The Science of Marketing

The importance of the web in delivering your company’s message is undeniable and, if it’s done correctly, you can see measurable results quickly. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a tool for delivering your message and measuring its effectiveness on the web. SEO can increase traffic to your web site, which means growth for you company. We’ve all received solicitations by SEO experts, but does it work? And if it does work, is the right message getting out? Is your website organized to trigger a buying action? Are you measuring the results? SEO has real measurable benefits if you pay close attention to three things – message, mechanics and maintenance.

Message

The foundation of SEO is having web content that is relevant to your market . The goal is to have the right keywords – those that your potential customers use to search for your product or service. So you need to craft your messages in terms of those keywords and use them effectively in your content. A good web developer infuses your keywords throughout your site in your content and throughout all of the relevant site components.

Mechanics

After you have good content developed and your keywords selected, it’s time to put it all together. There are several components that affect search engine optimization in the mechanics of your site. The five top components to SEO are:

• Web Page Names – think strategically about the actual names of the web pages.
• Web Page Title Tags – for optimal results, these need to be unique on a per page basis for best results and they need to be related to the content.
• Web Page Meta Tags – the meta taps for the site description also need to be relevant to the content and unique to the page.
• Relevant Inbound Links – to move up in the search ranking, your site needs relevant inbound links – from other sites that link to you.
• XML Site Map File for your site.

Each of these components carries technical requirements that need to be addressed; not the least of which are the inbound tags – critical to your site’s visibility. Inbound links are counted as a "vote" for your site, specifically by Google and other search engines are following suit. Additionally, the content of an outside web page that links to you is also measured and rated for relevance to your content, keywords, page name, page title, meta description and most importantly your content(see Message above). Lastly, the the way your web content is constructed is extremely important. This construction is called "semantically correct coding", the placement of keywords in relevant content layouts throughout the web site. Bulleted lists, headings, links, alt tags, etc.; they all need to be coded in a proper and organized manner.

Maintenance

Maintenance of this chain is critical. Your site can "drop" in rankings and its effectiveness can wither without modifications to your message and mechanics. Maintenance includes keeping track of keyword relevance to your product or service and maintaining and updating inbound links, outbound links, page title relevance and meta tags. (Sometimes these forces warrant a reworking of your company message.) With available tools, your company can get quality metrics including who visited your website, how they got there and what they have purchased. Transactions driven by your attention to SEO is the ultimate measurement of success.

SEO is all about driving traffic. Similar to the real estate adage "location, location, location", not only do you need to create a strong message but the message must be "located" on a site that clearly articulates your message not only to your market but to the search engines. Think of search engines as an audience, a group of visitors to whom you need to tell your story. Once you’ve achieved the goal of articulating value to search engines, they, in turn, push traffic to your site, strengthening their bond with their user base by providing trusted results to their search queries. Search engines are your ubiquitous real estate agent that never sleeps.

SEO components are all intertwined, but manageable, and great results are achievable.

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