SEO, or search engine optimization, is the practice of optimizing specific aspects of web pages in order to increase the overall traffic from the search engines. The majority of website traffic comes from the search engines, and if your site isn’t being found, then you can be losing out on incredible opportunities.

The benefits of SEO are numerous, but today we’re only going to focus on six areas: usability, code, rankings, traffic, cost and brand visibility.

Usability

The usability of any website is extremely important, not only from a search engine perspective but also from the users’ point-of-view. SEO can bring a lot of new aspects to the development table that will increase both the search engine results and the user experience.

User Experience

Even if your website gets tons of visits, if you’re not converting users, then the traffic is worthless. Making sure your users have a good experience is what separates a typical website from a site they’ll continue to use.

Examples of issues that can create a bad user experience:

• No prices or requiring users to call for prices
• Minimal or incomplete descriptions of products
• Poor quality images or no pictures at all
• Inconsistent navigation
• Poor organization

Search engine optimization is all about being thorough, so give your visitors all the details they’ll need and your site will be seen as an informative, user-friendly resource.

Clean Code

SEO is not the sole reason to strive for clean code, but it does go hand in hand with sites that are coded efficiently. Websites can be developed in numerous languages and techniques, and some methods are going to be better than others when it comes to search engine rankings.

A site that utilizes clean and semantic markup is typically going to outperform a site that doesn’t. Adhering to SEO guidelines is going to give your markup a more defined outline as well as making the hierarchy more clear to your users and the search engines. Document heading outlines, navigation, URLs and category management are all going to be indicators to your users on the architecture of your website. Make sure that your website is organized in a logical fashion no matter where you enter.

Search Engine Rankings

Optimizing websites for search engines means that your sites are going to be in front of your users when they’re ready. Most other forms of advertising are time and location sensitive and can mean your potential customers will never see your beautiful ad.

Examples of time and location-sensitive advertising:

• Magazine ad (hope they buy the issue, read it, see your ad and act on it)
• Billboard ad (hope they drive down that road, read the billboard and know what they’re supposed to do)
• Commercial (hope they’re watching TV, that channel and ready to let the info soak in)

Of course, all of these mediums have been used effectively for years, but there are also a lot of variables that can limit your ability to capture the attention of the audience.

24/7 Results

The nice thing about search engines and online sales is that your website doesn’t close, so your site can generate traffic and sales 24/7. Effective search engine optimization helps your site make the most of this advantage.

Long-Term Results

We hear a lot about search engine rankings and algorithms changing, and to be a good SEO you have to constantly know what Google is doing. While for the most part that’s true, you don’t have to spend all your time keeping up with the newest SEO techniques in order to get good rankings. A site that’s optimized with ethical, white hat SEO techniques can do very well on the search engines for a long time. As long as you follow a few basic rules, all of your sites can do well.

Targeted Traffic

Ideally, when writing content you’re optimizing the web pages for specific keywords and phrases. I see a lot of companies that don’t even think about keyword phrases until after all the content is written and the site is live. They wonder while they’re not showing up for “keyword phrase A,” and the phrase isn’t even mentioned in the content.

A huge benefit to SEO is that you actually control what kind of traffic your website is going to generate. By doing keyword research, you’ll be able to analyze which terms generate traffic and which terms will be the most beneficial to your company’s goals.

Keyword research can also give your company an indication on how the average consumer talks about your products or services. Many times, companies think their customers talk about them using certain, specific words, only to find—through keyword research—that they actually refer to you slightly differently. If you had known the alternate way your customers referred to your products, then you could have included that verbiage in the content to generate more traffic.

Cost-Effective

Having to pay a qualified SEO writer to do keyword research and optimize content can turn a lot of companies off, but if you look at the long-term costs, it’s a much better ROI than PPC (Pay Per Click) or other forms of online advertising.

Of course, having an in-house SEO is going to be the most cost-effective way to keep updating your website with quality content, but if you have to outsource the writing, then it can potentially be a one-time fee. Obviously, the more active you are in your SEO campaign the better you’ll do over the years, but if you’re looking to just get started, then optimizing the content once a year and then analyzing the results on a quarterly basis can be very cost-effective.

PPC can be a good way to generate quick traffic, and it definitely has its place for certain types of campaigns; but if you opt to only participate in PPC, then your advertising budget is going to continue to increase as the year goes on.

The budget throughout your PPC campaign is going to depend on a lot of factors. Cost of keywords, how many keywords, how targeted your content is for that particular keyword, how long the campaign runs. You could easily spend hundreds or thousands of dollars a month for multiple campaigns.

SEO can be a one-time fee that can pay for itself in just a few months, leaving the rest of the year generating profits on every sale. You can target as many keywords as you like without having to worry about how expensive each keyword is. Additionally, SEO doesn’t need the kind of hand-holding and ongoing monitoring that PPC can require, which gives you and your staff the flexibility to focus on other tasks.

Brand Visibility

If I search for your company name, I should find your site on the search engines. That’s a given, that’s not SEO. If you’re not found for your company name then you should fire who ever created your website and start over.

The real benefit of SEO when it comes to brand visibility is when a user searches for a general topic and your site comes into their results. For example, if I searched for “Forklift Parts” and you sold forklift parts, wouldn’t you want your site to be on page one of Google? Is it? Have you even checked?

If you take the time to create unique content on a consistent basis, you can begin to dominate the search engines for many variations of your targeted keyword phrases. Each time you create a new piece of content, you’ll generate a new listing in Google’s index. The more indexed pages you have, the more places you’ll show up in front of your customers. With a well-optimized campaign, your customers won’t be able to get away from you.

Conclusion

The Internet offers a wealth of business potential, and it is important for companies to take advantage of it. This means making sure your websites and everything you put online are optimized. SEO is a great way to put your company in front of your users and generate more leads and sales. The benefits of SEO are endless, but these six areas should be enough to get you thinking about what your current site is missing. Get started optimizing your website today with SEO and watch your rankings, sales and profits grow.

This past Tuesday Northland Baptist Bible College went through an enormous rebranding process by changing their name, logo and website to Northland International University. The announcement was made by Northland President Matt Olsen and Northland Chancellor Les Ollila during the week-long Missions Conference.

Northland International University was founded in 1976 and exists to train pastors, teachers, missionaries and godly laymen of tomorrow. Northland is located in Dunbar, Wisconsin, and enrolls 650 undergraduates and 100 graduate students, representing 45 states and 11 foreign countries.

“Northland is responding to what’s happening around the globe today,” said Ollila. “Northland International University is our answer to providing the necessary biblical and practical training and resources to local churches and Christians worldwide as they seek to fulfill the Great Commission in today’s exciting global culture.”

The website was designed and developed by Jackson-Dawson on an incredibly short time line, and the process of updating much of the site’s content continues.  The old website was spread across numerous sub domains making the information hard to find and not as user-friendly as it could have been.

Jackson-Dawson revamped the new website with an HTML/CSS framework custom to the needs of the Northland web team. Combining CSS, Javascript and Flash, JD was able to build the structure with standards-based and accessible markup and style.

To get more insight into the rebranded, check out their latest press release.

Ever wonder what a full service marketing and advertising agency can really do for your company?

Take a look at our promotional video and find out how Jackson-Dawson in Greenville South Carolina can take your company to the next level and incorporate your brand into every possible medium.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact Jackson-Dawson.

Do you find yourself struggling when it comes to finding new ways to research keywords?

Sure there are a lot of good tools out there but if you think about your keyword research in a logical manner than chances are you’re going to get the same keywords as everyone else.

Wordtracker, one of the industry’s most used keyword research tools is more than just a tool. Wordtracker also has an academy section that references numerous ways to get more creative with your keyword research.

The Wordtracker academy has various sections on:

• Keywords
• Keyword Research
• Keyword Creativity
• PPC
• SEO
• Link Building

The next time you have to research keywords for a new site, try thinking about things in an illogical manner. Often times you can stumble across keywords that have a lot of traffic with very little competition.

With the advancements of Universal Search becoming more and more prevalent, all site owners need to be sure that they are making their sites as sticky as possible. Google wants sites that are the “total package” in their index and if you’re missing a piece of the pie you might find your rankings dropping as early as the first part of 2009.

I posted a quick Video Blogging 101 on my personal blog about some easy ways to get started adding video to your website. The post gives you a quick look at what programs I used, how I made the video, and where I uploaded it.

Content is a huge part of the web, but when you can give your audience another medium to digest all of your information then you’re making your site more substantial.

Besides video, what are some other methods that you’ve implemented to keep your site sticky?

Have you ever thought that because you search online that you’re smarter than the next guy? According to a new study from UCLA, searching the Internet may help to stimulate and possibly improve brain functions.

Traditionally, taking part in activities like crossword puzzles have helped keep the mind sharp and preserve brain health and cognitive abilities. With technology increasingly becoming part of everyone’s life, scientists have begun to assess the influences of computer use and the Internet.

According to principal investigator Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA who holds UCLA’s Parlow-Solomon Chair on Aging,

“The study results are encouraging, that emerging computerized technologies may have physiological effects and potential benefits for middle-aged and older adults. Internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function.”

The team at UCLA studied 24 volunteers between the ages of 55 and 76. Half of the participants had experience searching the Internet while the other half had no experience. Education level and gender were similar between the two groups. The study mainly consisted of the difference in brain activity between book-reading and Internet searching while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans.

“Our most striking finding was that Internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading – but only in those with prior Internet experience,” said Small, who is also the director of UCLA’s Memory and Aging Research Center.

Further research and additional details on the study can be found in Small’s new book, “iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind,” published on Oct 14^th.

We’ve all heard that quality inbound links are one of the biggest influencer’s when it comes to search engine rankings, but don’t forget about quality cross links too. Treat your cross links the same way you would treat your inbound links and your website will get better rankings.

The easiest way to make sure that your cross links are giving you the most search engine value is to keep an organized list of your keyword distribution in front of you when you are writing new pages.

When writing page A, link to page B with the keywords that are assigned to page B. By doing this you will always create a quality cross link. Use as many keywords as you can when cross linking throughout your website and please, never use click here. You’re not trying to rank for click here, so DON”T USE IT.

For other SEO Quick Tips, check out our Title Tag and Meta Descriptions tips.

Following up on my last SEO tip, SEO Quick Tip: Title Tags, today’s SEO quick tip deals with the meta description tag. The meta description tag is in the head section of every webpage and is a short description of the content on the page.

Second to the title tag, the meta description tag is the biggest influence in whether or not a user will click on your listing. If your description is well written and accurately describes the content, then you can easily increase your CTR (click through rate).

The meta description is usually only displayed on the search engine results page, but can also be seen if you view the source of any webpage. Here are a few examples:

Meta description on search results page:

Meta description in the source code:

<meta name="description" content="this is where the description goes" />

Meta Description Guidelines:

Just like the title tag, the meta description tag has a few guidelines that you’ll want to follow to achieve the best results.

1. The meta description has a character limit. For each search engine, the parameters are going to vary. I like to stay around 140 characters with spaces. You can push it up to 155 characters on Google, but you take a chance that your description will be cut off. You can see in the example above where the description has “…” at the end, this represents that it has been truncated.
2. Meta descriptions should be marketing style copy. Since this snippet of content is what’s going to entice a user to click on your listing and you only have a certain number of characters, its best to craft your description with everyday language. Don’t try and stuff your descriptions will keywords and industry jargon that could potentially confuse or turn off the user.
3. Unique descriptions for every page. Just like the title tag, your meta descriptions need to be unique for every single page on your website. Duplicate descriptions can send the wrong message to Google as well as your users. Google might think that the pages are duplicate and only index one page. A user can get confused because both listings look identical and they may simply skip over them completely.

Use those helpful site operators to analyze all of your meta descriptions in one swoop. Type “site:www.yourdomainname.com” into Google without the quotes and read all of your descriptions.

Are they an accurate representation of what content is on the page? Do they entice you to click on the listing? If not, then go back through your pages and re-write them.

Traffic for any website is usually a main goal, but a lot of people don’t know how to generate traffic. I hear it all the time in the office, “We need to get the word out.” Then weeks or months later, nothing has happened.

We’ve all heard that creating unique and compelling content is the best way to get links and attract people to your website, but what happens when you’ve created your fantastic content and your traffic still isn’t increasing?

Users aren’t going to flock to your website as soon as you publish what you consider to be the most important piece of content on the web; you have to let people know.

One of the easiest ways to generate traffic is to comment on other people’s blogs. To take it a step further you have to contribute to the conversation with quality, insightful comments.

Simply posting “Great article” isn’t going to generate any traffic, but if you pose a question that peeks the interest of another viewer or add something useful to the conversation, you can.

Many times when I’m reading other blogs I spend more time in the comments area versus the actual post. These comments are where the real interaction takes place. You have questions, comments, and concerns all within a few lines of each other. If someone asks an intelligent question or provides a solution to something that was referenced in the post, then there’s a good chance that I’m going to visit their site.

I personally try to comment on at least 10 blogs a day. Thankfully, since I’m not that consistent with my actions, I have been able to see firsthand the effects of commenting. I can easily see in my analytics when I have been more active with my commenting.

Generating traffic is not a one-time deal, there’s no magic bullet, and there’s no finish line. Generating traffic is an ongoing task that everybody in the company needs to take seriously. The larger your staff, the more advantage you have.

How to get it done

Let’s say, for example, you have a marketing and/or PR staff of 5 people. If you asked everybody on your team to comment on 5 blogs a day, that could equal 125 references to your website a week. Not to mention the very likely possibility that one or two of those 125 references would spark someone to mention it to someone else, thus taking advantage of the entire viral world. Keep that up for as little as two weeks and I guarantee you will see an increase in your traffic.

The challenging part is actually doing it. Give your personnel time to search and think about their comments and you will get a better return on your investment. When your workload is so hectic that you don’t even have time to get another cup of coffee, your comments aren’t going to be that inspiring.

Commenting doesn’t have to be hard. Remember it’s a conversation. If someone asks you a question you wouldn’t just sit there with a blank look on your face, would you?

Sitemap pages are a great way to let the search engines know what content is on your website. But what kind of sitemap are you using?

You could use a regular page from your website, an HTML, PHP, ASP, or whatever type of page will work. These pages are great for users because they list all of the pages in your website. Ideally, you would also include a description for each page so a user would know what they’re going to get when they click the link, instead of just a word that lists the page names.

These pages will help the search engines but not nearly as much as an XML Sitemap. An XML Sitemap is a page that you can literally upload to the search engines to let them know specifically what pages you have on your website instead of waiting for them to find all of your pages.

Through Google Webmaster Tools you can submit your XML Sitemap, and once your site is verified, you can get a lot of extra information about your website, including:

• Any errors your site has
• Last time your site was searched by Google
• A content analysis that will give you information about your titles and descriptions
• Your top search queries
• Crawl Stats
• Both external and internal link data
• Plus a lot more

You can easily generate an XML Sitemap through many sources, I prefer XML-Sitmaps.com. Simply enter your URL and the site does the rest. It will spit out your perfect XML Sitemap that you’ll then submit to Google.

Follow all the steps in Webmaster Tools and you’ll be well on your way to making sure your entire website is as Google friendly as possible.