| About a week ago I got a phone call from a college | | | | On-Site Optimization and Site Structure - this is what |
| buddy of mine named Paul who runs a soon-to-launch | | | | most people think of when they think of SEO. What |
| online business. Here's how the conversation went: | | | | changes should be made to your site so that search |
| Paul: "We want to hire your company to do the SEO | | | | engine spiders have the best chance of crawling it, |
| for us. Whatever the price is, we can afford it." | | | | understanding the content, and ranking you |
| Me: "Tell me a little more about your company and | | | | accordingly. Most often, this involves changes to Title |
| exactly what you expect to achieve from search." | | | | META tags, cleaning up source code so that it's |
| Paul: "We want to rank #1 in Google for | | | | proper HTML, moving CSS and Javascript to external |
| EVERYTHING in our industry, and I know you can do | | | | files, adding sitemaps, modifying internal linking |
| it for us." | | | | structure and anchor text, and several other |
| Me: "I'd be happy to consult with your team to make | | | | standard changes that eliminate all potential crawling |
| sure you understand the principles of SEO and get | | | | and indexing issues. This is best done by your |
| off on the right foot, but I think you're better off | | | | programmer(s) so that they understand the |
| doing the work yourself." | | | | importance of the changes and make them part of |
| He was perplexed. Why wouldn't we want to take | | | | their routine in the future. These changes can be |
| on his SEO work? It has nothing to do with him or | | | | suggested by a consultant, but will only really be |
| his company. It has everything to do with the | | | | successful if programmers are on board. |
| misunderstood nature of what it takes to | | | | Link building - this is probably the second most |
| consistently rank high in natural search. The absolute | | | | common task associated with SEO. By now you |
| best companies I've worked with make every | | | | already know that you need one-way incoming links |
| decision with SEO in mind. Everyone in their | | | | from relevant sites with applicable anchor text to |
| organization - from management to programmers to | | | | rank high. Many outsourced SEO firms will either |
| marketing - is thinking about the search impact of | | | | engage in elaborate link exchanges or purchase paid |
| their decisions. For that reason it makes sense to hire | | | | links for you: both of which are obsolete in terms of |
| a consultant or to learn it yourself, but not to hire an | | | | having any positive impact in your rankings, and now |
| outside firm to outsource your entire SEO campaign | | | | can potentially penalize you. The best one-way link |
| to. | | | | building techniques - press releases, content |
| Most of the time when companies outsource SEO | | | | syndication, blogging, product syndication, viral videos, |
| they do it with the mentality of "here you go, you | | | | etc - all require a LOT of input from you to be |
| handle it, we expect results." They view it as an | | | | successful. Most of the time they should be |
| entirely separate entity and not as a core value that | | | | integrated into your existing marketing plan to have |
| needs to be instilled in their organization to be | | | | the highest chance to thrive. For example, most |
| successful. That's why outsourced SEO just doesn't | | | | companies already issue press releases when they |
| work: your organization still makes decisions the old | | | | have newsworthy announcements so it's a natural |
| way. | | | | extension to email the release to online news sites |
| How will this programming change impact our search | | | | and blogs, and to use an online distribution service. I |
| results? Can we build link-building into our marketing | | | | think successful link building is best done by your |
| campaign? What adjustments can we make so that | | | | marketing department as part of your overall |
| both are working in harmony to achieve our | | | | marketing strategy. It's fine to have a consultant help |
| objectives as a company and rank as high as we | | | | put the plan together, but the actual implementation |
| can? There is no incentive to learn about search if | | | | of the plan should be done by you. |
| someone else is handling it for you, and consequently | | | | Analytics - this involves the measurement and |
| you probably won't be asking these important | | | | tracking of your sites' SEO and marketing campaign. |
| questions when making a critical business decision. | | | | Previously, this could be tedious for small sites and I |
| Paul was still a bit confused with that answer. So let's | | | | might have recommended outsourcing. But with the |
| take a closer look at some of the key components | | | | new version of Google Analytics, a properly |
| necessary for SEO success and what needs to take | | | | configured account will tell you everything you need |
| place for them to be accomplished: | | | | to know about where every single sale on your site |
| Keyword Research - this entails researching how | | | | came from. Your programmer or consultant should be |
| frequently phrases relevant to your site are | | | | able to set it up for you and configure the reports to |
| searched. I like to use the SEO-Book tool or the free | | | | track only the most important metrics for your |
| version of Wordtracker. Keyword research is | | | | organization. I also like to track incoming links and |
| important because it will impact your site structure, | | | | search engine rankings for a site (two things that |
| title tags (widely regarded as the most influential | | | | Analytics does not track), but those can easily be |
| factor in how high you rank), and will help identify | | | | tracked with the Marketleap Link Checker and Digital |
| opportunities in your industry (if a term is searched a | | | | Point Keyword Tracker (both of which can be found |
| lot but there aren't a lot of good results, you may | | | | with a quick Google search). |
| have just identified a great expansion opportunity for | | | | In the end, whether you decide to hire a consultant |
| your company). This is best done by either a | | | | or tackle SEO internally with the vast information |
| consultant or the internal head of your SEO | | | | available online, you still need to make SEO part of |
| campaign, which should be someone in | | | | your organizations objectives for it to be a success: |
| upper-management. | | | | something that outsourcing usually doesn't do. |