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10 Things You Need to Know about SEO

I have compiled a list of 10 vital things – from choosing an
expert to instructing your web developer – that every marketer
needs to consider when undertaking search engine optimisation as
part of their marketing mix.

1. Strategy First
Please, don’t ask for a full SEO proposal from an agency until
you have set your strategy. Too often, agencies will respond
with a full proposal, including lots of articles to be created,
sites to be built and links to be implemented without a clear
strategy.

Some sites are more straight forward but others are complex and
would benefit from asking a couple of agencies to get involved
at the research stage – ask them about the strengths and
weaknesses of your site, what they think of your competitors,
and what strategic approach they would take with your site.

To get the best advice from this process, expect to pay the
agencies involved. A small percentage of your online budget
spent on good strategy will save you money in the long term.
Even better, pay two agencies for a strategy recommendation and
then choose the best one for your business!

2. Choosing a Consultant
You need to work with someone who can communicate about SEO in
plain English, someone who can take complicated ideas and
techniques and turn them into something you can understand,
then make a decision on – especially as there are often many
possible solutions to choose from.

Someone with experience in your vertical – such as travel,
finance, retail – as well as several other verticals is
important. An SEO consultant with experience across multiple
types of business, as well as experience that is directly
relevant to you will have better problem solving skills and more
exposure to technologies. Experience in your sector will mean
the consultant will be very helpful in defining your strategy,
understanding terminology, and knowing what your competitors are
doing.

3. Expectations
What are realistic expectations from your investment in SEO?

Too often, we see marketers defining their keyword set or crazy
goals for their site without any basis in how SEO really works.
If you are a law firm, for example, and you want to rank highly
for terms such as “lawyer”, or “barrister”, then you have to
take into account that these are extremely popular and
competitive terms. It might not be achievable, and even if it
is, it’s probably a very hard road to get there.

Be open to advice when setting the goals for your website (which
should be a part of the keyword research period of your SEO
project). If you have a PPC campaign running first, you can use
the keyword data from that campaign to gain an understanding of
what is important for your website.

4. Using the Right Language
Optimising begins with keyword research that helps you
understand the language your customers are using to find your
products and services.

Be realistic. It may sound obvious but, if the words your
customers are using to search are not on your website pages,
then you won’t be found in the search engines for those words.

Similarly, brand words and buzz words are all very nice in
marketing, but if people aren’t using those words to search,
then again you won’t be found.

Be ready to change the language of your site. Be open to the
idea of conforming your website to the language people use.
Optimisation is about including those words in the right areas
of your pages (such as navigation, links, headings, meta tags
and content) so the search engine sees all the right signals to
understand what your site’s pages should be ranked for.

5. Measurement
Rankings are not the only measure of success! For many years,
SEO firms have measured everything on rankings. However, we
recommend using analytics similar to a PPC (paid) search
campaign for a more comprehensive measure of success.

Here is a simple description of how to do that: Take what you
are spending on SEO and put it against traffic and conversions
to work out cost per unique browser, cost per click and cost per
conversion. It’s best to analyse these over a period of six
and/or twelve months to allow for any changes in SEO to come into
effect. This is because the major difference between SEO and PPC
is the implementation time – for SEO, the results will take
months, rather than days.

6. Moving Variables
There are so many moving variables in SEO that it would be
impossible to find one person who knows everything! But a good
SEO consultant is worth their weight in gold. Their value is not
necessarily in the implementation, but in tapping into their
experience to find the right implementation. One tiny piece of
advice from them which may take 10 minutes to explain could be
worth more than a copywriter producing numerous articles for
your site each month.

7. One Agency or Two?
Some agencies have two separate teams working on SEO and PPC.
Some marketers choose two completely different agencies to
handle their SEO and PPC campaigns.

However, the two are very closely related and the results from
one can be useful to the other. For instance, the keyword data
from your PPC campaign can help with your SEO keyword research.
On the flip side, optimising pages for SEO will usually provide
your PPC campaigns with a better quality score. When PPC and SEO
listings are seen together on a search engine, they usually
increase the click-through and conversion rates for both
campaigns.

They go hand in hand, and each can have a positive effect on the
other if done well. And with one agency on both campaigns, they
will have a greater depth of experience with your business,
which can only help you to succeed.

8. Web Developers are not SEO Experts
Finally, a word on expertise. Most web developers say they are
experts in SEO (http://www.dgmmarketing.com.au/
search-engine-optimisation.htm). There is no doubting that many
of them do a reasonable job, but they are not truly specialists
in the area of SEO.

In the same way, I wouldn’t recommend that an SEO specialist
designs your website. They are specialist skills, which both
contribute to the success of your business online.

9. Use of Java Script
Those pesky robots that the major search engines rely on to rank
web pages have until recently imposed some limitations for web
development. While useful code such as Java Script can make your
website really functional – a simple example is a loan
calculator, and many websites’ navigation and links – and thus
attractive to users, the robots often couldn’t follow the code
properly, and thus skipped over it. The major problem was that
commonly, web developers didn’t know that Java Script wasn’t
being read or followed by the robots.

That has changed recently, with Google updating its technology
so that the robots can read and follow Java Script. When the
robots can follow a website’s navigation and links properly, the
SEO rankings are greatly influenced.

10. Flash
Potentially any Flash file can now be indexed, according to
Google, but it still depends on how that Flash site is
constructed. Generally older Flash sites are not seen in the
most effective way by the search engines, though it depends on
the practices of the Flash developer. Many older Flash sites
have overcome this problem by building an underlying version of
the site in html – though this method too has its drawbacks.

Flash sites need to be built like html sites, with multiple
files that optimise each keyword. If you are building a new
Flash site, be sure to consult with an SEO expert before the
developer starts on the build.