Even though search engine optimization (SEO) has been around for a while, many web site owners, internet developers and marketing experts don’t have much experience with it.  Now, SEO has taken a much more active, marketing-driven role. It won’t untangle all your internet marketing issues overnight, nor will it supplement your offline selling questions.  There’s no doubt that search engine optimization is important if you want your brand to be successful online, but it’s not a magic bullet.

 

The Google search algorithm takes into account thousands of factors when determining where a site will fall in the search engine ranking positions (SERP). If you launched your web site in a highly competitive market (mortgage loans, for example), it could take much longer for your site to rank for your chosen keywords.

 

The web is expanding at unbelievable rate, so every day there are more sites fighting for the same amount of visibility.  While SEO will build on itself over time, that doesn’t mean that you get to 6 months, call it even, and hope your past work will carry you through.  SEO is never really finished.

Q : What does SEO really do for my site?

A : In the SEO process, you add targeted keywords into your web site code.  When a search engine views the site, it will rank it for those keyword phrases.  Without SEO, your web site will not rank on the first pages of the search results, and you’ll lose out on the opportunity to sell your products and services to people searching for your business.

 

Quality SEO will also help build your brand presence online, help maintain ( or fix ) your online reputation, push traffic to your site, increase your conversion rate, establish your company as a sector leader or expert, and ultimately help you reach your customers.

Q : Who should handle my site’s SEO?

A : If you don’t have the ability to handle your site’s search engine optimization, then you should either bring in someone to handle your SEO in-house, or outsource it to an SEO company or advisor.

 

Everything that your promoting office does to plug your company can be leveraged for SEO.  If you’d like to keep it in-house, your SEO chief must be combined into your marketing department, not the site development or IT team.

Q. What should I watch out for if I outsource the SEO to another company?

A. If you’d like to outsource your SEO, be sure to do so with a credible SEO firm.  Your SEO manager should work with the sales and marketing team to keep their efforts in line and make sure they are targeting the right keywords. Much of SEO concentrates on creating and publishing content, and you need someone that understands the market. Any company or expert who guarantees to have your internet site ranking number one in Google by the close of the month is probably a black hat SEO practitioner, and should be avoided.

 

Some questions for an outsource company?

1. What are the most competitive keywords they’ve gotten ranked?
   If the company has only gotten non-competitive keyword phrases ranked, then they’re not for you.
   
2. What kind of reporting do they give?
   The basic reporting should include keyword ranking, but a good company will show you the back links they’ve built, articles they’ve written and other SEO metrics to show the campaign is working.
   
3. Where do they do their link building?
   There are 6 different methods for building links: Social Bookmarks, Blog Posts, Blog Comments, Messageboards/Forums, Articles, and Press Releases.  The more methods they use, the better.

Q. After the site is ranked, why do I have to keep paying money?

Paying monthly fees for optimization keeps you on top of the keywords being marketed and continues to build links to the web site.  If the monthly fees stop, the link building stops.  Your web site might continue to rank for a period of time, but after a few months, competitors could start to overtake your positions and you may drop dramatically.  It’s a risk you can decide whether or not to take.

 

These are by no means the only questions you’ll have when beginning your SEO campaign, but they are the most common. When you’re looking to handle your site’s SEO by yourself, you may want to take a SEO training session to learn the basics and answer more strategically-minded questions.