White hat, organic, PPC, on-page, off-page: Isn’t search engine optimization fun?

Marketers often advise client companies to “lead with digital” in their outreach. Sadly, some of these client companies have websites that are hard to find unless you know just where to look, making it tough to lead.

All around us, optimized websites and micro-targeted digital outreach are revolutionizing marketing, sales, meetings, presentations, and a myriad of other business activities. For the small business competing in this milieu, getting found online is not a finish line to be reached but a de rigueur ongoing discipline to be managed and monitored from now on.

Enter search engine optimization (SEO). It’s hugely important and hugely complex.

Do not despair. Focus on what matters most to you. First, determine who must see your website. If the answer is “businesses that need fire protection systems for buildings in the Central Ohio area,” you’ve substantially narrowed your desired reach and defined your SEO needs.

Second, learn (or get help learning) what search terms people are using to find your company and your services. Are they searching for “fire safety”, fire suppression” or “sprinklers”? Google Webmaster Tools, or a qualified SEO professional, can help you with this task.

Optimize on-page. Updating or overhauling your website? Make sure you or your developer is designing or updating it in a way that at the minimum does no harm. Banish obsolete design platforms such as frames and Flash. Remember that your site must work well on mobile devices.

Make sure you DO incorporate the factors that matter in SEO. Search engines (by which we largely mean Google, which dominates the market) look for content, performance, authority, and user experience. Use of an up-to-date, open-source content management system in site development can simplify your work in optimizing SEO later on. We often use WordPress when developing client websites that will be easy to maintain and update, and that will be SEO-friendly to boot.

Optimize off-page. Off-page SEO includes organic and paid techniques.

Organic off-page SEO entails processes to obtain a natural (non-sponsored) placement on search engine results pages. Make sure you (or your consultants) engage only in “White Hat SEO” (defined by webopedia as the usage of SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that “focus on a human audience” as opposed to search engines and “completely follow search engine rules and policies.”) This avoids the real possibility of actively damaging your SEO results by going afoul of practices that major search engines (okay, Google) condone. Generally, with organic off-page SEO, you can pursue having your pages become the “go-to” for a number of relevant search terms and phrases, bearing in mind your likely geographic market and both the popularity and specificity of the terms.

Paid SEO includes sponsored listings or ads high on search engine results pages. For paid off-page SEO planning and program management, you will use web analytics tools such as Google Webmaster Tools to choose terms that are 1) frequently searched for your topic and 2) likely to be “buy” terms and 3) hopefully, affordable. Remember that you are paying for clicks whether the visitor turns out to be interested in what you have for sale or not. Vague “non-buying” terms of broad general interest are typically not ideal for pay-per-click.

Monitor your efforts, trends and visitors. This should become part of your regular business routine. Fortunately, it can be interesting and rewarding.

They came! They left! Once a visitor has come to your site and then left after visiting defined pages, you can continue to target. Retargeting programs let you track visitors and then remind or incent them by presenting follow-up messages or ads, often on their social media sites. (You’ve probably seen the side ads on Facebook showing a product you just recently checked out on another site). These retargeting services, for which you contract, are available from several companies.

Call for help. If SEO is important to your company, you may be well advised to seek experienced consultants to guide you. The stakes are high and the playing field is constantly shifting. Having basic knowledge of the tools and techniques available to you is valuable, but having the right expert guidance may be the best way to achieve the results you need.

We’ve touched on fundamentals in this article. Of course, there is much more to know – and much more from which you can profit.

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Michelle van Schouwen is president of van Schouwen Associates, LLC, a B2B marketing company based in Longmeadow, MA. The company is known for vSALaunch™, its proprietary, modular and scalable system for B2B marketing launches, as well as its expertise in integrated marketing for B2B. Search engine optimization is important in many of vSA’s marketing launches, and is an area in which the company consults. Contact Michelle at michelle@vsamarketing.com.

© 2014 Michelle van Schouwen

17 comments

  1. Val Johnson says:

    I've been able to successfully sell my high-ticket coaching program using long-form landing pages. My buddy Simon told me they're best used in the sales of high-margin products/services where a lot of information is required in making the purchase decision. The longer the sales page, the more marketing effort goes into producing it, although a solid long-form sales page can be used to sell almost any product/service if executed with top talent. Simon can help you setup long-form sales offers too, and if you're doing any kind of big-ticket sales you should really call him at 240-455-3886.

  2. Steph Riggs says:

    White hat marketing strategies are now achieved its goals so it is very necessary to move your attentions upon organic and natural ways of internet marketing. Search engine optimization is not fun anymore because now Google is strictly treating with website having low quality backinks and poor contents. So be organic in your policy and get organic ranking and traffic too.

  3. SEO Services says:

    nice blog post thanks fpr sharing this.

  4. danysmith5 says:

    Nice Post ! Yes SEO is fun but only for those who can handle pressure at any point and have patience, because frequently Google comes up with updates which always have something new, sometimes it leads to spam our website. I would suggest be patient and keep updating yourself about the Google updates.

  5. Helen says:

    Nice post. The need SEO services increases day by day. The white hat technology has became very popular in this current era. All the seo services together form the best search result. Thanks for sharing this information with us.

  6. SEO is not a simple assignment yet it might be a good time for the individuals who are splendid and clever furthermore like doing cerebrum work. You must screen your endeavors, your guests all the time. An amateur must be mindful of enhance one page and advance off the page.

  7. Kamelen says:

    At this moment video marketing is a important way for publish your video clips. You tube is a important part of video marketing. A famous organization providing Latest tips on Video Marketing !! I think it's really awesome news for all of the people.

  8. Helen R. says:

    I must admit that your post is really interesting. I have spent a lot of my spare time reading your content. Thank you a lot!

  9. martha says:

    White-colored hat promotion techniques are now obtained its objectives so it is very necessary to move your efforts upon natural ways of online promotion. Seo is not fun any longer because now Search engines is totally dealing with with website having low quality backinks and inadequate material. So be natural in your plan and get natural position and traffic too.

  10. Mikhail K. says:

    Check for Online Reviews: A good SEO experts must have a good reputation online. Nowadays, there are countless review websites that you can use to find out more about others' experiences with the consultant who you are thinking about hiring. You can also look for testimonials on the company website; this will give you an idea of the number of satisfied clients who have used the service.

  11. Well honestly I didn’t know so much about thing before reading this post and also by reading this post I too think that the reason that you have mention is quite reasonable so thank you so much for sharing this post.

  12. Wow… nice post. I love it

  13. Steve Parker says:

    Well I totally agree with this line that link building is very important and backlink is a great source of promoting but now a day’s footprint link buildings are very common and are very effective. However thank you so much for this post.

  14. Prachi Kalra says:

    I am glad I came across your blog. It is incredible and informative.

  15. I think this will help to rank well in SERP. yes I know, SEO is not fun. Great post. Thanks for sharing.

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