Online Marketing Part 2: More on Search Engine Optimization

Now that we've introduced it, exactly what is search engine optimization. Well, put plainly, it is a series of coding on each individual page of your website that makes it easy for search engine bots (machines that visit websites and collect pertinent data about the site, such as what your site is about, what its relevant search terms are, how many other sites link to it and find its content useful, etc.) to find your website, tag it as relevant to certain keywords and include it in search results. There have been tons of debates about search engine optimization and how relevant it is to today's marketing efforts. But there is one thing that I can assure you of, it's always helpful to make things easy for the search engines.

Search engine optimization itself covers a vast amount of topics and procedures (which is why most professionals and businesses leave it up to SEO firms), and it would be utterly pointless for me to get into all of it now (and very nearly impossible). But there are a few key things that will be very beneficially for you to know. Even if you can't perform the operations yourself, you'll at least know exactly what to ask your SEO specialist when the time comes!

There 5 little tidbits that I'm going to divulge which will do a world of good for any website owner to know. The first 3, called META tags, are normally grouped together. These are the foundation of your site, the title tag, description tag and keyword tags that are necessary to draw the attention of the search engines. The thing to understand about these tags is that they aren't visible to you, me or your website visitors. They are a part of your website's invisible structure, but a very important part and the starting point of SEO. Your title tag will give your website a title. That's the initial factor that tells the search engines and your visitors what your site will be about. Every well-developed website out there (perhaps with the exception of the search engines themselves) has a title tag. The way it'll translate to you, is the topmost bar of your web browser , like below:


This tag describes in shorter words what your website offers. We can tell by this tag that Paypal offers merchant services and credit card processing. Your title tag needs to be just as descriptive - direct and to-the-point! Your description take should be no longer than 200 to 250 characters, and describe your site and services in a bit more detail. And your keyword tag should list every keyword that you feel is relevant to your site's content. A good rule of thumb is to take your most important 2 or 3 keywords, and make sure they're included in the other 2 tags, as well as your site's content.

Next is your sitemap. Few know that importance of this feature, but trust me when I say it can make all the difference between your site being included in search engines in 6 to 8 weeks or 2 weeks or less! Your sitemap is just a graphical stucture of your website, with clickable links that make it easy to navigate your site. But it's not just for visitors. Your sitemap can actually be submitted to search engines for separate indexing, which helps your site to be included faster, and rank higher! There are several programs out there that will help you create the kind of sitemap you need for submission to search engines, and your designer should also be familiar with how to create this (so here we have yet another questions to add to the list: Will you be creating a sitemap for my site?). I suggest XML versions submitted to as many of the search engines as possible!

Now, the last are the "alt" tags associated with images on your site. Attaching an alt tag (just a short description of each image) that contains your main keywords can greatly affect the ranking of your site. I suggest a web design do this with each image on the site, including (especially) logos, header images and the other forgotten structural images. This will increase the keyword density on your pages without your ad copy being flooded by a few of the same words ( that's a pretty noticeable and tacky way to increase keyword density). Not to mention, more and more people are doing searches for images these days. Imagine that you have 100 images on your site, and all have been equipped with alt tags. Each time a person searches through images on a search engine for any of those keywords, all of your images will show up, linking back to your site. That's 100 times for a person to be introduced to your site (especially if they like your images).

There's a whole lot more to SEO, but these should get your started (and give your designer enough to do to earn their pay)! You have to start with a structurally sound website that will draw potential customers in and keep them there. So our two main focuses throughout this blog will be getting them there, and keeping them there. Part 3 of this series will cover the remaining basics of web design and SEO. If it's all greek to you, just send your designer over because the basics have to be covered to get the rest going! Happy webmastering!

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Online Marketing: Understanding the Way of the Web

In order to be successful marketing any product or service online, you need to first understand how the flow of the web works, where traffic comes from, and how to reach your target audiences at those places (where it really counts). If you've been making your way around the web for the past few years, then I'm sure you've heard of terms like "SEO," "optimization," "search engine ranking," "page rank," "linking..." The list really goes on and on. But what does all of that mean to you, and how will any of it help you reach your most important goal, of getting targeted and quality visitors to your website to purchase your wares?

There are so many different directions to go in, so bear with me. We'll start at the very beginning, before we even worry about promoting what you're selling! So, you've been officially granted business status, and one of the first thing's you're encouraged to do is go out and get a website, right? Well, whoever gave you that advice knew what they were talking about, but it's not as simple as just "getting a website." There are a lot of components that will cause that site to sink or swim, and surprisingly, you have control over a good bit of them! So we'll start with design, and go from there.

For the professional that's less web- or tech-savvy, your main option becomes hiring an "experienced" designer to create and maintain a website for you. Unfortunately, this is where most professionals make the biggest mistake. There are experienced designers out there who charge hundreds or even thousands to create a website to your specifications. The problem is, are you really getting what you paid for? Let me explain. Being in web design myself, I know quite a few designers who are brilliant on the design aspect, but falter or fail completely when it comes to the more technical aspects of building and maintaining a website (i.e. all the fancy flash in the world won't help your site rank any higher in search engines, or bring you any more traffic). The design is really all they can do, which leaves you hanging and forces you to hire yet another firm to tie up the loose ends, like optimizing your site so that it can be properly and regularly included in search engines. In a nutshell, you're left spending thousands on a half-done job, and all because of a few questions you didn't know to ask.

So what are these questions? Well, it's simple. I'm a web designer, and I know how to make sites look good, and function properly when internet users visit them. But I'm also a small business owner, and I know how important it is that a steady flow of targeted visitors makes it to my site. I've heard all about search engine optimization (and you will too, before we're done) and I know that my site has to be properly optimized in order for the search engines to find me and include my site in their search results. So having the best of both worlds, I've taking the time to learn the in's and outs of both design and optimization, so that my sites not only look good, but perform well and are easy for potential customers to find. A web designer who thinks along those lines is what you need. I just feel that search engine optimization is one of those things that goes along with designing a website. So one of the main things you should be asking when hiring a designer is whether they handle search engine optimization also. Knowing this (and being able to get all of your services from one provider) will save you tons of money short-term and in the long-run. If you get a no, then you should be looking elsewhere. A pretty site will do nothing for your business if no one comes to visit!

You should also be asking some of the following questions, like:

• How long it will take them to complete the entire project
• If they charge for continued maintenance, hosting or tech support
• If updates or re-designs are included in the services you're purchasing (and if so, how many)
• If they will be submitting your site to search engines once completed
• How often they'll be submitting your website to search engines
• How will they be submitting your site (hand-submission, organic submission or software-based submission)
• Exactly which search engines will they be submitting to
• What their refund policies and stipulations are

All of these questions can help you find a better designer to work with. Of course, the more they provide, the better your chances of getting a good-quality website that is both designed and optimized well. Your business needs this to move on to the next level of online marketing. Without it, you're doomed before you even begin.

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Web 2.0 - Bringing Your Business Into the 21st Centurty

For those not familiar with the concept of Web 2.0, it's simple. Today's websites are being driven not by content from the webmaster or company that the site belongs to, but by users of the site. Web 2.0 is a "by the people, for the people" way of surfing and interacting online. Major websites such as Myspace, YouTube, Digg and more are employing the concept with simple steps: let the users choose the content, let them display it how they wish, let them choose how they want it to be categorized and found, let them give the comments and ratings. In essence, let the users decide what content is worth and why...we just host it. Complete user control!

So why is this concept important to you? Well, if you own any kind of business, it'll be a major selling point and a way to further your marketing efforts. If you're just a regular, everyday person the concept of Web 2.0 gives YOU a voice, something that wasn't often heard of online a few years back, when the only way to get yourself out there was a website or blog.

The content from such websites incorporating the Web 2.0 concept is often viewed favorably and highly ranked by search engines. Part of the reason is because the parent site (in this case we'll refer to YouTube because our discussion will be based on this site) has gained such popularity. It has the highest traffic rankings in the world, and is the most widely-used website of any in existence (other than Google and Yahoo, perhaps). So, if you own a business of any kind, you can imagine what submitting content (be it articles, rss feeds, audio or video) to a site like this can do for your exposure and your site's own SE ranking (and in the end, your sales). And if you're a regular person (with no commercial interests) and just want to be heard and seen, then the same applies. Your face, your message, even your voice will be in front of literally millions of other users, and seen the way you want it to be seen!

So what constitutes Web 2.0-friendly content?

The answer to this question is again a simple one. Anything you deem worthy! Images, video, audio, text articles, blog and forum posts, press releases...all of these can outrank regular web pages in the search engines these days. This is because such content has its own set of optimization techniques that can make it searchable by the engines, located, and listed in search results if relevant to a user's particular search.

If you've ever heard of Universal Search, a newer search concept being developed and employed by Google, then you'll understand the importance of properly optimized multimedia content. In a nutshell, Google is now incorporating not just web pages, but also relevant images, news articles, video, podcasts, RSS feeds and press releases in its search results, giving users a more well-rounded search experience.

More on Universal Search and MCO (Multimedia Content Optimization) to come.

How does Web 2.0 make it easier for content to be found?

The concept uses a technique called "tagging," which is similar to assigning relevant keywords, to sort and list content. In my opinion, this is a much more effective way to list and rank content in search results. It is also much more cost-effective.

If you've ever used YouTube, and searched for a particular type of video, then you entered a tag. So what made this search more effective than searching for the same thing on a search engine? Well first of all, tags are listed by the creator of the content. They're requesting that this term be used to locate and list their content. This, in my opinion, leads to more relevant search results. Most search engines have specific and complicated "algorithms" for listing websites and contents according to keywords and keyword phrases. It is a science getting your website listed and ranked highly for your chosen keywords. Because of this (and because not all of us know the in's and outs of this exact science), it's possible that the search engines are leaving out websites and content that is very relevant to your search, just because a site may not be listed at all, or not ranked highly (according to their own specifications). This doesn't serve the user very well.

However, with tagging, any and all content that a creator deems relevant to a specific term will be included in the search results for that term, so long as the creator has set that term (and any common misspellings) as a tag for their content. This gives both the searcher and the creator of the content complete control over the search experience!

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As a marketing specialist, I've noticed that few business owners, professionals and entrepreneurs are taking advantage of Web 2.0 as they should be. The web contains literally hundreds of ways for a business to promote itself these days, and the majority of them are low-cost or free. I'm currently specializing in a select few of these methods, and this blog will be centered around using them to the fullest to create what every website, regardless of industry, really needs - a steady flow of quality, targeted traffic!

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