Central Perk: SEOptimise

vineri, 11 martie 2011

SEOptimise

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 05:59 AM PST

Back in the day, SEO was quite a simple process consisting of three parts:

Market and keyword research
On-page optimisation
Link building (off-page optimisation)

In 2011, it’s not that simple anymore. Depending on what niche or industry you are working in or rather what kind of site and business model you have, SEO can be a lot of things. SEO can or even has to consist of more disciplines.

Most importantly, local SEO/Google Places SEO or e-commerce SEO/Google Shopping SEO play a major role for many businesses today. Local businesses that also have an online shop need both.

On the other end of the SEO process there is landing page optimisation or conversion optimisation. An SEO process without it is not really complete.

That’s still not enough though, as without king content there is nothing to get linked to on your site or to rank for in Google, so a decent SEO process entails a content strategy. This might include:

blogging
infographics
videos.

To spread these you need social media outreach and participation, as content does not spread by itself without some traction on social media. So a typical SEO process might look something like this:

Market and keyword research
Local SEO/Google Places optimisation
On-page optimisation
E-commerce SEO/Google Shopping optimisation
Content strategy (planning, creation, optimisation, promotion)
Social media outreach & participation
Landing page optimisation/Conversion optimisation
Website analytics and monitoring

These steps have to be undertaken for more and more sites. Even sites that aren’t considered e-commerce often use check-out forms or shopping carts. Many businesses that are not local by definition also have real-life brick and mortar storefronts or offices. So Google Places and Google Shopping SEO is not rare either.

Even video SEO for YouTube and beyond is mainstream now. There is also mobile SEO to make sure your visitors can reach your site using their smartphones or tablets.

Already overwhelmed? You don’t need to be. You still can stick to the old SEO model and succeed to some extent, but you can gain even more by expanding your SEO strategy to include all of the above mentioned disciplines.

* Image by Ross Spoon.