Search Engine Optimization Tips

In our years of doing marketing, branding, web design, and search engine optimization we have seen quite a few major shifts in the way that consumers interact with brands. Of all of these changes very few have impacted businesses as much as the way that prospective clients find what they are looking for via search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. With Google being the largest search engine on the planet, even minor changes to their algorithm have the ability to completely change incoming prospects for entire business categories overnight.

The story was always the same, the business had their phones ringing consistently because they were ranked among the top 10 websites within Google for their business offerings in their geographic location. Then, overnight the phone stopped ringing and incoming leads dried up. After a few days of the phones not ringing the business owner would go to their computer or mobile device, look for their business in the search engine of their choice, and after going 5-10 pages into the search results would panic as they couldn’t find their business listed anywhere. Then would come the panicked phone call proclaiming “I can’t find my website“.

The reason for this major shift in search results is an algorithm update, or should I say a series of algorithm updates by Google to help improve search results and sort our spammy websites that used SEO tricks to gain rankings (never a good idea). These algorithm changes had cute names like Penguin, Panda, and some other cuddly animals but their negative impact on many businesses would have better been served by names like Rank Rattle Snake or Business-Based Black Widow. While these algorithm changes were overall a good thing because they decreased rankings for many sites that truly did not deserve the rankings they had achieved, there was another group of individuals who did nothing wrong but still felt the full impact of these changes.

Okay, so now that we have described the water that so many businesses are drowning in it is time for the good news. Search engines gain marketshare by delivering great content to those utilizing their search engine, and this means that they are always looking to offer great content to please their users. This means that no matter which category your company may or may not fall into as listed above, you can benefit greatly when it comes to inbound lead generation by creating great content for search engines to index and serve up to their users.

Have you ever noticed that most of the search engine queries you initiate come back with a webpage not a website, what I mean by this is you get something like www.example.com/123?=2837 instead of just www.example.com. The reason for this is that search engines are trying to direct you to the best page for your query to make your life easier not just dump you on the homepage of a website to fend for yourself. It’s just like when you are looking for a product online and you get www.amazon.com/that_product as a result. The reason for this is that Amazon was brilliant in adding images of each product, reviews of each product, descriptions of each product, etc. for everything they carry. By doing so they became the most relevant page for millions of products in a very short period of time, even beating the manufacturer of those products for top rankings. We can all learn from this and earn rankings in top search engines by creating great content related to what products and services we offer.

News sites get preference because they are current, informative, and offer relevant content based on the search query. Compare this to a corporate site that is only updated once or twice a year and it becomes easy for search engines to ignore. So use your industry knowledge and expertise to become a resource and watch how search engines and prospective clients react and interact with your brand. If you can answer questions that people have about your product or service, you can write a blog about it, post it to your site, and become an industry leader that earned their place at the table. Remember never try to get search rankings, try to earn them.

Daniel Hickey is director of creative advertising at Hickey Marketing Group, based in Prescott, Arizona and Redlands, California.