Why is SEO important

I received this question during a presentation I was giving on linkbuilding and reciprocal links. The consultants I was working with were trying to figure out how to sell SEO as an important item, to create a need when the client could not recognize the need. This is an industry that (in general) is not very web savvy: healthcare and hospitals.

So, I had to lay it out:

• Everyone uses the web as the main place for research - not yellowbook, not the library, not television or newspapers. I didn’t even list a source, I just mandated that to be true.
• If 80%+ people discover websites through Search Engines, then optimizing for search engines become very important.
• Your online presence is not any different from your…actual presence. It is an experience of your hospital, often the first impression that a future patient has of your hospital - and that is why it is important.
• What people place in their search field in search engines is a question. The sites returned in the Search Engine results pages (SERPs) is an answer. Being on the first page of answers is critical for being found. You can’t play if you don’t play, meaning you can’t be a relevant answer for that searcher if you can’t be found in the first place.
• The difference between old marketing (TV, radio, billboards) versus new marketing (website, email newsletters, SEO, SEM) is that online activities related to their website is absolutely measurable.
• The second difference between old marketing and new marketing is that the web is completely user-driven, meaning a person puts in the search field “Roanoke, VA hospitals” they are specifically looking for relevant results for those search terms. They are prequalified for that search, and if your site fits that criteria then you should care about showing up on those terms. This is magnitudes different than putting up a billboard and hoping that a person driving by will need your medical services.
• If you DON’T do SEO and your competition DOES, then the Search Engines will unapologetically eat your site out of the SERPs and effectively off the web.
  

These are the reasons why websites and SEO is important.

SEO Rap

“Design Coding,” a rap about SEO with good basic Search Engine Optimization advice. 
By m0serious

This guy raps about SEO SEM and Social Media topics. His advice is sound - and entertaining!

SEOBook no longer available at SEOBook.com

I just discovered by going to seobook.com that I am no longer able to purchase Aaron Wall’s acclaimed SEOBook. This blows. I am a professional SEO Analyst for a company-that-I-will-not-name and have done quite well, doubling our traffic in a 4 month period. Even with that success I thought that perhaps there were things that Mr. Wall could teach a new SEO Analyst. I will not know the answer to that question. The SEOBook, as far as I can tell, is not for sale on the SEOBook site (a tad ironic, no?). I was hoping to steal glean some ideas from reading this tome, but it looks like the folks over at SEOBook are turning to a subscription model that offers training, forums, etcetera for $100 a pop. I’m sure that’s all well and good (for Aaron), but how about the throngs of SEO neophytes without $100/month to burn?

Well, here I am (what, no thunderous applause?).  I am going to reveal the things that work with SEO, some ideas are readily available, and some have come about due to the daily experimenting that I do as part of my job. I don’t think they are actually secrets per se, but are often overlooked by the masses, or else a debunking of commonly held beliefs regarding the science (not art) of SEO. The reason I say ’science’ (and not art) is that search engines are mechanical. They respond to certain things in a proscribed way, and don’t respond to others. Some SEO gurus use the word ‘art’ to couch their ideas in something mysterious (and so they can charge you more), but the mystery part is where the search engines do not reveal all the ways to affect their rankings. It’s not in their best interests to do so. The day Google announced that external links were the core of their search algorithm was the day porn and gambling sites started linkfarms from domains they owned in order to rank high for unrelated but popular terms, like “Britney Spears” (okay, not the best example, since she does have a video out, and I do not mean music video).

Since of the three things that influence search engine rankings are:

1. What you do on your site
2. What the SEs do to their search algorithm
3. What your competitors do on their sites

- You only control one of them: your site (or sites). The mystery is what Google does on their search algorithm, and what  actions your competitors do on their sites. But really: it’s all mechanical and scientific and programmatic. So, if you take a scientific approach to SEO - with analysis, developing a hypothesis, constructing a  test, and then analyzing the results - you will obtain the knowledge necessary to rank well.  That is the approach I take, and so I can inform you, with authority, on what works and what doesn’t work in regards to SEO. And since the Search Engine Algorithms change all the time, this should keep me busy for awhile in naming the best practices, and then updating them based on SE changes.

Stay tuned…