Search Engine Marketing

Search engine optimization ( SEO ) as a subset of search engine marketing seeks to improve the number and quality of visitors to a web site from “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. The quality of visitor traffic can be measured by how often a visitor using a specific keyword leads to a desired conversion action, such as making a purchase or requesting further information.

In effect, SEO is marketing by appealing first to machine algorithms to increase search engine relevance and secondly to human visitors. The term SEO can also refer to “search engine optimizers”, an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients.

Search engine optimization is available as a stand-alone service or as a part of a larger marketing campaign. Because SEO often requires making changes to the source code of a site, it is often most effective when incorporated into the initial development and design of a site, leading to the use of the term “Search Engine Friendly” to describe designs, menus, Content management systems and shopping carts that can be optimized easily and effectively.

A range of strategies and techniques are employed in SEO, including changes to a site’s code (referred to as “on page factors”) and getting links from other sites (referred to as “off page factors”). These techniques include two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing. Some industry commentators classify these methods, and the practitioners who utilize them, as either “white hat SEO”, or “black hat SEO”. [1] Other SEOs reject the black and white hat dichotomy as an over-simplification.

SEO targets the algorithms of popular search engine companies.

History

Origin: Early search engines

Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Initially, all a webmaster needed to do was submit a site to the various engines which would run spiders, programs that “crawled” a page and stored the collected data in a database.

The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine’s own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words, as well as any and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.

At first, search engines were supplied with information about pages by the webmasters themselves. Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines like ALIWEB. Meta-tags provided a guide to each page’s content. But indexing pages based upon meta data was found to be less than reliable, mostly because webmasters abused meta tags by including keywords that had nothing to do with the content of their pages, to artificially increase page impressions for their Website and increase their Ad Revenue. Cost Per Impression was at the time the common means of monetizing content websites. Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent meta data in meta tags caused pages to rank for irrelevant searches, and fail to rank for relevant searches. [2] Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors including:

• Text within the title tag
• Domain name
• URL directories and file names
• HTML tags: headings, emphasized (<em>) and strongly emphasized (<strong>) text
• Term frequency, both in the document and globally, often misunderstood and mistakenly referred to as Keyword density
• Keyword proximity
• Keyword adjacency
• Keyword sequence
• Alt attributes for images
• Text within NOFRAMES tags
• Web content development

Today the only major search engine which says it considers meta keywords in its ranking algorithms is Yahoo, though most experts feel that even there the attention paid to meta keywords is minimal. Explicit facts about the effectives of meta keywords are however not readily know, because of the secrecy used during the ranking of algorithms by the search engines. One could therefore recommend the use meta keywords in webpages, and limit them to 20 keywords or less. I.e when you look at the source code of this page you will notice that wikipedia does also use meta keywords. The “description” tag is however by most SEO-experts claimed to be more important. One could therefore say to use both meta tags in webpages.

Web content providers also manipulated a number of attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.

By relying extensively on factors that were still within the webmasters’ exclusive control, search engines continued to suffer from abuse and ranking manipulation. In order to provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their SERPs showed the most relevant search results, rather than useless pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters using a bait-and-switch lure to display unrelated web pages. This led to the rise of a new kind of search engine.

More sophisticated ranking algorithms

Google was started by two PhD students at Stanford University, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and brought a new concept to evaluating web pages. This concept, called PageRank, has been important to the Google algorithm from the start. ] PageRank is an algorithm that weights a page’s importance based upon the incoming links. PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfed the web, and followed links from one page to another. In effect, this means that some links are more valuable than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random surfer.

The PageRank algorithm proved very effective, and Google began to be perceived as serving the most relevant search results. On the back of strong word of mouth from programmers, Google quickly became the most popular and successful search engine. PageRank measured an off-site factor, Google felt it would be more difficult to manipulate than on-page factors.

Despite being difficult to game, webmasters had already developed link building tools and schemes to influence the Inktomi search engine, and these methods proved similarly applicable to gaining PageRank. Many sites focused on exchanging, buying, and selling links, often on a massive scale. This has spawned an online industry, that survives to this day, focused upon selling links designed to improve PageRank and link popularity, and not to drive human site visitors, with links from higher PageRank pages selling for the most money.

A proxy for the PageRank metric is still displayed in the Google Toolbar, though the displayed value is rounded to be an integer, and the toolbar is believed to be updated less frequently and independently of the value used internally by Google. In 2002 a Google spokesperson stated that PageRank is only one of more than 100 algorithms used in ranking pages, and that while the toolbar PageRank is interesting for users and webmasters, “the value to search engine optimization professionals is limited” because the value is only an approximation. Many experienced SEOs recommend ignoring the displayed PageRank.

Google — and other search engines — have, over the years, developed a wider range of off-site factors they use in their algorithms. The Internet was reaching a vast population of non-technical users who were often unable to use advanced querying techniques to reach the information they were seeking and the sheer volume and complexity of the indexed data was vastly different from that of the early days. Combined with increases in processing power, search engines have begun to develop predictive, semantic, linguistic and heuristic algorithms. Around the same time as the work that led to Google, IBM had begun work on the Clever Project , and Jon Kleinberg was developing the HITS algorithm.

As a search engine may use hundreds of factors in ranking the listings on its SERPs; the factors themselves and the weight each carries can change continually, and algorithms can differ widely, with a web page that ranks #1 in a particular search engine possibly ranking #200 in another search engine, or even on the same search engine a few days later.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Some SEOs have carried out controlled experiments to gauge the effects of different approaches to search optimization. Based on these experiments, often shared through online forums and blogs, professional SEOs attempt to form a consensus on what methods work best, although consensus is rarely, if ever, actually reached.

SEOs widely agree that the signals that influence a page’s rankings include:

1. Keywords in the title tag.
2. Keywords in links pointing to the page.
3. Keywords appearing in visible text.
4. Link popularity (PageRank for Google) of the page.

There are many other signals that may affect a page’s ranking, indicated in a number of patents held by various search engines, such as historical data ] .

Relationship between SEO and search engines

The first mentions of Search Engine Optimization do not appear on Usenet until 1997, a few years after the launch of the first Internet search engines. The operators of search engines recognized quickly that some people from the webmaster community were making efforts to rank well in their search engines, and even manipulating the page rankings in search results. In some early search engines, such as Infoseek, ranking first was as easy as grabbing the source code of the top-ranked page, placing it on your website, and submitting a URL to instantly index and rank that page.

Due to the high value and targeting of search results, there is potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEOs. In 2005, an annual conference named AirWeb was created to discuss bridging the gap and minimizing the sometimes damaging effects of aggressive web content providers.

Some more aggressive site owners and SEOs generate automated sites or employ techniques that eventually get domains banned from the search engines. Many search engine optimization companies, which sell services, employ long-term, low-risk strategies, and most SEO firms that do employ high-risk strategies do so on their own affiliate, lead-generation, or content sites, instead of risking client websites.

Some SEO companies employ aggressive techniques that get their client websites banned from the search results. The Wall Street Journal profiled a company that allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients. Wired reported the same company sued a blogger for mentioning that they were banned. ] Google’s Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.

Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences and seminars. In fact, with the advent of paid inclusion, some search engines now have a vested interest in the health of the optimization community. All of the main search engines provide information/guidelines to help with site optimization: Google’s, Yahoo!’s, MSN’s and Ask.com’s. Google has a Sitemaps program to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website. Yahoo! has Site Explorer that provides a way to submit your URLs for free (like MSN/Google), determine how many pages are in the Yahoo! index and drill down on inlinks to deep pages. Yahoo! has an Ambassador Program and Google has a program for qualifying Google Advertising Professionals .

Getting into search engines’ databases

Today’s major search engines, by and large, do not require any extra effort to submit to, as they are capable of finding pages via links on other sites.

However, Google and Yahoo offer submission programs, such as Google Sitemaps, for which an XML type feed can be created and submitted. Generally, however, a simple link from a site already indexed will get the search engines to visit a new site and begin spidering its contents. It can take a few days or even weeks from the acquisition of a link from such a site for all the main search engine spiders to begin indexing a new site, and there is usually not much that can be done to speed up this process.

Once the search engine finds a new site, it uses a crawler program to retrieve and index the pages on the site. Pages can only be found when linked to with visible hyperlinks. For instance, some search engines are starting to read links created by Flash (for example, Google).

Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site, and many pages from a site may not be indexed by the search engines until they gain more PageRank, links or traffic. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled, as well as other importance metrics. Cho et al described some standards for those decisions as to which pages are visited and sent by a crawler to be included in a search engine’s index.

A few search engines, such as Yahoo!, operate paid submission services that guarantee crawling for either a set fee or CPC. Such programs usually guarantee inclusion in the database, but does not guarantee specific ranking within the search results.

B locking robots

Webmasters can instruct spiders not to crawl certain files or directories through the standard robots.txt file in the root directory of the domain. Additionally, a page can be explicitly excluded from a search engine’s database by using a robots meta tag.

When a search engine visits a site, the robots.txt located in the root folder is the first file crawled. The robots.txt file is then parsed, and only pages not disallowed will be crawled. As a search engine crawler may keep a cached copy of this file, it may on occasion crawl pages a webmaster does not wished crawled.

Pages typically prevented from being crawled include login specific pages such as shopping carts and user-specific content such as search results from internal searches.

“White hat” methods

An SEO tactic, technique or method is considered “White hat” if it conforms to the search engines’ guidelines and/or involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White Hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see.

White Hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then make that content easily accessible to their spiders, rather than game the system. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility ] , although the two are not identical.

“Black hat” methods

“Black hat” SEO are methods to try to improve rankings that are disapproved of by the search engines and/or involve deception. This can range from text that is “hidden”, either as text colored similar to the background or in an invisible or left of visible div, or by redirecting users from a page that is built for search engines to one that is more human friendly. A method that sends a user to a page that was different from the page the search engined ranked is Black hat as a rule. One well known example is Cloaking, the practice of serving one version of a page to search engine spiders/bots and another version to human visitors.

Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines’ algorithms or by a manual review of a site.

One infamous example was the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of deceptive practices. Both companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google’s list

SEO and marketing

There is a considerable sized body of practitioners of SEO who see search engines as just another visitor to a site, and try to make the site as accessible to those visitors as to any other who would come to the pages. They often see the white hat/black hat dichotomy mentioned above as a false dilemma. The focus of their work is not primarily to rank the highest for certain terms in search engines, but rather to help site owners fulfill the business objectives of their sites. Indeed, ranking well for a few terms among the many possibilities does not guarantee more sales. A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic search results to pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and making sites accessible and usable.

SEOs may work in-house for an organization, or as consultants, and search engine optimization may be only part of their daily functions. Often their education of how search engines function comes from interacting and discussing the topics on forums, through blogs, at popular conferences and seminars, and by experimentation on their own sites. There are few college courses that cover online marketing from an ecommerce perspective that can keep up with the changes that the web sees on a daily basis.

SEO, as a marketing strategy, can often generate a good return. However, as the search engines are not paid for the traffic they send from organic search, the algorithms used can and do change, there are no guarantees of success, either in the short or long term. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, SEO is often compared to traditional Public Relations (PR), with PPC advertising closer to traditional advertising. Increased visitors is analogous to increased foot traffic in retail advertising. Increased traffic may be detrimental to success if the site is not prepared to handle the traffic or visitors are generally dissatisfied with what they find. In either case increased traffic does not guarantee increased sales or success.

While endeavoring to meet the guidelines posted by search engines can help build a solid foundation for success on the web, such efforts are only a start. SEO is potentially more effective when combined with a larger marketing campaign strategy. Despite SEO potential to respond to the latest changes in market trends, SEO alone is reactively following market trends instead of pro-actively leading market trends. Many see search engine marketing as a larger umbrella under which search engine optimization fits, but it’s possible that many who focused primarily on SEO in the past are incorporating more and more marketing ideas into their efforts, including public relations strategy and implementation, online display media buying, web site transition SEO, web trends data analysis, HTML E-mail campaigns, and business blog consulting making SEO firms more like an ad agency.

In addition, whilst SEO can be considered a marketing tactic unto itself, it’s often considered (in the view of industry experts) to be a single part of a greater whole. Marketing through other methods, such as viral, pay-per-click, new media marketing and other related means is by no means irrelevant, and indeed, can be crucial to maintaining a strong search engine rank. The part of SEO that simply insures content relevancy and attracts inbound link activity may be enhanced through broad target marketing methods such as print, broadcast and out-of-home advertising as well.

Legal issues

In 2002, SearchKing filed suit in an Oklahoma court against the search engine Google. SearchKing’s claim was that Google’s tactics to prevent spamdexing constituted an unfair business practice. This may be compared to lawsuits that email spammers have filed against spam-fighters, as in various cases against MAPS and other DNSBLs. In January of 2003, the court pronounced a summary judgment in Google’s favor. In March 2006, KinderStart.com, LLC filed a first amended complaint against Google and also attempted to include potential members of the class of plaintiffs in a class action. The plaintiff’s web site was removed from Google’s index prior to the lawsuit and the amount of traffic to the site plummeted.

Link Building Tips

There are a multitude of tips that can be put forth regarding proper website marketing guidelines. While a comprehensive list would require a book length treatise, a brief list of open marketing secrets may help a flagging campaign. Yes, we are going to discuss the secrets of website marketing . In a way, the use of the word “secrets” has some odd connotations to it.For some, it may be indicative of hidden information that might provide the impetus for success or the path where one can avoid failure. On this flipside, secrets could refer to hype that is not necessarily based in substance and is, in short, a marketing scheme. Then, there is the more logical and realistic appropriation of the word secrets. In this more realistic model, secrets simply refer to details that are missed.That is, when someone has significant experience in a particular subject matter (in this specific case, website marketing ) the person can see things that others who lack the volume of experience may miss. By filling in the experience gaps, the provider of the “secrets” allows the individual seeking the proverbial knowledge of the third eye (that is a reference to an ancient folklore description of an oracle) and from this newfound knowledge base, the individual can go forth empowered for success.In other words, secrets are not so much mystical as they are solid tips designed to achieve a more optimal outcome than what is presented as the status quo. If the current status quo is poor sales or exposure and your website marketing needs a huge shot in the arm, here are a number of secrets that can greatly improve revenue and performance.

Having a Plan

This is probably the one area people take for granted. In order to make your website marketing plan effective, those running the business need to clearly define their goals and targets. From this, the ability to chart progress and success can be effectively undertaken. If the goals of the marketing campaign are not clearly defined, then success will be impossible. Sadly, many businesses completely miss the boat on devising such a basic and simple plan.

Perform a Site Analysis

When embarking on a website marketing campaign, one needs to understand that the campaign is only as strong as the website itself. In other words, the website has to be properly designed and user friendly. Is it clear and concise or is it muddled and confusing? Are the words in the text effective or are they dull and boorish? Is the website search engine friendly? These are all things that must be taken into consideration when planning an effective website marketing campaign.

Website Marketing Via Email

For too often, people do not place enough emphasis on using a targeted email campaign in order to increase exposure to a website or product. Part of the reason for this is that “spam” email has created a very negative image in regards to direct email campaigns. It would be unwise, however, to dismiss direct email website marketing because such a campaign can yield tremendous traffic provided that the campaign does not embody the vice like traits of the lowest common denominators of email marketing.

Changing Direction When Website Marketing Disappoints

If a marketing strategy is not working out to the level that one would deem optimal, there is not reason to panic. In such an instance, there simply needs to be a realignment of the website marketing plan and a shift in direction. From this, one can reverse the fortunes of a failed strategy. This does not mean, however, that one reverses course pre-maturely. All website marketing plans require time to be effective so a rush to reverse course may cause more harm than good.

The Missing Element in Search Engine Marketing

In the “technical” world of search engine marketing , we often get so tied up in optimizing our pages, getting our databases crawled, determining what’s happening with Google’s latest update, and building our link popularity that we think in much too linear a fashion.
It’s way past time to begin looking at your Web business as if you’re standing in the clouds looking down. For the time being, don’t think about search engine optimization, Web design, or technical issues. Yes, those things are crucial, and we’re counting on you to cover those areas. But for now, let’s look at what I believe to be a crucial missing element in search engine marketing . . . creativity.
You might be thinking . . . you’re not a writer, a dancer, an artist, or a painter. You’re just not creative!
Perish the thought!

There are different levels of creativity, and everyone can be taught to think more creatively. To be honest, the very fact that you have an online business shows your creativity. You’re selling goods and services online. You’re doing something that was practically unheard of 10 years ago. Congratulations on your forward thinking!

Need more proof of your creativity?

• Do you value a well-designed Web site?
• Do you enjoy music?
• Do you take pleasure in art – any kind of art?
• Do you appreciate the glory of a sunset?
• Do you feel a sense of awe at seeing horses galloping across a pasture?
• When you see a child smile, or a brand new baby, are you inspired by the unbelievable wonders of this world?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, creativity lives inside you. It’s up to you (with a little help from a friend) to begin using your creativity in your online business and on your Web site.

“Can’t” Can’t do Anything

When I was younger and told my mother I couldn’t do something (“I can’t do this math homework”), her wise response was always, “’Can’t’ can’t do anything.” In other words, “If you give up in the beginning, you’ve killed any opportunity of achieving success.”

The biggest killers of creativity are words like, “can’t,” “no, because,” “it costs too much,” “it won’t work,” “there’s no one to do it,” and “it’s impossible.”

Walt Disney had different teams who worked on the same projects. When his idea creators got together, no one was allowed to voice thoughts like:

• “It can’t be done.”
• “It costs too much money.”
• “That idea is horrible!”
• <dead silence> (Have you ever been really excited about an idea, and this was how you were greeted when you shared your idea? Kind of cuts off the flow of those creative juices, doesn’t it?)

Idea creation is a brainstorming session, pure and simple. Someone has an idea, and the team of creators takes the idea and run with it. They don’t worry about the “mechanics” of how to implement the idea. They’re in the creative mode.

They’re simply . . . creating.

Once the ideas are expanded upon and ready to be moved to the next level, that team begins to work on the implementation of the idea.

Walt Disney’s belief was “Yes, if . . .” is the language of a creator, whereas the language of a defeatist is “No, because.”

Is Every Idea a Perfect One?

Of course not. That’s where the power of brainstorming comes in. One person has an idea, which spawns the additional thoughts of another person, which creates more input from another person, and so forth. Maybe the original idea needs a little more work to make it doable. Maybe the best time for the idea is next year, rather than next month. To make the idea work, maybe an additional staff member will need to be hired. Maybe several obstacles will need to be tackled before the idea is possible.

One thing is certain:

You’ll never succeed if you give up too soon.

There are no brick walls in search engine marketing . If you run up against a brick wall, it’s time to think creatively.

Does Every Idea Work?

Nope. Some ideas fail. But if you don’t try, you’ll never know what will work and what will have the potential to make you a bundle of money. If an idea fails, step back and review. Can you make some changes to the project to make it work better? Can you add a twist to turn things around? Is your thinking stagnant – do you need a different perspective? Is it time for a brainstorming session?

Don’t take what might look like a failure and “assume” that’s what it is at face value.

Never assume!

Time to Look at Some Examples

Example #1: Travel Web Site

(Note: These examples can apply to almost any industry. Use your imagination and make them work! Also, there are many things we don’t know about the sites, since we can’t visually see them.)

You sell vacation packages going to Walt Disney World. Competition is fierce in your industry. You’ve done everything you can from an SEO standpoint to optimize your database-driven site. Every page is found in the engines, and every page has a unique title, description, heading, and content. Your rankings are fairly good but could use improvement. However, your conversions could be better, and so could your link popularity.

Another problem is how to differentiate yourself from your competition. In other words, you need a USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

At the end of this article, I’ll give you some possible solutions, but the purpose of this article is to get YOU to think creatively.

Ask Yourself These Questions:

Is there a way that you could get your happy customers to link to your Web site in order to build your link popularity? Are you giving them a reason to link to your Web site?

Is your site “sticky,” meaning are you giving new and past customers a reason to come back to your site over and over again? Do you have a lot of repeat customers?

What exactly makes a site sticky? Why do you go back to sites again and again?

What could you do on your site that would make your customers tell others about your site?

Let’s say that I’m your customer. Why would I want to come back to your site again and again? Why would I want to tell others about your site?

Re-read the description about the site. Remember what the strengths and weaknesses are.

Why would I want to buy from YOU instead of your competitor? That is your USP – your Unique Selling Proposition. The USP differentiates you from your competition. Every business needs a USP. What is yours?

30-Minute USP Brainstorming Exercise

1. Try brainstorming with friends or associates who know and understand your business. For these exercises, try to work with at least one other person.

2. Try setting a specific time limit of just 10 minutes per exercise. When the time is up, stop – unless you are really on a roll. Never stop a “creative roll”!

3. There is nothing wrong with any idea. List every one whether it is good, bad, silly, or indifferent.

4. Make sure not to allow “negatives” or “negative attitudes” to destroy the atmosphere of creativity. If a brainstorming partner always seems to think negatively about ideas, it’s time to find a new brainstorming partner.

(Important: These exercises will only work if you actually do them!)

Exercise One:
In 10 minutes, make a list on paper of every service that you provide that is common to your specific industry overall.
• This list includes everything that most businesses in your industry provide in common.
• Throw in absolutely everything that you can think of that is common.
• Let your mind suggest anything in any kind of order as it occurs to you.
• Once you have completed this, cut it off after 10 minutes (remember this is an exercise.)

Exercise Two:
In 10 minutes, make a list on another sheet of paper of every service that you provide that is uncommon to your competitors.
• This list includes every way that separates you from your competitor.
• Focus on why you are different than a competitor, not better than a competitor.
• Do not feel that you have to think logically or in order. Write ideas as they are tossed out.
• No idea is a bad idea or not worth listing. Be sure to include everything without question.
• Once you have completed this, cut it off after 10 minutes – unless you are on a roll.

Exercise Three:
In 10 minutes, make a list on another sheet of paper of every service that is not or cannot be provided by anyone (but you wish could be provided.)
• This list can be as zany or crazy as you like with no logic at all.
• Don’t let anything prevent you from listing EVERY idea regardless of how crazy it is. If someone suggests “free insurance” or “paying the customer” or something even more outlandish, still list it.
• Avoid using your logical senses and have some fun with this.
• There is no such thing as a “dumb suggestion.”
• You are purposely thinking of radical ideas that may not ever happen.
• Once you have completed this, cut it off after 10 minutes exactly – unless you are on a roll.
Once you are done creating your three lists, lay them out side by side and begin to think about your unique selling proposition. Have you noticed any new and original ideas popping into your mind yet? There is something wonderful about brainstorming combined with the action of writing things down that is very therapeutic. Sometimes it’s when we are in our most illogical state of thinking, just having fun, away from the stress, that truly brilliant ideas and concepts will emerge.

In part 3, I’ll share my own list of possible solutions for Example 1 (the travel site). That will give you plenty of time to complete the exercises yourself.

Tip: Creativity is like SEO. You have to work at learning and building the skills. Do the exercises. You’ll be amazed at how you’ll feel and what you’ll learn. Trust me on this.

Example #2: Online Retail Store

(Note: Many of the same solutions can apply to this example, but we’re going to brainstorm for others as well.)

You have an online retail store, and you sell a multitude of different products. You have 300 static pages, and you don’t want to switch to a database. Your rankings are good, but your click throughs need help. (Tip: Be sure to check your log files and analyze your traffic. You don’t want to change anything until you know for sure that your rankings/keywords aren’t bringing you traffic.)

You have no real “identity” online. The name of your Web site is “GJL Retail,” but that doesn’t tell shoppers what your site is about and has proven lousy as far as branding is concerned.

You sell everything from clay clocks to building blocks for kids. People who visit rave about your product lines, the ease in navigation, the design of the site, and the friendliness of your staff. Your conversion to sales is good, once you get the customer on your site.

The main problem is that visitors aren’t finding your site through organic listings. You’re spending a fortune on the PPCs. Without them, you’d be toast.

Ask Yourself These Questions:

First off, let’s think about the click throughs. You have good rankings, but why aren’t those rankings translating to click throughs?

(Tip: Again, be sure to check your log files and analyze your traffic. You don’t want to change anything until you know for sure that your rankings/keywords aren’t bringing you traffic.)

In search engine “optimization,” we strive for top rankings. But all of the top rankings in the world won’t matter if they don’t convert to sales. In order for those rankings to convert to sales, they have to convert to click throughs. So what does that mean to you?

Your problem with click through rates could mean two things:

1. Your titles and descriptions aren’t captivating and designed to drag your potential customers by the neck, kicking and screaming, to YOUR Web site.

2. You’ve optimized your pages for keyword phrases that few people are searching for.

Improving Click Throughs Exercise

Choose one of your pages that you’re having problems with click throughs. Take the most important keyword phrase and type it into Google. When the results come up, study the titles and descriptions for the top 10 results. How do they compare with yours?

Pick someone in your office (or maybe your spouse or a friend), and ask him/her to choose which result he/she would pick after reading the titles and descriptions.

How does your title/description compare to the chosen result?

Where is Google pulling your description from? Is it pulling your description from the description META tag? If not, find the description on your page. If your site is listed in the Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org), it may be pulling your description from that listing. Are you pleased with the description? If not, rewrite it.

Start rewriting your titles and descriptions for 5-10 of your top pages. Don’t make any changes to your HTML pages yet. Let others in the office see the changes and get their opinions. Wait until the solutions part this article before letting any changes go live.

Though you may think these aren’t “creativity” exercises, the solutions you’ll find will definitely spark your creative thinking.

Remember: the purpose of this exercise is to improve your click through rate. However, by the same token, we don’t want your rankings to go down. Just make sure to use your keyword phrase toward the beginning of both tags when you rewrite them.

If you have a branding problem online, get your brainstorming team together and think about what you can do about “GJL Retail” and how to brand it and make it memorable. There are many different paths you can take. Take out a piece of paper and start writing. Study some successful retail sites online. How have they successfully branded themselves?

Tip: You don’t have to use your keyword phrase in your domain name.

Increasing Traffic to Your Site

For this very important exercise, I want you to forget about your own Web site. You’re too close to your site, so you need to learn by working on a hypothetical site, and then apply what you have learned to your own online business.

1. Gather your brainstorming team together. The team may be you and just one other person. But you need at least one more person to work with you.

2. Here is your mission:

You’ve been given a Web site to work with, but you’re not allowed to touch the design of the site. We’ve just spent $50,000 on a new site design, which we’re very proud of, and we’ve written the content for the audience. We don’t want the design or the content changed.

3. Pick between these different companies, but DON’T pick a company that’s similar to yours.

• Online retail store
• Nonprofit organization
• Medical supplies
• Online counseling
• Local winery
• Downloadable cook books

Tip: The first thing you’ll want to do is spend 10 minutes or so thinking about the company itself. You need to have a feel for the company, what products or services it provides, and what its target audience is. Who is this company marketing to?

4. Your Goal: Come up with as many ways to increase traffic to this site as you can. These ways can come from search engine marketing , other avenues of online marketing , or offline marketing .

Be CREATIVE. Let nothing hold you back. Start a list and begin writing. Remember: money is no object.

Here are the guidelines you MUST follow:

• You can add new pages.
• You can change the content of tags.
• You can NOT spam in any way. No cloaking allowed. No tag stuffing. No redirects. Read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines (http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/guidelines.html) if you’re unsure of what constitutes spam.
• You can’t change the content of existing pages EXCEPT to rewrite the heading at the top of the pages.
• You can’t change the design. The site MUST look just like it looks now.

Important Notes:

• Don’t forget the entire SEO process. Though we’re focusing on “creativity” here, forgetting the “basics” of SEO can mean severe problems to a Web site.
• SEO isn’t the only “game” in town. What other online marketing avenues can you consider?
• What offline marketing avenues can you consider?
• Think creatively . . . radically . . . illogically. Don’t neglect to add something to your list because you “think” it will never work. Add it anyway! Absolutely NO ideas are bad or wrong (unless they are spam).
• Get to work! Don’t pass over this exercise. If it sounds silly to you, do it anyway. This simple exercise could be one of the most important learning exercises you’ve done in a long, long time.

Possible Solutions to our Example Sites

Example #1: Travel Web Site
Here are some of my brainstorming ideas:

Remember: Even if you’re not in the travel industry, you can adjust these ideas to work for many other industries as well.

• Set up an area on your site where your past travelers can post photos of their vacations. This would be your photo library. If a traveler posted photos of their vacation on your Web site, don’t you imagine they would link to your photo library from their Web site? Don’t you imagine that potential travelers would see those other photos, and this could encourage them to purchase their travel packages from you? In other words, you’re also building up the trust factor by showing them past happy customers.
• Set up an online coloring area for children who go on vacations or want to go. This could be a place for parents to send their children to get them excited about the trip or afterward to color pictures about their trip. Use vacation or holiday-oriented coloring sheets. Let the children print out, e-mail, or post their color sheets online. Every aunt, grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, extended family, etc., will link to pictures their children have posted online. The link popularity potential will be astounding. Coloring.com is a great example of what can be done. (Check out their link popularity at http://www.marketleap.com, by the way.)
• Have a well-defined link to the two areas on the main page on your site and in your main navigation system. Also, include the links on your site map. Have a small area of your main page that explains that you’ve set up these special areas of your site just for your travelers.
• When someone purchases a package from you, remind them about the photo areas and send them the URL of how they can use the areas when they get back from the trip. Make the instructions user friendly (meaning non-computer-savvy friendly).
• Look carefully at the graphics on your site. You’re not selling “vacation packages,” you’re selling the “Yippee! We’re having fun!” Do you have pictures of the Walt Disney World sign with no smiling faces, or a picture of Splash Mountain with no one barreling down the water fall? At our last workshop, one of our students told me that she’d taken our suggestion about including a person in a sports car on the main graphic on one of her client’s sites, rather than just the car, and their conversion rate quadrupled. Think about it. It can make a difference.
• Have a non-intrusive link at the bottom of your pages where you can “refer a friend.” Consider showing your appreciation to those who refer business to you by offering a 10% discount on their next vacation package for anyone who actually signs up for a vacation package.
• Look at the use of additional graphics on your site. Graphics should be used to invoke emotions or draw the eye to whatever you want the visitor to see. Don’t use graphics gratuitously. White space is fine on a Web page. You don’t want to use a cute little graphic and draw the eye away from some important content on your page needlessly. However, a “Buy here” button is fine!
• If you don’t have a newsletter, set one up immediately! Be sure to announce special dates at the parks, special pricing that you might have from time to time, your photo and color areas, your referral discount appreciation program, and new things happening on your Web site. Make your newsletter personal, written by one person, and write it on a regular basis. Don’t send it out too often. Your newsletter should bring your “family” of readers together, with you as the writer, if done correctly. Have a place to sign up for your newsletter on every page of your site. Post past newsletters online, and add that content to your site. Permission e-mail marketing is an extremely powerful form of online marketing .
• Make your USP clear throughout your site. This is what differentiates you from your competition. This is why I would buy from YOU rather than your competition.

Again, there are many other things we could do with this Web site. However, we covered the travel site’s main problems: conversions, link popularity, and USP. We also covered ways to make your Web site “sticky.” By working on off-page factors (link popularity), your rankings should improve.

Example #2: Online Retail Store
Here are some of my brainstorming ideas:

Tips for re-writing titles and descriptions:

• Get rid of all trite words in your titles and descriptions. Use power words instead. Visit Thesaurus.com and type in trite words and substitute them for power words. For example, our products are always the “best,” aren’t they? (yawn) How about “incomparable” instead?
• Ask stimulating questions in your titles or descriptions. They make your potential audience stop and think. “What would a management planner be worth to you if it increased your productivity by 87%?”
• Solve problems for your visitors in your titles or descriptions. Save them money or time, or even offer your USP in your tags, only if appropriate. “Let us dig for antique books for you. Send us titles and authors, then sit back and relax!”
• Read this article on adding “zest” to your title tags: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/title-triggers.html

Back to the drawing board with keyword research:

• If you have great rankings for some of your keyword phrases but little corresponding traffic, it could be that your keyword phrases are “low-hanging fruit.” This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We have pages built specifically for low-hanging fruit. They don’t bring us much traffic, but the traffic they do bring us is highly targeted and converts extremely well.

My suggestion would be to open new keyword windows by finding additional keyword phrases for your business. Go to Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) and do some research. Don’t ever assume you know how your audience is searching. Bottom line: you’ll probably be wrong. Don’t waste your time guessing when you can know for sure. Read this article to get you started: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/wordtrackerR.html

Create new pages based on your keyword findings. These new pages should provide value to your visitors and the search engines. They should open new windows of traffic into the site. They could be information pages about your products, “how to” pages, tutorials, interviews, articles, or whatever type of pages you feel would be worthwhile to your visitors. Link to these pages from your site map and from any other pages containing similar content.

Additional brainstorming ideas for Example #2 (Online Retail Store):

• Get some domain ideas from online retail stores like Overstock.com (How could we ever forget the ‘O’?) or IWantOneOfThose.com. Unforgettable domain names, yet quite simple.

I just went to Network Solutions and played around, and I found these domain names for retail stores. They’re currently available (at the time of this writing):

A-Shoppers-Dream.com
FromClocksToBlocks.com
Shopping-Just-For-You.com
ShoppersRS.com
Lets-Start-Shopping.com
Retail-Extravaganza.com

Any number of names would be easier to remember and possibly brand than GJLOnlineRetail.com.

Get new graphics, and begin rebranding your Web site. I assume GJL are your initials. You can even use them if you can come up with a way to re-brand the site using your initials.

Increasing Traffic Exercise – My Brainstorming Ideas

I chose the online retail store, since that’s the example we’ve been using. The target audience is mainly women ages 25 and up, though there are some products for men. The company sells children’s products as well.

• I would analyze the site and make sure the site itself is compliant and all of the SEO basics have been covered.
• If the site is “code” heavy, I would go with CSS. The design would look totally the same.
• I would do keyword research through Wordtracker.com and create valuable new pages based on keywords through which the site currently is getting no visibility or traffic. I would add one new page of content every week.
• I would look at the product line carefully. We know the site sells clocks. Are these unique clocks by a particular designer? I would set up an online chat session with the designer and promote it heavily on the site. Send out a press release through PRWeb.com. Have the designer autograph the clocks. Notify your customers by your newsletter about the autograph “party.” Offer discounts. Make it a media event. Ask the designer to promote the autograph party as well. What other products do you sell that would fall into this same category?
• Do you sell a particular product to where you could have an “Ask the Expert” area on the main page of your site? Your visitors can ask questions, and the answers can be archived elsewhere on your site. This is a great way to add new and fresh content to your site on a continual basis.
• On the main page of your site, list your best selling items. You don’t have to show their pictures – just link to their interior pages. Psychology is such that if someone knows that an item is a “best seller,” “I” should like it to, or at least give it a try.
• Be sure to have a page of specials or discounted items, and rotate them out.
• Give the customers enough ways to search through your products. For example, if the retail store sells bath products, the customers need to be able to search by fragrance, product line, product (bomb, gel, bubble bath, etc.), country, and what other variables might be important.
• Hire a national celebrity to promote the Web site for short TV ads to help increase the branding of the site. Send out press releases, magazine articles, and newspaper ads for this national campaign. (I told you to brainstorm and be creative – this is what I mean!)
• Toning down the TV ad idea, look into how much it would cost to put on TV ads late at night. I’ve seen many Web sites put on TV ads on late night TV. ILoveAlpacas.com is one that I see on a regular basis on national stations.
• Put up a billboard in a prime location. Use memorable language. Drivers will have to remember your URL or a keyword phrase where you’re #1 or you’ll lose the business between the time they see the billboard and the time they get home to their computers.
• Set up an affiliate program offering a 20% affiliate commission to anyone who promotes your product lines.
• With the national celebrity, introduce a new line of products featuring the celebrity. 50% of the proceeds will go to a nonprofit cause that you’ll determine and promote. Get the celebrity on national news shows, etc.
• Send out press releases for all of the company’s newsworthy activities.
• Set up a blog to where your customers can post feedback on your various products. Link back and forth between your product pages to your blog. Offer a discount to your customers if they’ll post to your blog.
• Better yet, set up a blog with a purpose. Read this article to learn more: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/blogs-purpose.html
• Do you sell books on your retail site? Have the authors conduct chats. Have them link to your site. Offer autographed books (if possible).
• What other products do you sell where the original creators could link to your site? Think “link popularity building” here.
• Think “article marketing ” now. What “how to,” “top 10 lists,” or “interview” articles could you write as a way to add content to your site? This may be a way you could get your authors or product creators to create some content for you.
• With every order you send out, include a bumper sticker with your URL on it. Everything a shopper could want . . . and more. Visit A-Shoppers-Dream.com

We’re just getting started here. We could go on and on and on. Notice that we didn’t cover some of the traditional forms of online advertising such as the PPCs, advertising in e-zines and lists, etc. Of course you’ll want to consider those avenues as you see fit. We covered permission e-mail marketing in our first example.

I’m sure you were able to brainstorm many more ideas, and that’s the beauty of creativity and idea creation. Let your mind flow.

Now, think about your own business. Compare my list to yours. Would any of the ideas work for your own business? Did you think of any other ideas to add? Can you change up some of the ideas to make them doable?

Some of the ideas may not work at all for you, and that’s fine. Some may take some pre-planning to make them conform to your particular situation. Some you just won’t like. But by brainstorming, you should have come up with some ideas for pulling in traffic to your site.

In Conclusion

Remember that Web site solutions don’t have to come in the form of search engine optimization or technology. They can often come in the form of creativity . . . the missing element in search engine marketing .

Don’t forget creativity, and please . . . have fun!

Robin Nobles is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with John Alexander. They teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive “hands on” search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. She also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com , and she’s a member of Wordtracker’s official question support team. With partner John Alexander, she’s co-authored a series of e-books called, “The Totally Non-Technical Guides to Having a Successful Web Site.” And, they opened a networking community for search engine marketers called The World Resource Center for Search Engine Marketers.

301 Server Redirect

301 redirect is the most efficient and Search Engine Friendly method for webpage redirection. It’s not that hard to implement and it should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. If you have to change file names or move pages around, it’s the safest option. The code “301″ is interpreted as “moved permanently”.

You can Test your redirection with Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker

Below are a Couple of methods to implement URL Redirection

IIS Redirect
In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
Select the radio titled “a redirection to a URL”.
Enter the redirection page
Check “The exact url entered above” and the “A permanent redirection for this resource”
Click on ‘Apply’
ColdFusion Redirect
<.cfheader statuscode=”301″ statustext=”Moved permanently”>
<.cfheader name=”Location” value=”http://www.new-url.com”>

PHP Redirect
<?
Header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
Header( “Location: http://www.new-url.com” );
?>

ASP Redirect
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(”Location”,”http://www.new-url.com/”);
%>

ASP .NET Redirect
<script runat=”server”>
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = “301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(”Location”,”http://www.new-url.com”);
}
</script>

JSP (Java) Redirect
<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( “Location”, “http://www.new-url.com/” );
response.setHeader( “Connection”, “close” );
%>

CGI PERL Redirect
$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect(”http://www.new-url.com/”);

Ruby on Rails Redirect
def old_action
headers["Status"] = “301 Moved Permanently”
redirect_to “http://www.new-url.com/”
end

Redirect Old domain to New domain ( htaccess redirect )
Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all your directories and pages of your old domain will get correctly redirected to your new domain.
The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Please REPLACE www.newdomain.com in the above code with your actual domain name.

In addition to the redirect I would suggest that you contact every backlinking site to modify their backlink to point to your new website.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

Redirect to www ( htaccess redirect )
Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all requests coming in to domain.com will get redirected to www.domain.com
The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^domain.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Please REPLACE domain.com and www.newdomain.com with your actual domain name.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

How to Redirect HTML
Please refer to section titled ‘How to Redirect with htaccess’, if your site is hosted on a Linux Server and ‘IIS Redirect’, if your site is hosted on a Windows Server.