Tactics: Search Engine Placement
and Marketing Optimization |
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What is it and why do you need it?
Sorely overlooked but integral to your online marketing success,
search engine placement and optimization, which we also refer to
as search engine marketing, helps you get listed in all the
appropriate places that are of paramount importance to your
company's long-term online marketing goals. We can help you
establish a presence, optimize a presence, monitor your and
positioning on major search engines, portal sites, guide sites
and directories in order to help them maximize the potential for
traffic to their web site, where current customers can be
incentivized to revisit and potential players can be nurtured
and cajoled into taking the first step toward becoming a
customer. Usually the most inexpensive method of driving traffic
to sites, search engine placement and optimization should not be
ignored.
Search engine marketing, in its essence, is 75% common sense
and 25% creativity.
Everyone with a web site knows they need a presence in search
engines and directories, yet they hire ad agencies and other
interactive shops to design sites that may look good, but fall
short from a marketing perspective. And it's often not just one
site. Time after time, we have seen that companies with multiple
web sites make the same mistakes over and over again.
Why?
IT people generally concern themselves with the technical
aspects of how sites function, that forms resolve to the proper
places, that email links are valid and that there are no broken
images. Editorial people look at the copy on the pages and try
to make sure that the site's content is accurate and error-free.
Marketing people look to make sure that the sites are reflective
of the rest of the company's marketing materials, brand
identity, corporate colors, fine print, etc.
Who owns the search engine marketing process?
Interestingly enough, it varies in each organization. There are
many savvy web masters who try their best to optimize their web
sites, obtain links on other sites and monitor their position as
well as the positioning of their competitors. Other companies
leave it to the writers to repeat keywords in the title,
description and keyword META tags and repeat these combinations
on all their site pages. Amazingly, many companies have web
sites with Flash intros, no keywords, no descriptions and only
their company name in the page title. Many sites are still using
frames, many sites are all-Flash and many sites deliver all of
their content dynamically. There are so many web sites doing
things the wrong way it's absolutely incredible.
Inside-Out and Outside-In
There are a number of things that have to be done to implement a
complete search engine marketing program. It's complex in terms
of concept, yet surprisingly simple in execution and day-to-day
management. Dollar-for-dollar, it is the most powerful and
direct method of attracting customers and prospects to your
site. Once there, you must have a strategy for converting
prospects into customers and occasional customers into
high-value customers.
The best approach is one that covers all bases by making sure
your site has content that is interesting enough for other sites
to consider linking to, and creating a universe of free and paid
links that puts your site in a position to be considered by
potential visitors (customers) who see your links in places that
are most advantageous to your conversion strategy.
We call this Inside-Out and Outside-In. It all works together to
blanket the customer and place your company and your message in
the best possible location to spur an interaction.
There are many ways to solve each client's problems, but they
require thought, analysis, creativity, client buy-in, execution
and ongoing analysis and reporting to gain optimum results.
Internal barriers between IT and Marketing need to be eliminated
so that your company can obtain the needed results.
Communication must be fostered and sensitivities must be
addressed to prove to all sides that the suggested modifications
are both necessary and essential.
Want more information? Click on the following links:
Our 10-Point
Process (You didn't think we were finished, did
you?)
How Mazmania
Adds Value
Other Ways
We Can Work For You
A Typical
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Conclusion
