Ever wondered which SEO Services are right for your business? Optimized Landing pages, Creating an Authority site? Pay Per Click Advertising or Organic Search Engine Optimization? So often, with so many options available, the one-size-fits-all mentality is not applicable for developing an effective search engine optimization campaign.
One must be aware that:
- SEO Services for a New Website
- SEO Services for an Established Off-Line Brand
- SEO Services for a Local / National Small Business
- and SEO Services for Enterprise Clients
all have their own unique challenges, advantages and disadvantages. The following outline depicts the basic components that ensure that each type of client is provided with a clear competitive advantage when it comes to online marketing services and execution tactics based on their needs.
Although the size of the budget is a decisive factor, it is not always the definitive solution. In most instances finding the right SEO services for the task boils down to patience, a solid game plan and a constant vigil to monitor analytics and user engagement.
Aside from the game plan, having the appropriate infrastructure of specialists to administer the multiple tasks required (covering the range of holistic functions required) for each stage of the SEO campaign is a must. Depending on your company or the structure of your organization, it is possible to implement changes provided from a qualified SEO consultant and coordinate required activities with your in-house team to maximize resources.
Regardless of who does the work, the following components outlined below are the pivotal aspects that comprise the foundation for a solid SEO management campaign are:
Site Architecture Design and Usability Keyword Research & Competitive Analysis Custom Content Development
and ImplementationAnalytics to Chart Progress that Shape
Real-Time Shifts in the Campaign FocusThe Ability to Hone in On Each Area and
Scale to Accommodate Competition or Challenges
First up, the new website / new venture: This is like wanting to play professional football and never having thrown or caught a ball in your life. Sure, you can do it, but at what cost? The learning curve which is based on trial and error are the enemy at this stage as just having a little information can be a dangerous thing.
Consulting and foresight are required the most at this stage to create a workable solution hinged on sweat equity, laying the groundwork and employing the building blocks of authority. This stage can either make or break a new site / or new business based on the industry, the competition and the attention to detail required to get it right the first time.
Tips for new ventures or new businesses, (a) get a (CMS) content management system to add content, images and video to your site on a whim (b) stay away from static sites as your dependency on web designers will only limit your opportunity to remain fluid and have a clearly defined range of keywords you intend to target and (c) think about a category rather than just keywords.
From the list above the core ingredients for a company entering the market fresh (without content or off-line reputation) is better off leveraging the following strategies.
1. CSS based Design (to aid spiders in crawling and cataloging/indexing your content).
2. Fluid Usability Principles: based on industry leaders (study the top sites with the most traffic in your niche) use compete.com to find out who has the most traffic, then use competitive research to reverse engineer their results over time.
3. Keyword Selection: pick a series of moderately competitive phrases in Google to cut your teeth on, going after the crowning keywords at this stage is literally an exercise in futility.
Competitive keywords can take up to a year realistically in most instances to acquire (depending on the competition, your inbound links and your competition). It is not to say that they may in fact require less time, but realism is required so that clients do not breed false hopes or expectations regarding organic search. One way to find less competitive phrases is use “exact match” phrases by typing keywords “in quotes” in Google to assess their threshold to competition.
If the phrase has less than 20,000 competing pages, then that is a great target for the new site out of the box. Over time you will be able to target more competitive terms as your site ages. Competitive implying that your content will be able to target phrases with 1,000,000 competing pages, but for now, laying the foundation in search engines (by acquiring multiple top 10 rankings) and befriending the spiders is the key to unlocking future authority for your niche.
Other considerations are to target local, less-competitive keywords and key phrases until you establish traction, then it becomes easier to acquire additional phrases based on your link velocity and momentum.
4. Impeccable Content: your content is your ticket to readership and user engagement, without sticky content that incorporates conclusive advantages to your target audience, your time online will be relegated to the dark recesses of the web if your calling card lacks verve. The only thing differentiating you from your competition is your brand, and creating the appropriate internet brand vs. your off-line persona for your company may be just what the doctor ordered.
We are no longer in the era of the yellow pages, one way advertising is losing its grip on the conditioned consumers that now comprise your target audience. Find topically related incentives that add value to utilize as value propositions to integrate users from the outside into your internet experience.
Examples of ways to reach out and increase viral traffic was the “elf yourself” campaign from Staples over the Christmas of 2007. The company experienced tremendous spikes in user activity that showed a more human side to their business. The days of bland (corporate speak) are coming to a close.
More importantly, people would rather have an interactive experience than a passive one, so if you expect to let the viral tactic work for you, then create exciting parallels in services you can offer or make them fun for the masses to engage. As a result, links and user engagement will allow you to funnel targeted traffic as a result.
5. Analytics and Statistics Data: make sure to measure your progress using analytics to determine the who, what, where when and how factors that provide the story behind bounce rates, how long visitors stayed, where they went, how many links they clicked, etc. Armed with this information, instead of shooting in the dark, you can create specific campaigns and use specific keywords to entice traffic from a variety of potential marketing channels as well as find new keywords, subjects and related niches to promote your pages.
6. Scalability to Capitalize on Strategic Advantages: above all else, remain flexible and fluid, chart your progress weekly and look for increases or decreases in keyword activity (as well as go back 2-3 months and see if you are still ranking for phrases from that phase of the SEO campaign). It is not always about the present, but being able to utilize the information from the past as the foundation, as well as forecast the future and build the necessary bridges to accomplish the goal.
Now that we have covered the basics, the only distinguishing factors for the remainder of the range of clients mentioned in the onset of this article the established off-line brand, the local or national small business or the enterprise client are outlined below.
Sample SEO Strategies for Each Type of Business
Off-line Businesses That Require SEO Services: already have an audience, they can leverage radio, print or local television to drive traffic to the web. In doing so, they would gain more as a result of using a seasonal promotion (think elf yourself) a special offer, or launching a content of some sort for lead generation to benefit. In addition, press releases and traditional one way link building would be ideal to provide positioning for a solid search engine campaign.
Also, if the company had an old who we are, what we do and contact us website from the 1990’s a fresh website redesign would not hurt either to re-brand the online company image.
SEO Services for the Local / National Small Businesses: are unique and by far my favorite to engage in for a search engine optimization campaign. There is something about being the underdog in a competitive arena that wreaks of challenge and reward like no other conquest one could embark on on-line.
For this business model it is crucial to have certain distinguishing factors that aid in the process of perceived value and authority.
(1) having a content-rich site (2) adding a personal touch such as a weekly column or round-up for your industry (3) positioning an expert / individual to associate with the brand to lead in the forefront of public interaction “like Jared for Subway” (4) including a privacy policy or endorsement from the BBB (the Better Business Bureau) or local chamber of commerce, not to mention such links are priceless from an SEO/authority prospective (5) a compelling contact form to capture leads or a way to receive instant messages (such as Yahoo messenger or Skype) for customer support (6) a visible and prominent phone number on every page of the site and a simple navigation / interface for usability that is not cluttered but rather inviting and coherent to encourage a strong call to action.
SEO Services for Enterprise Clients Require: Patience, more patience and even more patience in addition to a large customer support network. Although you may want to just go in there with guns blazing and make adjustments to their page rank 7 behemoth site, the strategy has never been more about the end game than with large corporate clients.
Press releases are your friend, use them wisely for reputation management and SERP (search engine result page) control. Ensure that the sites internal link structure is SEO friendly (think Wikipedia here).
Otherwise using tactics like a mod rewrite when applicable, site redesign, sub-domains (keyword.domainname.com) or 301 redirects (to funnel link juice from old pages to an optimized landing page) to maximize slouching segments of content.
Massive undertakings of new content development or optimization of content to have qualified indicators that exude relevance in search engines. Revamping thousands of pages is oftentimes required in order to streamline the focus and underlying message for your content. This vital aspect of data clustering (consolidating existing information with a specific keyword-focus) and on page refinement can translate into dynamically increasing traffic in epic proportions when managed properly.
One of our clients who came to us ranking in the top 5 for an extremely competitive term, now enjoys over 1500 keywords in the top 20 of Google vs. the 60 they had when they came to our firm for SEO Services. All from implementing minor changes and focusing on off page promotion to complement that massive amounts of content they already created.
Granted, no two strategies are alike at least we have discussed the groundwork for search engine optimization strategies and services than an SEO consultant can provide. Aside from strategy, it takes a team of qualified individuals to manage the tasks proficiently in order to holistically balance all of the components of a successful SEO campaign.
If you are interested in developing new inroads for traffic or looking for ways to leverage your existing content, we do offer a FREE SEO consultation for companies interested in strengthening their online marketing and positioning. Otherwise feel free to subscribe to our RSS Feed and have useful SEO tips and strategies delivered via email daily. We hope you have enjoyed reading the SEO Design Solutions Blog.
I agree with you that “impeccable content” is extremely important, and the engagement factor is key. I wanted to make sure you were aware that the “Elf Yourself” campaign was created for OfficeMax by agencies EVB and Toy for the 2006 and 2007 holiday seasons…and what would the holidays be like next year without another Elf Yourself? I’m looking forward to a round three.
Thanks for the info, I can drop a link if they like to their site for our readers to learn more about the “Santa behind the Elf Yourself Campaign”, simply brilliant.
How ironic, Jeffrey! We are talking about the success of Elf Yourself and (like many users) you ascribe it to Staples rather than OfficeMax…
Oops, I may have to go back and edit this one. Well at least they made an impression, perhaps the branding will be stronger on the next round.
Excellent Article..very helpful thanks.
Yes, SEO Services are Right for our Business.We are very thankful for sharing for us.