they sell anything
online?
-
How they collect leads
(check their registration forms)
Once you have completed
a preliminary review of your competitors' SEO, you
can begin creating your own plan.
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With the exception of
savvy technology companies, most businesses
believe that web design and development firms can
ensure successful search engine optimization (SEO) results as part of their
design services. Is this an erroneous believe? And
if yes, does it also mean that web design firms
intentionally misrepresent their capabilities?
In my view, the best
answer to this question can only be given in
relative terms. Yes, this believe is erroneous by
at least 90%, but no, web development firms do
not intentionally misrepresent themselves. Web
development firms also believe that they provide SEO
services as part of their web design packages. But
in fact, they don't. Not anymore, to be precise.
Back in mid 1990s,
when search engines were young and not so clever, and
the SEO field was just being born, web
development firms did, in fact, provide professional
search engine optimization (SEO) services. But at that time the SEO services
for the most part consisted of certain coding and
tagging principles. The SEO rules were few and they
were confined to the realm of programming.
In the last 5-7
years, however, the search engine optimization (SEO) situation has changed
significantly. Search engines have evolved to
become smarter and more effective; their algorithms
and site evaluation matrix have become so effective
that they are now just a few steps away from matching natural human perception.
In other words,
nowadays the way search engines "perceive" and
"evaluate" websites overall is not much
different from the way human users do it. Search
engines now focus on the same things human users do.
And what do users focus on? What do they look for?
Users look for
quality information that provides answers to their
specific questions or needs. They highly
appreciate "specialized" sites with a lot of clearly
written and highly detailed information. They may not
read more than a couple of pages at a time, but they
certainly want to have all the wealth of information
available to them. They particularly appreciate
it when a site provides relevant references and
links to other sites also devoted to the same
subject matter, because it makes their research so
much easier. Users love when information is well
structured and copy is well written so that it is
easy to glance through and sort out what may or may
not apply to their topic of interest. They love to
see available free downloads and other additional
documents, because all this provides more useful
information and also speaks in favour of the site's
expertise.
When users find sites
that exhibit all these signs of "quality", they
bookmark them so that to come back later, when their
need to know becomes more pressing or when they
decide to purchase a specific product. Naturally,
users love sites with simple easy-to-follow
navigation paths and pleasing non-intrusive graphics.
Moreover, users often
form opinions about specific products and services before they even get a chance to see
them. In fact, they often judge products and services by the way
the hosting website looks and by the quality of content it exhibits. In
the end, it is the quality and appropriateness of
content that influences users' decisions most and
foremost.
Not surprisingly, the
quality of your site copy and the level of your
"expertise" are the two most important factors for
search engines as well. To stay focused on the
topic, allow me to forego explaining the mechanism
of how search engines determine expertise. For our
current purposes, suffice it to say is that in
determining expertise search engines look for
references, i.e. links to other highly relevant and
reputable sites within the same field. To summarize,
when determining the ranking of a site, search
engines now primarily "look" at two things: 1)
relevance and quantity of the links connected with
this site, and 2) quality of the site copy and
associated documents.
Having said all this, I
can now answer the question of why it is erroneous
to believe that web development firms can ensure
successful SEO results. When web development firms
build websites, it is exceptionally rare for them to
also write the site copy, let alone provide
associated documentation, such as white papers,
product briefs, how-to guides, newsletters, etc.
And it is your site copy
along with associated documents and links (i.e. your
site content) that influence SEO ranking.
To get the most for
your money, make sure to ask your web development
firm to introduce you to and then let you speak with
their staff SEO copywriter or free lancer.
If this is not possible, then you cannot be expected
to pay for the search engine optimization (SEO)
services as part of the design package, so don't be
shy and ask for a lower price. You have all reasons
to do that!
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SEO project
overview
in 10 steps
The search engine
optimization (SEO) of a site is not
complicated, but it does imply certain skill
and it does take time. Before you begin
working on your site, it is important to know
what is involved in a full-scale SEO project.
Based on my experience working on various
websites, I created a 10-step SEO
project summary that I hope you will find
useful. Please note that the first step is
for the most part relevant to new businesses,
but established companies should also
double-check whether they are listed in the
right category in
dmoz.org
(Google uses dmoz as its database resource):
-
Define (or
verify) your
business category and outline potential
keywords
-
Conduct rigorous
competitive analysis
-
Settle on your
main keywords and key phrases
-
Create a clever
navigation structure: modular and scalable
-
Create a large
and highly specialized website (add
pages)
-
Optimize each
page on your website individually
-
Synchronize your
design and formatting style across the site
-
Create as many
relevant links as you can
-
Add content to
your website regularly (white papers, demos)
-
Follow industry
news and monitor changes (every 3 months)
Please note that this
is a high-level overview of an SEO project. In later
issues, I will discuss each step in detail.
Note from the
Ottawa editor
If there
are specific Web Marketing and Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) topics that you would like me to
discuss in this newsletter, please do not hesitate
to
drop me a line.
For
related Web Marketing and SEO information, browse
through the Resources
section on this site.
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Anna
Tulchinsky 
