The PROCESS Behind Search Optimizatiion

Explaining search engine optimization (SEO) is difficult in terms of tangibility, but putting it in terms of "what's in it for you," tends to help clarify. SEO results are calculated in two ways - internally, via your traffic, leads and sales and externally, via the presence of your Web site in the search engines. SEO is an important part of any site's Internet marketing strategy, but both the concept of Internet marketing and the process of search engine optimization are rather vague unless you're in the business.

If my clients don't understand the latter, I begin by explaining the former. Internet marketing begins with your Web site, which is an extension of your business. Whether its selling cars or trying to get new clients for your therapy business, your Web site is the cyber door to your products or services. In some cases, your Web site may be the ONLY door to your products or services (e.g., as is the case with me). So Internet marketing starts with your home page - www.yourfabulouswebsite.com - this is your internal Web presence. Once you have a Web site, you want people to know about it by:

1) Registering it with search engines
2) Getting other sites to link to yours
3) Submitting it to Directories
4) Advertising via mixed online media such as banners and email (if you have the budget)
5) Creating a buzz via online press releases, forum posts, perhaps a blog...
6) Promoting it via various offline tactics (e.g., your business card)

All of the above is your external Web presence. The combination of internal and external components combine to create your company's entire Web presence. Any link, image, posting or listing that exists to push people to your site, your name or your business is part of your company's Web universe. My job is to expand your universe so that it reaches the people who will benefit from your product or service and are most likely to become clients (e.g., your target).

Clear as mud?

Search engine optimization is a critical part of the whole messy mix of Web marketing tactics because search engines are THE key way people find information on the Web. A simple way to think of SEO is from the searcher's perspective. When you go online and search for something in your favorite search engine such as Google, you get a list of sites in return. That list comes up based on a series of rules that Google uses to keep those results relevant to your search term. For example, go to Google, do a search for "life coach training" and note that www.icoachacademy.com comes up as the #5 Web site for that term (as of 12/6/04).

THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT, PEOPLE.

ICA is at the top of the results in Google because of a painstaking PROCESS that took me years to create and I continue to slave over on a daily basis. Here are the main ingredients:

1. Keyword Research to find the most appropriate terms for the target market. Factors involved in keyword research include how popular the term is (based on sheer # of searches), how appropriate it is to the target, how much competition there is for that term and how appropriate it is for your business.

2. Content Optimization is performed on specific pages of the site (not every page, just a handful will do although some changes are applied globally throughout the site). This involves writing keyword rich headlines, body text and link text.

3. Tag Optimization is performed on the "invisible" components of the site such as the Title tag, certain Meta tags and ALT tags.
4. Directory submission and search engine submission are performed once optimization is complete. This is a dying art since most of the top directories and search engines charge either a fee for inclusion or a fee per click that's why step #5 is critical to the process.

5. Link placement is a must when trying to get listed in Google. This includes two critical steps - directory submission (to directories that are not in the top 10, but nevertheless have a high Google PR)and reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is its own animal and deserves a separate article all its own, but it is critical to include as part of the SEO process.

That's it! Simple and concrete, right? Now get going - you have some work to do.

by Jacqueline Dooley - http://www.internetmarketingadvice.net/

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