Perspectives on Web Marketing: The End User Still Steers the Ship — Part 3

(Back to Part 2...)

Search Engine Optimization: Make it easy to be noticed
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of structuring your Web site so that popular search engines (Yahoo, Google, etc.) add your site pages to their database, and then — hopefully — “rank” your site high enough in people’s searches to do you some good.

And, says SteadmanTech’s Gary Steadman, “Search engine optimization is critical if you depend on the Web for attracting business.”

Putting the proper mechanics in place is critical. These include:

• Key words and metatags within each page’s code. These are the descriptive words and phrases search engines glean from your pages.

• Proper use of page titles and “first paragraph” text. Many search engines rank your pages based on the correlation between key words,  page title, and the first readable text on the page.

• Paid submission, where you pay or bid for key words in return for better ranking. “Consider how much you’re willing to pay for better search engine results,” says Steadman, “because it then needs to be part of your budget.”

• Encouraging/fostering back-links. Pages are often rated higher when other relevant pages from other sites are linked to them.

But even within such an apparently automated, or code-centric, science as search engine optimization, the end user still rules. The success of your efforts depends on how well you can think like your customer, and then construct your optimized site to reflect that understanding.

For example, says Steadman,  “Key phrases can be more important than key words. Take a commercial printer who wants to increase traffic on his site. He might focus on a key word such as ‘printers,’ which sounds like a perfect choice… but it’s not. You might get a lot of traffic, but a lot of it might be from people looking for inkjet printers, photo printers.. it wouldn’t be traffic that’s useful for your business.” Not a great result, especially if you’ve decided to pay a search engine for each click-through to your site.

A better choice, Steadman said, would be key phrases that use three or four words, such as “Commercial printers, offset, Binghamton, NY.” When your pages’ key phrases properly ‘answer’ words that users valuable to you enter into a search engine, those who end up at your site are already pre-qualified as potential customers. “One or two words attract browsers,” says Steadman. “Key phrases attract buyers.”

Safe Passage in Shifting Tides
Whether designing a content management system or a simple Web page… Choosing the right media for your presentation or optimizing your Web site… Amid a stunning and growing array of options, avenues and opportunities, the point of embarkation appears to be as constant as the Northern Star: stand with your customers, readers, or end users. Look at what they want, and trust their needs. You have to. When it comes to marketing effectively on the Web, they’re the ones at the wheel.

(For yet more perspectives on this topic, see our Guest Viewpoint "The Why and How of e-Marketing," "The New Media Belong to the Users," and Guest Viewpoint "In Search of the Cyberworld El Dorado.")

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