Search Engine Optimization

Make sure searchers and surfers find your information first, unfiltered

If you are concerned about getting the right information out to the right people, then you have to be concerned about Search. A look at top search terms on any given day reflects the days top news stories. People go the web when they want more information on a topic and when they have the time to learn more.

Why is doing well in search so important? Two things to keep in mind: In just about every study, between one third and one half of all searchers click on the #1 result. That falls to 10% for #2, and continues to fall off dramatically from there. To get your message out its better for you to be at the top, rather than your opponents. Second - the average searcher clicks on only 2 results. If you are not on the first page of results, then your chances of being found are slim.

Search is based around keywords – the exact words that people type into the search engine. The goal of your search engine strategy is to match the most frequently searched keywords as well as possible. Different keywords might be tied to different landing pages on your web site, or even different web sites entirely in order to better offer the information searchers are looking for.

Google, which does well over 50% of the searches worldwide, looks at over 100 factors when ranking web sites for relevance. Titles, headings, and links, particularly links from authority sites, all factor in, and their search algorithms are changed from time to time. Doing well in search engines is an art and skill in itself, but essential knowledge if you are going to be found by the most interested people.

Every time you run a campaign or an ad, or a new issue arises, you should have pages on your web site optimized for likely search phrases. People often search on breaking or new issues to get background information or because they don’t trust the traditional media. One story: Toyota ran a fancy campaign for their new “Yaris” car. A marketing site blogged about the ad campaign. The marketing blog got thousands of visitors when people typed “Yaris” into their search engine of choice. Toyota’s web site was nowhere to be seen. Thousands of people went to the web to search for their product, and none found it.

For the most part, search engine rankings move slow, and unless unique and new words are used, it is hard to rank well right away for static content. However if you do have strong search engine placement in a few categories, getting good rankings in other categories with unique words relating to new issues is sometimes not too hard.