A review from The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott and other online sources.
In today’s ever advancing world it is imperative that people, organizations, and businesses are willing to adapt with the advancement of technology. Change has always been a key to success for businesses. However, in today’s ever-increasing pace of social media and online activity, those businesses, organizations, and groups that do not adapt will be left behind to get lost in the masses and perhaps even go broke. Bill Gates said, “In the future there will be two types of businesses: those on the Internet and those out of business.”
In David Meerman Scott’s book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, one out of many points that he makes very clear is that companies today have to be online and optimize their sites for search engines. This enables consumers to connect with the unknown businesses that provide the goods and services they want but can’t find, and the power that search engine optimization has is incredible. What makes the web a great medium is its interaction. When a person goes to a website it is because they want to find something. Before the web the only way you could get your organizations noticed was to buy advertising of some kind or convince a journalist to write about you. Telling your organization’s story directly (via the web) is new, because, until now, you’ve never been able to reach a potential audience in the millions without buying expensive advertising or getting media coverage (p. xxvii). When sites are optimized they connect interested people with the company that provides the service they want or need; thus, search engine optimization can not only keep businesses doors open but also increase the bottom line.
Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is defined as “the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via ‘natural’ or un-paid (‘organic’ or ‘algorithmic’) search results.” In other words, when people don’t know about a specific business that offers the products and services that they want or need and they type in key words into a search engine like Google, Bing, or Yahoo, the most optimized websites will be first on the search result list. Those organizations that make it to the top of the list are considered “optimized,” and there are several techniques that one can do in order to accomplish this.
SEO Rule Number One: You Are What You Publish (p.23)
Anyone can publish anything on the web, and it happens millions of times everyday. Since anyone can do it, the playing ground is open for all to participate. Thus, all people and organizations possess the power to elevate themselves on the web to a position of importance (p. 27). It doesn’t matter if you are a brand new organization or if you are the richest company in the world; everyone has an equal chance. With that being said, the organization with the most relevant content for any given search becomes top dog for that search.On the web, content is king, so if an organization wants to be ranked high on search results it needs to be a thought leader (p. 34). Thought leaders are those in society that can connect the dots between people’s problems and the solutions to those problems. Thought leaders are those that write about information, not about products and services.
SEO Rule Number Two: Meet the Needs, Wants, and/or Desires of the Buyer Personas (p. 29).
It is important that organizations identify and target key audience groups for their website. Organizations can’t attract everyone—although that would be nice—so it is important to target a specific type of person. The group could be kids, teenagers, parents, grandparents, church leaders, teachers, tech blog junkies, etc. the list goes on and on. Organizations need to determine what group of people they are targeting, and build their sites accordingly. After targeting a specific group, the websites should make a clear call-to-action regarding what it invites its viewers to do. This could be to sign up for a newsletter, print a coupon, buy a product, vote in a poll, etc. If there is nothing to do on the website then it should not be on the web. Websites are by nature to be interacted with, after all they are built of links.SEO Rule Number Three: Social Media Are a Great Way to Find People, Build Networks, and Share with Others.
The web should be thought of as an online city (p. 39). There, one can find newspapers, service stations, radio stations, television, book stores, grocery stores, libraries, basically everything. With this analogy in mind, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter should be though of as cocktail parties. One wouldn’t attend a friend’s birthday party and only talk about how they saved a bunch of money by switching their car insurance. It would be fine if it came up, but most of the interactions should be human—that is, people sharing with people and giving feedback. If social media is used to push products and services it will wreck the party and people will find another one to go to. It should also be mentioned that one cannot make it to all the parties, so it is important to make the most out the few that are possible to attend. Organizations should encourage people to contact them, participate in the online discussion, and make it easy to find related sites through links. Links are often overlooked, but the more links you have connecting you to other sites, the bigger an organization’s web becomes and the more likely they will rank high in search results. There are hundreds of success stories of people using social media effectively and thus optimizing their websites to rank higher on the list, especially when linked to product and services websites.SEO Rule Number Four: Blogging Is a Great Way to Produce Content, and He Who Produces Content Is the King.
Many popular search engines like Google search for keywords in the content of web pages, so organizations that rank high on search results are those with keywords in the content of their pages. Blogging is important for organizations because it builds content on the web in a simple way. Very similar to social media, blogging has an interactive feel where people can share their thoughts and receive feedback. The main difference, however, is their style and function. Blogs are similar to traditional journalism but without the editors and paid professional staff. They must be taken with a grain of salt…but if ignored can harm an organization (p. 62). Since anyone can comment on anything in anyway (positive or negative), it is important that organizations check to see what is said about them. Even more important than being acted upon is acting, and organizations should start blogs so that they can be the main voice to represent themselves. Blogging produces content and content is king; it can’t be said enough.In addition to regular blogs, organizations can also produce videos and post them to YouTube, and create their own TV station. Video blogging/vodcasting is a good way to produce content for those who are less apt to read and more interested in watching videos. In the same way, podcasting is a way to produce audio content and share it on the web or through popular sites like iTunes. Podcasting is great marketing because, like blogging, it is a human voice that represents your organization (p. 215). Since content is king in SEO there are all sorts of ways to make different types of content. Another is creating news releases online; why wait for the media to pick up a good story? By posting content online, organizations can allow other people to see it and share it.
SEO Rule Number Five: Every Craft Has Its Tools and Search Engine Optimization Is No Different.
There are several great tools provided absolutely free for organizations to use and here are just a few. The first tools are key words and common sense. If an organization wants to pop up when someone searches “piano lessons Columbia Missouri” then those words had better be on the page. It also helps if those words are on the page several times in different places like photos alternate text, heading tags, url addresses, links, and obviously regular text on the page. In addition those words should be in the meta description tag, and each page should have a unique meta description tag.There are some really great resources out there to help with search engine optimization. To get started, an organization might check out this video interview with Google engineer Matt Cutts. Another great source is Google’s free Search Engine Optimization guide that can be downloaded as a pdf. Another really simple way to improve your search engine optimization is to add your website to Google’s URL database, which happens automatically every 30 days. If you want your site added to it right away then you can suggest it by going to http://www.google.com/addurl and adding it. Another way to get an organization’s name out there is by adding it to the businesses found in the Google database. Google has a local business center where business owners can go to add all sorts of information about their business (like hours, payment, menus or products, and location). When a person searches Google maps the business will then be added to the page results. Lastly, if a person is really interested in learning a lot about SEO then the final resource that I am going to mention are Google webmaster tools. These include analytics information about the types of people coming to a site, and all sorts of other in-depth programming like resources.
No comments:
Post a Comment