Six Tips for SEO Success

Posted by: Jessica Richmond, Director of Client Services Jan 19, 2010 1 Comments

As the director of client services at Rock Creek, I’m often the first person that gets to know our new clients. And whether they’re coming to us for a short-term branding project or a long-term marketing and strategy engagement, it’s my job to pull together the Rock Creek team that will best support the client’s needs and goals.

More often than not, our recent projects have included an online marketing component—which isn’t surprising, as online marketing provides a highly effective, highly measurable form of outreach. One aspect of online marketing our team focuses on is search engine optimization, or SEO. I recently sat down with two members of our online marketing team, Jacob Wolfsheimer and Sarah McHattie, to chat about what we need to make sure that clients understand as we’re embarking on an SEO project together. The following six tips are the outcome of that conversation.

1. Figure out “What’s the point?” Driving traffic is important, but is it just higher traffic numbers that you’re after? For most businesses trying to sell a product or secure a position of thought leadership in a particular niche, driving qualified traffic is much more important—and requires a different approach. Jacob suggests that before you start any optimization effort, make sure the entire team is on the same page when it comes to the project goals and objectives. Agree on the metrics you’ll use to determine SEO success before you waste time and money on optimization efforts that don’t serve your true needs.

2. Don’t let price be the only factor that dictates your SEO decisions. The old edict that “you get what you pay for“ holds true, especially in online marketing. Optimization is one of the best and most cost effective ways to receive real, measurable results. But great optimization is not free, and cheap optimization may use SEO tactics that can actually harm your brand and online reputation. Don’t cheap out when it comes to making an SEO investment.

3. Know your competition—and their keywords. Choosing incorrect or irrelevant keywords can quickly exhaust paid campaign budgets and can lead to SEO failure, so why not let your competition give you some ideas on keywords worth choosing? Jacob recommends starting every optimization project by conducting thorough keyword research to determine what people are searching for and which terms are more competitive. When conducting keyword research, always download competitors’ white papers and PDF resource materials—keywords used in these materials are not typically as well optimized as keywords on websites. This will give you a head start on optimizing your own site for terms that your competition hasn’t gotten around to optimizing for, but find important.

4. Get into the technical nitty gritty. Don’t miss out on a prime optimization opportunity by ignoring proper metatags, alt-image tags, page titles, page aliases, and header tags. “These little technical details can make the difference between your site appearing on page one of the SERPs or disappearing into the black hole of search,” says Sarah.

5. Do the legwork to find hidden SEO opportunities. Rock Creek’s online marketing team uses tools such as Google’s advanced search operators to locate out-of-date or seemingly abandoned websites that still show up in search results. Once you do this, you can locate contact information and present mutually beneficial opportunities, from buyout offers to regular content submissions for links back to your site.

6. Give visitors a reason to stay and explore. A well done SEO campaign can be extremely successful at driving traffic to your site, but that doesn’t matter a bit if the visitor arrives and is confused or doesn’t know what to do next. Spend some time working on the design, organization, content, and architecture of your site to ensure your visitors’ experience is the one you want them to have.

And the most important aspect of online marketing? Choosing the right vendor. It’s no secret that there’s much more to achieving SEO success than following a collection of tips and tricks. Building a relationship with an SEO provider you can trust is the best way to ensure your online marketing activities meet your business and marketing goals.

Before selecting a vendor, ask yourself if that vendor has the depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise to support your larger goals. If the answer is “no,” keep looking. Or, take the simple route and contact Rock Creek to see how our online team can help your business, association, or government agency achieve SEO success!

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Jessica Richmond

Director of Client Services

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