Organic Clicks

Google took the online world by storm on 2 fronts. First, Google built a search engine that simply did it 'better' than other search engines - returning relevant results in a timely, easy to use manner. Second, Google introduced an advertising solution called Adwords where paid advertisements appear near natural or organic search results. Google continues to expand and grow other areas of service delivery however these two Google services remain the most powerful of them all. Companies wishing to attract new customers need to appear on search result pages - and preferably at the top of page 1 for highly competitive search phrases. Organic and paid search services will remain a valuable component of marketing strategies going into the future.

In this article we talk about search engine optimisation (SEO), the process of improving your organic search engine rankings in the search engines and attracting more organic clicks.

Organic search results occupy a very large space on search result pages. Paid ads usually appear adjacent organic results and attract fewer clicks.

Steps involved in improving the rank of a website in the search engines
The process of search engine optimisation is best started prior to website design, affects development and should ideally be continued on a monthly basis after the site goes live. There are various steps and types of exercises that are required, they are :
- search phrase research : identify your key products and services and choose highly competitive search phrases based on search phrase popularity statistics. Wordtracker is a well recognised source of search phrase popularity statistics
- information hierarchy : it is important that your sites content be structured and designed in a way that groups related information in themes. The themes should closely relate to your target search phrases
- W3C web standards : web standards based development encourages the separation of content from style when building a webpage. Search engines are likely to favour and 'understand' webpages that are content rich rather than a mix of both style and content 
- semantic markup : this is the process of labelling areas of content according to its nature rather than its position on the page, or style being applied to it. The labels (classes and IDs) are created during development. It is thought that search engines are using the label name to associate and organise information in the webpage
- link and cache audit : it is important that all earlier rankings associated with your old site rankings be transferred to your new website. This can be achieved by mapping existing web addresses to the new web addresses using server side 301 redirects
- organic link building : search engines regard content as important if the webpage that contains the content is popular. Search engines gather an understanding of a pages popularity based on the number of other webpages that link to it
- content syndication : making your website content available via RSS or XML encourages users to refer to it from other sources such as blogs. Your syndicated (or published) content usually contains a link to your website. This can improve the link popularity of your website and increase rankings
- content management : it is important that content generators within your company are aware of how to publish content on your site in a manner that will improve rankings i.e. providing alternative text for all images
- reporting : search engine optimisation is an ongoing task. As search engines evolve so will search engine optimisation. Reporting is essential if we are to learn what works and what doesn't. Reports are also important in determining the value of services provided by SEO consultants

Can SEO be done in-house?
As you can see above, there are many steps involved in optimising your website for the search engines. Clearly most businesses will not have the necessary skills in-house to complete all of the above exercises.
Your staff may have the necessary skills for (or time required to learn) one or more of the above steps, however the associated time and training based costs should be compared to the cost of engaging a consultant.

How to choose an SEO consultant
Don't just pick the first one you find. Costs and levels of expertise in the SEO industry vary, and often wildly. I recommend the following:
- search for them : if they can achieve high rankings for themselves than they can probably do it for you
- test the ethics of the SEO consultant : sending hundreds of poor quality links at your site is likely to do more harm then good. Ask how links will be obtained. A recent google algorithm update in July 2007 saw a major Australian SEO consultancy firm move from page 1 to 4 as a result of sponsoring a widely used website statistics counter. The counter sent many hundreds of inbound links to their site but they were of poor quality. The recent google algorithm update has introduced tighter controls on inbound links. Links that were once helping you obtain high rankings may now actually be having a negative impact
- ask the SEO consultant whether they do all of the SEO steps described earlier in the article and how they do it
- ask for examples of sites and search phrases the SEO consultant are currently optimising. Are the search phrases competitive or obscure?
- ask the SEO consultant for their expectation of what can be achieved. Results cannot be guaranteed but a good SEO consultant should be able to provide an expectation of what your rankings are likely to look like after a 3-6 month period of engagement
- choose an SEO consultant that is flexible. Avoid locking yourself into a 12 month SEO program if the costs involved are high - the expected results may not be forthcoming
- seek regular reports, and the more detailed the better. Reporting a websites rankings can take a great deal of time and is often a significant component of an SEO consultants fees. Ask for a sample report and how often you will receive it. The report should ideally include such things as : visitor numbers, referrers, target search phrase rankings and a list of steps undertaken by the SEO consultant since you last received a report

The future of search
Search engines will continue to evolve. 'Vertical' search engines, that is, industry or topic specific search engines are gaining momentum, particularly in the Health industry. 'Local' search is becoming particularly important to consumers and businesses seeking a local rather than remote product or service provider. Major search engines are beginning to 'Personalise' search results based on your online behaviour and indicated preferences. Despite these changes, the SEO steps outlined in this article will likely prove to be a core set of requirements for all websites in the future - if they are to compete.