Search engines wait for no man. Write a book about searching and it’ll be out-of-date before it hits the printers, let alone the shops. So, how can you keep track?
One of the biggest holy grails of search engine marketing is cracking the Google algorithm. I’m sure you’ve heard the debates about optimising content, using the right keywords, creating titles, getting in-bound links and the like. It might feel that the search engines are toying with you. As soon as you catch up, they are off again.
But, there are some very real reasons for these advancements, over and above the sadistic ones. And, perhaps it can be boiled down to two simple (and conflicting) elements:
• Competition: more and more businesses are coming online every day.
• Expectation: customers expect more from the sites they are referred to – i.e. they expect sites to be highly relevant to the searches they are making.
In short, with more and more businesses trying to create advantage from the online world, search engines are having to ring the changes to give their users what they want. It’s not about making it difficult for the businesses and sites. Rather, it’s about giving users the most relevant information – something that’s becoming more and more difficult as the competition grows.
So, what does this mean to you? Well, I believe website owners and search engine marketers can learn something from the user-focused strategies of search engines. As marketers we need to keep an eye on the algorithms, of course. But we need to keep a sharper eye on our customers. What do they want? And, more importantly, how can we give it to them? By thinking more about users and potential customers rather than links and algorithms, search engine marketing can truly earn its ‘marketing’ tag.
So, wearing that tag, here are five things you could be thinking of right now:
• Working with other sites: It’s not a crime to work with others if its mutually beneficial. Think about the coffee-shop-in-the-bookstore phenomenon. Perhaps there’s a gap in another business’ site that you can fill that will help them as well as you?
• Deep links: Take the searcher to what he or she is actually looking for. Use deep links for your organic and paid-for listings, so vistors don’t have to look for what they want.
• Publicity pieces: If you’re writing a publicity piece (an article or press release, for instance), make it useful, interesting and newsworthy. You could write an article using some of the top search terms for your business. But, make sure it’s worth reading or it won’t be acted on.
• Directories: Pick the business directories with the best custom, and forget the others. You should be looking for good referrals rather than just another link.
• Anchor links: Create anchor text (information and links that you supply to other sites) that is relevant to the audience of that site, or the topic covered on the page. The anchor text is essential in attracting profitable custom. Remember again, it’s not just about getting the link.
Damon Lightley is a search engine marketing consultant at Site Visibility Ltd. Site Visibility is a UK based search engine marketing company that helps clients increase online customer acquisition and retention using search engine optimisation, pay per click and online marketing campaign measurement techniques.
http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Damon_Lightley
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