Search Engine Optimization Part I

Marketing on the Internet has been quite a hot topic for some time. That means different things to different people--Banner advertising, pay-per-click ads, email newsletters, direct marketing via email, affiliate marketing, Electronic Press Releases, etc. Any and all of these may be an important part of your optimal online marketing mix, depending upon the specifics of your business and resources.

However, there is one online marketing method that nearly EVERYONE should be pursuing. In my consulting practice at PJM Consulting, I find that too many technology companies are not actively utilizing this marketing method, and it's very surprising to me. I'm referring to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO is the practice of modifying the content and infrastructure of your website, to ensure that the Search Engines find it, when someone enters a keyword search that is highly relevant to your site. This just doesn't happen automatically--unfortunately.

Offline Marketing Analogies

Most of you are familiar with the use of Press Releases and magazine advertising as "staples" of technology marketing. Of the two, Press Releases are the "free", and more credible method of publicizing your products or services. There is no guarantee that a press release or a story derived from it will actually be published, but if it is, the credibility is very high with the reader--and of course the expense may have been very low to garner this exposure. Magazine advertising, on the other hand, is guaranteed to give you exposure, but is much more expensive, and somewhat less credible with the reader, than PR is on the same topic.

I like to use an analogy from offline marketing to explain the importance and relative position that SEO should take in your marketing mix. In the online world, you can think of SEO as the PR of the Internet, while Pay-per-Click advertising such as Google Adwords or Overture is analogous to the magazine advertising that appears in the offline media (more on pay-per-click advertising in a future column). SEO appears in the "Organic" listing when doing a search in an engine like Google or Yahoo, and as a result it is highly credible. Tremendous amounts of targeted potential customers can be driven to your site via Search Engines. This is a competitive issue as well--I guarantee that your savvy competitors are investing in this area.

As long as I'm using analogies, here's another way of looking at this topic: Would you build a beautiful retailer store out in the middle of a cornfield, 50 miles from the nearest consumer? I hope that any business person reading this would answer "No". Yet, I find many senior executives in High Tech companies are oblivious to the strategic importance of having a website highly optimized for Search--which is the Internet equivalent to "Location, Location, Location" in the retail business world. Websites are usually built by Graphics Designers who put great effort into the "look and feel" of the site (the beautiful retail store)--and NO effort into enabling someone to find the site through search engines (built in a cornfield).

The most recent research on SEO says that appearing among the first six sites in the results of a search can lead to enormous increases in traffic to your site. For searches containing the targeted keywords specific to your business, getting your site to appear in the top six sites of the results should be your goal. If you are able to accomplish this, the visibility among your target customer will increase substantially--possibly exponentially.

Now, I don't want to pretend that maximizing your results is easy. But at least the initial steps that you should take are not that hard. I believe that this important topic doesn't get the play it should in executive suites, because of a "fear factor." SEO is viewed as a highly technical field, understandable only to "geeks." A lot of times, people just don't know where to start. But once you delve into it, most of the steps are pretty straightforward.

So how should you go about enhancing SEO on your website? Just like most other things in technology marketing, it depends upon the skills within your company, the competitiveness of your marketplace, and the company's financial resources.

It's Important

To go back to our example in the offline marketing world, how people conduct their press relations varies widely. Companies with large financial resources, as well as fast-moving & competitive markets, often hire external PR firms to spearhead their campaigns, with retainers of $10-15K/month or more. For these companies, having outside experts focus on this important activity is viewed as critical, and isn't a problem within the budget. Other companies feel more comfortable hiring an in-house PR person, both from a productivity and budget perspective. And smaller companies can't hire PR expertise at all--but they know they need press coverage, and still find a way to write press releases and promote them to the important editors in their vertical market. Because they realize that it's IMPORTANT.

SEO is the same. If you are in a highly competitive market and are flush with money, it may make sense to hire one of the hundreds of agencies focused specifically on search engine marketing, to optimize your site. Or you may have a webmaster in-house that has the skills and interest to take on the task. But even if you have no in-house expertise, and can't afford to hire any--by all means, do it yourself. Buy an SEO book or one of the modestly priced SEO software packages available to walk you through it. Do it because it's IMPORTANT.

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