What Constitutes a Complete and Effective SEO Campaign?

February 6, 2009 by Butterfly Filed under: SEO

Unfortunately, not many Search Engine Optimization companies know what this

involves. You may see a “one size fits all” package, link popularity development in

the form of submitting to link farms, or even the dreaded “Submit Your Site to

1000’s of Search Engines” scam. While the basic premise of each of these ideas is

true, the execution of them is extremely important.

First of all, your web site needs human attention. A real person should thoroughly

analyze your site before any work is done. Get them on the phone and ask them

questions. There should be a clear process that the Search Engine Optimization

company uses and tailors to each client. The SEO company should also have a clear

idea of what your goals are for your web site.

The first step in any work that is done should be keyword research. Like any kind of

advertising, you need to know where your target market goes and how they find

businesses like yours. The keywords chosen should apply to the theme of the web

site. High rankings for these keywords should also be obtainable given your budget.

If you are a computer repair shop with one or two locations in a city and can not

service computers outside your area, then targeting a term such as “computer

repair” is overkill. The cost for obtaining high rankings for a term such as that will

be far greater than what you will make from the exposure, as much of your web site

traffic will not be targeted enough.

Once keywords have been chosen for the web site, the content should be updated to

reflect them. This may include subtle changes to the meta tags, page titles and text

headings; or it could involve adding additional sections to the site, rewriting content

and reorganizing the web site’s structure. It all depends on the specific

requirements of the site and market.

Once the on-page content optimization is complete, link popularity development

needs to be done. A link development campaign should be done to acquire quality

incoming links to the web site. This phase of search engine optimization should

take place as soon as possible and can be continued as needed. Reciprocal linking is

fine as long as some caution is used. There are many sketchy services out there that

use huge networks of gambling and pharmacy sites with no unique content. Always

make sure that each incoming link can be interpreted by the search engines as a

‘vote’ by that site for yours. It is worthless and possibly dangerous if the site links

out to link farms and Free-For-All sites (FFA’s). Writing articles with a link to your

web site, getting people to post on forums and message boards, and advertising or

getting links to drive targeted traffic to your site are great methods to use in

improving your link popularity.

For the most part, you get what you pay for with Search Engine Optimization. A

quick fix will rarely works, and if it seems too good to be true it probably is. Talk to

the search engine optimization company about your concerns and make sure they

understand your goals. Read their site and make sure they seem legitimate. Ask for

results they’ve obtained for previous clients. Methods that not effective and have a

chance to get a site banned include hiding text or links, participating in link farms,

keyword stuffing, repeat search engine submissions, and copying web sites to

multiple domains.

Proper SEO does not involve tricks. Web sites that have well written and well focused

content, have been advertised in one way or another (including link popularity

development), and overall are a good informational resource will get traffic from the

search engines. Search engines are constantly updating ways to weed out the

spamming and illegal SEO methods, so think long term with any search engine

optimization campaign.