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Search Engine Optimization The term doesn't even begin to describe it. The term Internet Marketing has a connotation of a cheesy used car salesman. So what all is involved in making a website successful? |  |
- On-Page SEO - This is what comes to most people's mind when one thinks of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Creating keyword-rich TITLE tags, optimizing your content, links, query strings and giving your site a good inspection for obvious faux pauxs.
- Server-side SEO - There are things which relate to how your site is setup on the server which can dramatically impact page rankings. Canoncalization, architecture of your content, robot.txt files and secure areas all effect how the search engine will index and rank your content.
- Analytics - Putting all this work in, you DO want to make sure that you know whether or not you made a difference, don't you? You need to be able to capture accurate before and after pictures and be able to track trends in order to make adjustments, fine tune things that are working and fix things that aren't.
- Conversions - Most people think the SEO Holy Grail is to drive more people to your site - WRONG. The idea is to drive qualified leads to your site and gets them to CONVERT! Qualified traffic means more conversions, which means more revenue.
- Social Media - Blog, blog, blog. Yes, you've heard it before but the nothing can build customer intimacy like customer intimacy and social media is one of the best ways to make that happen. You're an expert in your field! Share the knowledge you have and explain how your product fits a need.
- Social Networking - You already have a network - family, friends, co-workers, customers, suppliers. The list goes on and on. But are you leveraging those contacts and using that to build your business? How are you using social bookmarking and social news posting websites to help drive qualified visitors to your site?
- PPC - No SEO strategy could be complete without considering pay-per-click search advertising. It takes time to develop a quality program which puts your website in front of users that are search for your keywords - and those of your competition!
- Mobile - Every site should have specific content designed for mobile devices. iPhone wasn't the beginning of this and Android phones won't be the last. With such a broad range of non-PC devices providing users access to the internet, you can't afford to not tailor content and offerings for this segment.
- Video - Not only should your brand, product or service be taking advantage of video sharing sites; your site needs to be providing video content to supplement and augment your textual content. Product demonstrations, information sharing, interviews with experts and industry leaders, both on-demand and live, should be some ideas on how to use video on your site.
- Email - I'm not talking spam here - but every site should have an opt-in email database of visitors, which are really your prospect database. Crafty newsletters containing content that people really want can be a great way to turn casual surfers into active customers.
- Localization - Is your organization global? Would you like to be? Many companies have products and services which are well-suited to a global market. However, this is far more complex than the mere translation of a website into a user's native language.
So, you can easily see that SEO has really evolved into how to market your site so that you can use all of the technology at your disposal to drive qualified traffic to your site, combined with strong calls to action and to turn that visitor into a conversion.
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