“Ok, I have a pretty website that I just paid an expensive designer to build…now what?” If this is a question you’ve been pondering you’re in luck. The following is a simple step-by step process for jump starting your Search Engine Optimization efforts.

Search engine optimization as a whole is a very involved process. I would suggest setting aside an hour or two a day to devote to SEO. There are tasks that you will perform once, tasks that will need attention monthly, and tasks that can be done daily.

One time tasks include:

• Submit your site to all major search engines and directories
• Create and submit an XML sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo! Site Explorer
• Create robots.txt file to allow crawlers access to your site

Monthly tasks include:

• Add fresh content or refresh old content on your site, this includes individual page meta data
• Check Google Webmaster Tools for errors and adjust accordingly
• Look for opportunities to cross link your pages using quality in-line text

Daily tasks include:

• Build links
• Build more links
• Build more quality links

So this article did nothing but prompt more questions, right? Fear not, this is the first article in a series of 4. Look for Search Engine Optimization Steps for Success: Part 2 next week. In the mean time though, feel free to contact me with any immediate questions.

Read the full story from Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land here.

Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

The article from seomoz.org titled, Search Engine Ranking Factors, provides an importance level for each factor determined by industry leading organic search marketing professionals. Though I’m sure most ethical search marketers have been utilizing these techniques for years, it is still very nice to get solid reinforcement from other professionals.

The article goes into great detail regarding various factors, but I particularly like the list of the top ten positive factors they provide.

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag
2. Global Link Popularity of Site
3. Anchor Text of Inbound Link
4. Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure
5. Age of Site
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
8. Keyword Use in Body Text
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
10. Rate of New Inbound Links to Site

Basically, Rand brings up the question of what constitutes an expert in the world of SEO? Though I respect Rand’s ideas, and thoroughly enjoyed his input at SES Chicago’s SMO (Social Media Optimization) session, I have to agree with Stoney. An SEO expert should be measured by the management and delivery of results rather than the stature of their contacts and clients. There are two main reasons I feel this way.

First, the industry of search engine marketing and optimization is an ever evolving world, and SEO professionals must learn and adjust techniques virtually every day. A true SEO Expert would be a student of the industry.

Secondly, as Stoney mentioned, it is not only the use of proper techniques but the management of client expectations. Many SEO professionals fail because they are not managing client expectations, or they set realistic expectations that they fail to adjust for industry changes.

Again, I respect Rand’s thoughts and agree with portions of his article. However, I deeply feel that the world of SEO can not be so blind as to ignore the experts that work tirelessly to both educate themselves and deliver proven results.

This task is easier said than done. A building link popularity strategy that incorporates multiple techniques is the most successful. Some of the techniques involved include:

• Link Trading
• Blogging
• Social Networking
• Content Syndication

All of these techniques involve one important element, provide relevant and valuable content. If your website is of value to another, then you will receive inbound links. It’s hard for many to understand, but the quality of links is more valuable than the quantity. Aaron Wall’s SEOBook.com has a great article about building link popularity strategy.

Website Backlink Checker

Continuously monitoring your current backlinks can also be beneficial. Here is a great website backlink checker tool. The tool only checks Google, but it checks each datacenter. You can also check backlinks through Google, Yahoo!, and MSN by using the “Link:www.DomainName.com” search. There are a number of website backlink checker tools out there, be sure to find the one that provides you with the correct information.

Search engine marketing is an all encompassing term that refers to internet marketing specifically for search engines. There are three main areas of Search Engine Marketing.

1. Search Engine Optimization – This tactic primarily focuses on organic or natural search engine results. This form of internet marketing is becoming increasingly important because of the rising cost of PPC (pay per click) and other forms of paid inclusion. It is also important because, traditionally, natural search engine results produce a higher conversion rate then any other form of internet marketing. Being that Google currently has the market share of search engine queries; I try to focus on optimizing all of my websites according to their standards. Did you know that the first name for Google was Backrub? It was because of the way the first Google bot indexed websites according to their backlinks. This holds true today. Google’s PageRank system, not to be confused with PigeonRank, gives a numeric value to each one way and reciprocal link in their ever growing index of websites. Aside from backlinks, Google bot crawls and indexes webpage’s according to a very secretive list of guidelines. Because Google’s guidelines are always evolving, it is my job to analyze and research new techniques for increasing natural rankings, and then implement those ideas into a platform for success.
2. Pay Per Click – This area of search engine marketing targets paid listings on search engines and content networks. The overall model is simple to understand, every time a person clicks on an advertisement, the advertiser pays a fee. Most times the fee is based on a bidding system; the higher the bid the higher an advertisement will rank for a specific keyword. These are the sponsored listing you see to the top and right of a search engine results page.
3. Paid Inclusion – This is basically paying for a search engine to include a web site in their index of pages. Though this is a tactic that cannot be overlooked, many search engines have gotten away from charging webmasters for inclusion. This is because most search engines are simply looking to mimic human thought and to display the most relevant results for a specific search query.

So there you have it, I hope I’ve clearly answered the question: What is Search Engine Marketing?

This is not necessarily a googlebomb, but it’s a comical result none the less…
Type in “French Military Victories” into Google and click I’m feeling lucky.

Hi All

My site has been up and running for well over a year

http://www.discountdvdshop.co.uk

Unfortunately for me is not attracting many visitors and certainly very few sales. I cannot get any positions in the top 50 of either AOL, Google, Lycos, or MSN. I run a program called Top Dog this software gives me details of whether I have climbed up or moved down a particular search engine, it never shows my site making any progress on the engines that I mention above.

Can anyone knowledgeable take a look at my site and give me an opinion? I have very keen prices so i am sure this not the cause of lack of sales. There must be something on the site that stops the small amount of visitors buying?

I have read articles about back links but I am not sure what this means, can anyone explain how this works?
Hope you can help
Regards

Graham in the UK

Hey Graham,

I feel for you mate, I understand how frustrating it can be to have a site out there with great products but not converting. Many of the e-commerce companies I’ve worked for have run into similar issues. With that said, here are my suggestions.

Though many have replied with ideas regarding meta information changes, I would say that there are more important factors to consider. Especially because many search engine crawlers have placed less importance on meta info, thanks to sp@mmers. Anyway, what you really need to concentrate on is converting the traffic that you do get. Eventually, people that convert and have a positive experience with your website will pass it on to friends. Don’t ever forget that word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing tool. Here are my tips for not only converting the traffic that you get, but building those conversions into additional traffic.

• The entrance page is way too cluttered with products. Place the featured DVDs above the fold and forget about the rest.
• Change category navigation into text links. Not only is this SEO friendly it would be helpful for a consumer to see all the DVD categories that you offer.
• No call to action really sticks out on any page. You may want to consider changing the placement or even the style of your No Charge for Postage statement. Research has shown that the eyes typically go from top left corner out, so consider using that space for your most important content.
• Create more content and never stop adding fresh content. I understand how unique your product offering is, leverage that to your advantage and create reviews or other content that is of use to your target market.
• Consider adding interactive components to your site. Social media is booming right now. Add some videos or podcast reviews that would be valuable to your target market.

Web site conversions basically come down to one solid fact. If you provide quality products with supportive material, people will buy, tell their friends, and come back for more. Finally, if you create valuable content then search engines will love you for it. Become the authority figure in your industry by having the answers for the vast number of researchers, and I promise they will buy from your site.

Good luck, and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

To help ensure no one is fooled, I’ll show anyone how to submit to the major search engines for free. It’s easy, feel free to contact me and we can get started on submitting your site.

If you’re as sick as I am of un-ethical search engine marketing tactics, check out WhiteHatPlan.com. They promote ethical search engine optimization. Oh, and if you feel like giving Internet Corporation Listing Service a piece of your mind, here is their email address: inquiries@icls.net

I was in class tonight, which I won’t say where or what class, and we started discussing the html code used to open a link in a new window.

One student posed the question, “How do you format your browser to ignore the code used to open a link in a new window?”

The professor explained that there is no setting to bypass the code.

The student then replied, “That’s not good, I hate when links are formatted that way.”

The professor simply replied, “That’s marketers for you.”

The student then went on to say, “Well I think all online marketers should be shot.”

A few seconds later the professor reiterated, “Sometimes I’d like to be the one doing the shooting.”

Now I can understand how most people would let these comments slide, but as an online marketer I was appalled at the fact that my profession necessitates being shot. I realize that no one is actually going to shoot me because of what I do for a living, or how I code a hyper link. However, the mindless threat sparked a deep rage within me because of the blatant stereotype. Yet another example is when I tell people that I am an online marketer, their immediate reaction is to label me with the nastiest term in the industry: SP@MMER. Guess what? I receive sp@m just the same as everyone else, and here’s another shocker, I’m not the one sp@mming. I realize the obvious annoyance that comes with unsolicited advertising and other manipulative online marketing tactics, but I beg you; stop being so ignorant and realize that there are legitimate online marketers out there. I happen to be one if them.

Speak out if you’re a White Hat online marketer that feels the same…

Day 3:

Linking Strategies
This was a very insightful session exploring new and previously used link building strategies. The panel basically reviewed what to look for in a site to link back from, as well as the increased importance of LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) regarding internal links. One of the more interesting portions of the session was about gathering orphaned links through expired domains. Personally, this strategy seems a little black hat, but whatever works for you.

SMO (Social Media Optimization)
The new realm of search engine marketing is SMO, and it’s here to stay. This session explored the growing number of sites devoted to social media. Sites like Digg.com, del.icio.us, and Yahoo Answers have revolutionized the online experience by bringing people together. Anyone can publish to the internet and collaborate with the world. There is a huge opportunity for search engine marketers to use this tactic to spread the word online. I like to think of it as buzz-marketing via the web. Digg It!?

Link Baiting & Viral Search Success
I really enjoyed this session because it brought the previous two sessions full circle. Basically, linking strategies and SMO can be categorized into one area which is Link Baiting and Viral Marketing. This session went over some important issues to consider when starting a link baiting campaign. Some of the issues include the lack of real staying power, inability to accurately measure results, and the inability to control your call to action. However, one particular benefit did stick out, the advantage of leveraging negative feedback.

Blog & Feed Search SEO
I enjoyed this session but felt like it was more of a refresher. The panel went over the obvious advantage of having a blog and maintaining an RSS feed. There were some great tips regarding where to distribute your blog and feed.

Day 4:

Big Ideas for Small Sites & Small Budgets
This session was pretty fun. No specific ideas were discussed. It was mostly case studies of what has worked well for other sites. The panel did however reiterate that a user friendly site is for the most part search friendly. Search engines are simply trying to replicate human judgment, so if your site has a logical layout and speaks the customers language it will be search engine friendly. I realized in this session that coming up with that big idea is tough, but it really doesn’t have to be if you just concentrate on filling a void.

75 Minute Search Abs
I know, it’s a weird name but worthy of being the last session of the conference. This session was basically a search engine optimization free for all. Some great tips for maintaining an optimization came from this panel. One tip is to check Lynx to see what the bots see. Another is to check a pages code to text ratio to help avoid code bloat. Yet another is to make sure an pdf file on a site has relevant meta data for indexing.

There you have it, Search Engine Strategies Conference at a glance. Or at least the part of the conference I attended.

The first session was Bulk Submit 2.0. This session mostly focused on the new sitemap.org format agreed upon by Google, MSN, and Yahoo. The interesting part of this session explained that bulk submitting through sitemaps is the new preferred way of submitting a site. No more single domain submission. They also went over techniques for optimizing a sitemap which is very important.

The second session was Landing Page Testing and Tuning. This was a very informative session. The panel went over tactics for A/B and Multivariate testing of landing pages. They also went over some current issues with regard to testing. For example, because analytics is not as easy to gather for organic testing results, PPC testing is really the easiest way to test pages for the majority of people at this point. It is also the easiest to control with regard to traffic.

The third session of the day was Fun with Dynamic Web Sites. As the title implies, this was a very fun session. Basically, the old rumor about dynamic sites having trouble getting indexed was thrown out the window. In fact, the panel gave numerous examples of dynamic sites that rank higher than static sites. They did give some parameters to stay within when developing a dynamic site. Basically, it’s all about the URL structure. Too much session ID’s and the crawlers get confused. There are also some duplicate content issues to watch out for when building out dynamic pages.

The final session of the day was Beyond the Single Site Mentality. It was really a tough decision to choose this session over the other great sessions offered, but this interested me because of the great success I’ve had with in depth landing pages. The panel went over two main case studies. The first was of a Phillips campaign for a men’s razor. It was a micro site they developed that had a separate vanity domain, and had the same look and feel of the flagship site. The results of course were great. Traffic was shifted from the micro site to the flagship site. The second case study was from a very niche product that had a small market. So small that they decided to make it seem larger by creating multiple micro sites and optimize each micro site for a single keyword. None of the sites had the look and feel of the flagship site, and they also had completely unrelated domain names. The results again were great. So, the conclusion I came away with is that micro sites work; it’s just a matter of structuring the micro site to your specific needs. Also, the obvious benefit to a micro site is that they are much easier to manage from a search engine marketing perspective.

Tomorrow should be another very involved day, so I’m going to bed.

The first session I attended was entitled Video Search Optimization, and all I have to say is WOW! All the experts are tagging Video as the next great online experience. The greatest part is that many people are producing Videos but not properly optimizing them, so the market is still wide open.

The second session was titled Meet the Video Search Engines, and this was even more interesting than the first session. I learned that YouTube.com is not a Video search engine at all. Hmmm, so what is YouTube.com? It’s simply a platform for loading videos to Google owned servers. Where as sites like AOL Video Search, SearchForVideo.com, and Blinkx.com are all video specific search engines. The really interesting part of this session surprisingly touched more on video optimization than the first session. Mostly because the video search engines are pioneering voice recognition programs that are used in conjunction with search algorithms to transcribe the audio from a video and produce relevant videos for a specific search query. Really cool stuff, and this section of online marketing is so new that its like SEO was 8-9 years ago. Basically, if you get in early you own the market segment.

Finally I had a chance to eat lunch, and it couldn’t have been a better group to dine with. I had lunch with the Google Webmaster Central Crew. They went over the basics of webmaster central tools, Google sitemaps, and showed off some new tools. The best part about lunch was that Danny Sullivan was the luncheon moderator. If you don’t know who Danny Sullivan is, you better look it up. The guy is an SEM Guru.

After lunch I attended a session titled Podcast & Audio Search Optimization. Very similar to the first two morning sessions; its considered a very hot area of online marketing, but there are some different issues faced by Podcaster’s compared to video. Basically, I learned that the correct encoding format is critical to being indexed properly. The good news is that the session provided a ton of free tools that I will post later. If you can’t wait just email me. Another big name was part of this session; Daron Babin, the CEO of Webmaster Radio. If you haven’t listened to the station, you’re missing out. The guy is a genius.

Finally, the last session of the day was Ad Testing: Research & Findings. This session was extremely detailed. We got into some really cool heat maps and analytics. My notes are all jumbled. I’m not sure if it’s because it was late and I was tired, or I couldn’t make sense of the info. Basically, I learned that A/B testing and Multivariate testing is essential to a successful ad campaign, and it’s a never ending cycle.

Ok, it’s late and I have another day of this stuff tomorrow.
I’ll provide another update tomorrow.

Ask has built their brand equity by leaps and bounds surprisingly ever since retiring Jeeves in Feb 2006. The announcement of Jeeves retirement along with a slight re-development of their site and a heavy dose of TV commercials have generated a steady buzz for Ask, but I feel it is yet to be seen if they, or anyone else for that matter, will ever truly compete with Google. They offer great tools and the partnership with Lycos is definitely a step in the right direction, but only time will tell if they have what it takes.

There has been a great deal of talk about the shift of marketing revenue from traditional marketing to SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Google passing the UK’s Channel 4 is a perfect example. This also ties into the 3rd shift regarding newspapers. Newspapers will always exist in some fashion regardless of a decrease in circulation. The proactive newspapers and traditional media outlets have taken the necessary steps to alter their focus from the tired traditional distribution to a more technological distribution. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and other forms of online syndication have helped them make the shift, but it has also leveled the playing field for the small publishers trying to build their brand. Take CNN’s iReport for example; anyone with a camcorder can now report the news through CNN. Don’t even get me started on youtube.com. I feel that all of this has driven online marketers to expand their Viral Marketing process and use tactics such as video-casts and pod-casts to distribute their message to the masses. Not to mention the ROI is great and results are clearly measurable.

Using the term seismic to describe these shifts is a bit over exaggerated, but I agree that search is clearly evolving. It’s crazy to realize it, but search is really only ten years old. To think of how the industry has changed over ten years makes me really interested and excited about the next tens years. With that said; the fact remains that for best results a site needs to appear as the authority for their relevant subject.

A quick final prediction:
Over the next ten years we will see a huge collaboration of online media outlets including search technology with more traditional forms including TV. Some day within the next ten years people will be able to pause their television, mouse over an item in a commercial, go to the company’s website or search for the item, and finally purchase or research the item from the commercial. I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but think about it. The collaboration of online media and search with traditional media will save traditional forms of marketing. It will be a much needed re-invention of the TV commercial. With the evident shift of the personal computer from a generic information processor to a media work horse, this scenario may happen sooner rather than later.