Never underestimate on site search optimization
I may have the most fragmented thought processes of anyone I’ve ever encountered. Thus, I tinker with things. All the time. This is probably why I have a hobby of collecting hobbies.
Anyway, this has been a useful trait for the world of SEO, as we aim to become the premiere Michigan search engine optimization and pay per click management firm. I find myself constantly tinkering with our page content, modifying the density of target phrases, monitoring the top spots, and seeing how I can provide content in a way that’s still aimed at the user but provides all of the benefits you could hope for in SEO. This is such an important thing to spend time on and keep track of, as I saw recently on our own site.
We’re relatively new, and playing in an intensely competitive market (obviously), so we need to pick our spots wisely. The first term we saw great success on was ‘paid search management‘. Right now we’re sitting at number four, but have held the top spot on occasion. That was a triumph for a site not even six months old, and a testament to our methods of on site and external optimization. I swear we built a billion links for that term…We’re very aggressive with our link building, and of course, we see great results. But if you stray too far from your on site optimization, you’re really short changing your efforts.
A perfect case in point was the term ‘michigan seo solutions‘. We had previously targeted that term for our site, and initially done our due diligence in creating a page that was strong for that term. This term didn’t have the time or resources attached to it as some other terms, but we were spending some time on it…and not seeing great results. Our link building report showed that we should have been at least on page two for Google, yet as of September 19th we sat in the 74th position. There had to be another issue, I figured, and it was time to tinker.
I went back to our on site optimization and saw some holes in how we had used the term within the page content and went to work making corrections based on my benchmarks of those holding the top SERPs. The results were striking. By October 1st we had jumped 66 positions to eighth. We went from being invisible to being on the cusp of grabbing a good share of traffic for that term with a little more work. The amount of time I could have spent doing external SEO for that term with lesser results would have been stunning.
The moral of the story? Never stop taking the pulse of the pages you’re trying to optimize, or you’ll just be creating a lot of extra work for yourself.
No one is invincible
A news story today reminded me of this fact. It’s so easy to do something dumb when you’re dumb and you begin thinking you’re invincible. I can’t say that I didn’t do a handful of dumb things when I thought I was ten feet tall and fireproof. Fortunately I came away largely unscathed.
As I’ve continued our SEO efforts on the Netvantage website, I find myself wondering what some of our established competitors are thinking when they suddenly see us popping up in the SERPs with the rest of the old guard. I like to imagine a panicked discussion among managers after seeing us listed in front of them for terms like paid search management. I envision this conversation starting with the line, “Where in the heck did these guys come from?” Now whether or not that actually happens, I don’t know, but it makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
More importantly, I need to remember this scene because I don’t want it to be me. SEO is no different than any other strategic marketing initiative. You need to have a basic sense of your environment and one eye on the rear view mirror once you’ve made it to the top. If your website is a key business driver, you can’t rest on your laurels in regards to search engine optimization. For most sites, search is THE key driver of traffic. If new competitors begin bumping you down the wrungs of the rankings, even a few notches could lead to some significant dropoffs in the returns from your site.
So just because you’ve been atop the rankings for a long period doesn’t mean there isn’t a hungry upstart ready to pounce and start eating up market share…So to all you search marketing firms out there, make room, because you’ll be seeing a lot of us.
