Just the other day, a prospect said this to me.

And I got to thinking about it. She’s exactly right.

Every day, old websites, blogs, heck even social media profiles, are being optimized. Most, obviously, not all, new websites launched are optimized to a certain extent.

So while, for the moment, there are plenty of sites to optimize…it may not be like that forever.

Instead, content creation is king. Constantly putting out new, fresh content is the way things have been, and will continue to be, headed.

You’ll hear time and time again that Google loves fresh content. What’s fresher than a blog? Or social media? Or social bookmarking?

More and more, people look for small, sweet snippets of information: easily digestible and quickly answering whatever query they may have.

What’s the lesson for you?

If your website isn’t optimized, start there. Get that puppy search engine friendly.

If you don’t already have a blog…create one. Then answer questions you get all the time, whatever industry you may be in; include images and video. Make lists, how-to’s, even step-by-step guides.

If you’re not on any social media network, first find out where your audience is. Then get there! Start putting out fresh content – some self serving, but more importantly information your audience wants to know – whether it’s stats, local updates, or even a piece of witty humor.

Nicki Hicks
Optimization may be dying, but content is thriving

Photo by subcess

I realized how lately I’ve been writing a lot about topics that, while related to SEO, aren’t necessarily discussing what I would call more traditional optimizing techniques. The reason? It’s not just about SEO anymore.

Yes, you should optimize your site. But going are the days where that is enough. Not only is SEO an ongoing process, but so are other types of web marketing outlets – and those are exactly the places you need to invest your time in order to even hope to succeed in the search engines.

Video

Let’s not beat around the bush. It’s all about YouTube. Sure there are a ton of other video outlets, but YouTube is the best out there. With its easy-to-use interface, it also provides easy-to-embed options (AKA no code knowledge necessary).

Better yet, views from your site or blog add to the total views on YouTube. Why does that matter? The more views a video has, the higher it will rank in Google’s search – and with universal search, that’s just one more way to rank. Not to mention, it’s an easy way to optimize for smart phones.

Photos and Images

Can you say alt tags? Search engines can read, but they can’t see very well. So we have to help them out a little. But when you do it right, and create great keyword rich descriptions for them, images are another way to rank in the search engines.

Social Media

Pretty shortly, if you’re not using any sort of social media outlet for your business, you’re going to be behind the game. Not only is social media a great way to share links and increase buzz, but it also humanizes your business and can almost be used as a PR medium. Plus, while it would really only affect searches for your company name, your social media profiles typically rank extremely well.

Here are some of my quick guides to where you should be, why you should be there, and what to do once you’re there:

• Facebook: Why it’s for your business
• LinkedIn: How to leverage your account
• Twitter
  - A guide to get started
  - What you should tweet about for business

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is great way to make things go hot. While there’s no SEO power to sites like Digg, Sphinn, Delicious, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc., the traffic you get from just being “sphunn”, “stumbled”, “dugg”, or the like is entirely worth it.

Nicki Hicks
How are you working toward better online visibility?

I don’t expect clients to entirely understand search engine optimization when they come to us – or really even know what it is at all. And in all honesty, that’s fine, because that’s why I have a job. (Thanks for that.) 

But, after reading this perhaps you’ll know a lot more and be that much the wiser when you talk to your Search Marketer.

1. How bad is it to use white on white and write in a bunch of keywords?

Umm really bad. Probably as bad as you can get actually. In the olden days (probably all of 10 – 12 years ago), you could possibly get away with stuffing keywords. Today? Not so much.

2. I know SEO is important, so I’m going to do it this once and get it done with It’s a one-step process, right?

Sorry, no such luck. We’ll talk about it a little more later, but with search moving toward other venues like social media, local reviews, RSS, blogging, and other modern forms of web marketing, there’s no way you can do it once and be done. SEO requires constant massaging and experimentation.

3. What are these meta-keywords I keep hearing about? Can you make me a huge list of them?

Well I could. But it probably wouldn’t do a whole lot.

The thing with meta-keywords is 1) only Yahoo uses them and 2) if you use too many, they’ll hurt you. So, what do I suggest? Using a small group of focused keywords for each page if you’re intent on using them. And remember – even though Yahoo uses them, they don’t have much weight at all.

4. I just don’t have time for social media. Plus, I can get away without doing it.

Again, it’s really not an option any more. Soon, folks who haven’t hopped on the social media bandwagon are going to be struggling to catch up with the rest of the crowd.

So…create a LinkedIn account, get yourself on Facebook, and – if you’re feeling really socially frisky - join Twitter!

5. I’ve heard about this nofollow thing. Do I need to do that to all of my outgoing links?

Nofollowing links is sometimes a good strategy. But that doesn’t mean you should do it to every single outgoing link. 

Nor is it PageRank sculpting. To demonstrate that point, I like this short, sweet description by @Halfdeck.

6. Building links seems like a lot of work. Can’t I just buy them?

Well sure you can. The problem is…search engines typically know that you bought them. Although, there are ways to do it without looking like a spammer.

7. Does Google rank me higher if I have an AdWords campaign with them?

No, Google may be the search engine of choice, but they aren’t tyrants. At flyte, we focus on the organic; but if you want to try Paid Search, this will help get you started.

8. Should I purchase a keyword rich domain and redirect it?

That one actually inspired a blog post out of me. Jill Whalen, much of the same opinion as me, also wrote a great piece on it over at High Rankings.

9. Can I post great local reviews for my own company?

Also an inspirational question.

10. My Dad actually asked me this one: If I start a business, wouldn’t it be smart to figure out what people are searching for first?

Brilliant, Daddy-O. Problem is, as #2 eludes, those words change all the time. However, the following are the top 3 according to Keyword Discovery’s Business sector:

1. barbie
2. Bank of America
3. aol.com

Should be interesting what kind of business you come up with using those! But in all seriousness, every day is different. Google has Trends to track the latest and greatest searches; and SEOmoz has Popular Searches where you can look up searches by day.

Nicki Hicks
The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask 

Allow me to preface this by saying: SEO is an art, not a science. So my recipe for title perfection needs to be experimented with – you will have different results with every industry. That said, titles are important. It can be argued they are the most important.

As always, start by figuring out what your customers are searching for. If you don’t optimize for the right words, then you really don’t have a shot at even being a choice on a search results page.

Keeping in mind what the page is about, here’s a hand-to-the-forehead thought: you’ll want to incorporate those keywords in the title. Now you sit down to write that fabulous title tag and wonder how long should it be? SEOs disagree about this, but: there is no correct length to a good title. Google allows for 65 characters to be shown in the SERPs and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s not a big deal if the title is 65+ characters. My rule of thumb? The same as copy writing: as long as it takes to get the job done.

That said, don’t create such a long title that expands past the width of my browser (in a wide screened Mac, to boot). Along the same lines, please please PLEASE don’t stuff the title full of every synonym for your keywords that you can think of.

Alright, so what have we got now? A bunch of really great keywords. Now, put them together in a way that makes sense – something that accurately describes the page.

This next part is your choice: your company name. The thing is, as long as you have a fairly unique name, you’ll rank well for someone searching for your name. I tend to put it in every title just for good measure.

Finally, I put in the location. Obviously this would only apply for local businesses. The thing to remember is that local search is dependent on more than just the title; but having it here is absolutely helpful.

Last but not least, is the way it looks – and most people quite honestly may not think about it, but would you click on a ReSuLt tHaT LoOkEd lIkE ThIs? My personal preference is to capitalize the first letter of words that make sense – much as you would for a blog post title. Then separate major “sections” (in this case: keywords, company name, and location) with a mixture of colons, semicolons, hyphens, and vertical lines: whichever you prefer.

So, in the end we have something that looks like this:

Really Great Stupendous Clickable Exactly What I’m Looking For Phrase: My Company – Where I Am, USA

Nicki Hicks
Page Title Extraordinaire

You’ll have to excuse me, I have a little Paula Cole stuck in my head…

I feel like I’m constantly talking about the art of keywords and keyword research, but never about where keywords should actually go.  So, put your keywords in the…

Page

• Title – put the best of the best here. Changing the title is the easiest way to increase your on-page search visibility.  It’s both at the top of the page (up near your maximize/minimize/close buttons) and the link to the page on the Search Engine Results.  Include your location if your business is local.
• Header – synonyms/alternative words used in the title – you really don’t want to use the term “cheap hotel” over and over on a page.  You could mix it up with “Affordable Inns” (if that’s what people are searching for, that is).
• Copy – duh. I can not emphasize enough that copy should both incorporate keywords, while also balancing your company’s tone and making the page informative.
• Navigation – make the links in the nav short, sweet, and keyword rich!
• Links – “Click here” really isn’t going to cut it. Incorporate keywords in the anchor text – as those words have a little more search power than regular words on the page.

Code

• Meta-description – or the “search engine description”.  It should be a good synopsis of the page, incorporating those keywords, as well as your location and contact information.
• Meta-keywords – Yahoo is the only one that pays attention to these, and it doesn’t hurt to use them.  Just be sure to keep it to 10 or 15 keywords and phrases, all specific to that particular page.
• Alt Tags - image descriptions can be a great way to acquire traffic from image searchers.

Web Marketing

• Blogging and Article Marketing – As every blogpost and article is a new page, it’s a great way to focus on a niche audience or a hot topic.  You can further optimize with categories and tags too.
• Video – Optimizing for video is becoming more important with universal search – YouTube offers great options for optimizing your videos.

Nicki Hicks
Maine SEO