Search Engine Optimization Strategies for Companies Large and Small
by Doug Macy, Macy Creative and Paula Satow, Satow Strategies, LLC

Websites designed as electronic brochures are always popular. They are useful when you already have leads for your business and you want to direct them to a convenient place on the web to learn more about your company and its products and services. However, more and more companies are looking to the Internet to not only inform customers about their offerings but to actually bring in new prospects and customers in the first place. That is where the following key methods come in handy:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Wikipedia: Improving the number and/or quality of visitors to a web site from "natural" (aka "organic" or "algorithmic" search engine) listings. • Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Wikipedia: A set of marketing methods to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Here are some important steps that can get help any company or group, large or small, started in optimizing their site to attract new traffic, tap into the power of internet marketing, and convert prospects into customers:

1. Keyword Research and Site Evaluation Your current web site is evaluated to determine keyword presence, the quality of your content and HTML coding. Research is performed to determine the most effective words to target based on current search trends, relative competition and your target audience.

2. Site Optimization Key pages in your web site are optimized based on the recommended target search terms. Additionally, new pages of specifically optimized content may also be added to your site.

3. Submission Your web site is manually submitted to major search engines and web directories to insure any new site edits are re-cataloged as quickly as possible. It may take several weeks for new SEO pages to be fully cataloged.

4. Link Building The link popularity of your web site is increased by gaining inbound links from highly qualified, relevant web sites. One-way links and reciprocal links are carefully obtained. These links are an important component to raising your position in search engines. In addition, they can send a good deal of traffic directly to your site and help build brand awareness.

5. Monitoring and Maintenance Changes to search catalogs do not occur instantly. It is critical that the position of your web site in the search engines be routinely monitored. Minor updates will be made to fine tune your site content based on its performance. Additional incoming links will be obtained, and search engine catalogs will be evaluated to insure any updates to your site are properly reviewed and indexed.

Summary
It is also important to understand that the process of increasing your search engine rankings takes time. Many factors affect how quickly your rankings change. You may see dramatically increased rankings for some terms within a couple weeks while other terms may require several months or more to gain noticeably increased positions. It is not uncommon to have very different rankings for the same term across Google, Yahoo and MSN. Each search engine uses a unique process to catalog your site. SEO and SEM are critical methods of growing you business in today’s Internet-focused world. Working with an industry expert to get on board with these methods and manage the necessary steps efficiently and effectively is one of the most important business decisions you can make.

And, as companies the world over have already discovered, it is well worth the effort.

© Macy Creative and Satow Strategies, LLC*

Other trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.