Investing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is often perceived as a free means to get your website on top of the Search Engine Rankings as against Pay per Click (PPC) where one has to pay for the keywords to get visibility for their website. This is because SEO helps your website to move up on the Free / Organic / Natural listings on Search Engines as compared to PPC which provides visibility for the website on the Paid / Sponsored listings.

This is a myth which many people follow without realizing the amount of time, effort and money that gets invested into the SEO process over a period of time. SEO is similar to a Brand Building exercise. One has to realize that results are not produced overnight in a SEO process as compared to PPC.

In case of SEO, the service provider will conduct an in depth analysis for the client’s website. The results will be seen after 2 to 3 months time as there are a lot of aspects covered in the analysis such as:

1) Determine Client Strategy

This involves determining whether the client wants to increase visibility for his website, improve rankings on search engines, drive quality traffic to his website, etc.

2) Doing a complete Website Analysis for the Client as well as the Competitors

SEO experts will conduct a complete competitive analysis for the client’s website. This analysis would be in terms of examining the client’s site structure and content management system, reviewing current traffic reports, researching and creating an initial list of potential search terms to optimize for, reviewing competitor’s tactics to get high rankings, etc.

3) Identify relevant keywords and include them on the client’s website

This will be followed by studying the keywords on your website and those used by the competitors by using certain keyword tools. They will then recommend the most relevant keywords for your website and include them on your website.

4) Checking the website for SEO Compliance

The SEO experts will check the website for compliance with Search Engines with respect to the overall design of the website which includes the Page Rank, Title, Body Descriptor, use of Flash elements as they are not detected by search engine crawlers, Keywords and Meta tags, writing various tags, analyzing the source code and relevance of content on the website. They will then provide recommendations to make the client’s website complaint with search engines.

5) Submitting the client’s website to Search Engines and Directories

The SEO experts will then submit pages of your website along with the sitemap to search engines so that they get indexed properly. This will help the client’s website to get more visibility when searched for, on search engines.

6) Link Building Analysis

SEO experts will help the client’s website to get more inbound links as these links result in driving more traffic to the client’s website.

7) Ongoing Review

The SEO expert will conduct an ongoing review for the client’s website after 2-3 months and see the results in terms of number of pages indexed, number of inbound links to the website, amount of traffic on the website, etc.

In spite of doing a full analysis on the client’s website and delivering the desired results, what clients fail to understand is the criticality of the SEO process. They should realize the fact that their website is an extended arm of the marketing activities of their company. Their website presents the face of the company to a global audience and therefore, one must be extra careful in terms of managing their website.

The client’s only concern with respect to a SEO campaign is the amount of time it takes to deliver results. In spite of performing several functions which enable a better ranking and more visibility for the client’s website, SEO providers find it difficult to convince clients to invest in their time.

In reality, they should sell the idea of a SEO service by convincing clients that they are investing in their own website which helps them to grow their own business.