Getting Started with Search-Engine Optimization

Choosing a Topic

If you are starting a web site from scratch with the intent of generating a profit from your efforts as soon as possible, your topic of choice can have a significant effect on your results. Competitive topics will prove much more difficult to attain high rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Examples of highly competitive industries include real estate, mortgages, credit cards, prescription medications, and any other industries where substantial consumer interest and high prices meet. Competing web sites in these industries have likely been around for many years, contain a substantial amount of content, and have thousands of inbound links from other relevant web sites.

If you are just starting to learn about search-engine optimization and desire to see the results of your labor more quickly, consider choosing a less competitive topic, or at least a specific niche within one of these more broad topics. For instance, instead of trying to optimize your site for the broad term “real estate,” try to focus instead on less competitive terms like “Wilkes-Barre, PA real estate” or “Scranton, PA real estate.” There may not be as many daily searches for these terms, but the competition is for rankings will be much less.

Google’s Keyword Tool allows you to search for keywords and phrases and see how much volume and competition exists for those terms.

Find your Target Audience

Be sure to understand who your target audience is before beginning a search-engine optimization campaign. Your target audience is the group of people that you are attempting to reach through your marketing efforts. The language you use on your web site, the links that you try to build, the keywords and phrases you target, and even the aesthetics of your design should be customized based on your target audience.

Obviously, you would use one type of language to target college professors and another type of language to target high school students. Your audience should feel that you are speaking directly to them, not over or under their heads. Depending on the particular audience, you may want to be building links from scholastic sources or Myspace.com, and the keywords you are trying to rank for will vary greatly as well. Also, the aesthetics of your web site should vary depending on your target audience. An art web site would logically look different than a mathematical theory web site.

These subtle difference in the way you approach your campaign can have a dramatic effect on your search-engine optimization efforts.

Set a Budget and Goals

Keep in mind that the work you do today will not necessarily reflect in the search engine immediately. Search-engine optimization is not an exact science, and results may often appear sporadically and disappear just as fast. SEO work should always be considered a work in progress, and setting realistic goals for your project help avoid feelings of disappointment and dissatisfaction. That said, focus on natural growth. The search engines are sure to catch on if your web site suddenly has a thousand pages of content overnight or that you magically possess thousands of inbound links from less-than-envious sources.

Also, set aside a budget for your SEO efforts, and treat it like any other form of marketing. While you may not see an immediate return on your investment like you would with a more direct form of marketing like pay per click advertising, it is important not to under-fund your search-engine optimization marketing. Web design and development, keyword research tools, some forms of link-building, and even content development will cost you if you decide to outsource these parts of your campaign.

Do not get frustrated if you are not an expect at all facets of web development. While it is extremely helpful for an SEO manager to be a talented web designer, server administrator, and writer, it is unlikely that everyone possesses all of these skills. Do not hesitate to outsource work when necessary. Freelance sites such as Elance.com and oDesk.com provide you the ability to request jobs and accept bids for projects.

Keep Up With Industry News

It is crucial that you take advantage of the wealth of online marketing knowledge freely available throughout the Internet. Online marketing experts often maintain active blogs or forums where they share some of their most valuable tips, tricks, and secrets. Continuing education is becoming extremely important in the business world.

The following web sites, among many others, are highly recommended:

• Search Engine Land (http://www.searchengineland.com)
• SEOmoz (http://www.seomoz.org)
• Wolf Howl (http://www.wolf-howl.com)
• Dave Naylor’s blog (http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk)
• Jim Boykin’s blog (http://www.jimboykin.com)
• Stuntdubl (http://www.stuntdubl.com)
• Pepperjam Blog (http://www.pepperjam.com/blog)