Take a snapshot of today. Consumers are seeking the best value for their money more than in a long time. Businesses, too. How many high-level management have you seen staff-reduced? I've seen my share. The marketplace has been trying to do more with less for over a decade and this trend has intensified in the last 9 months.
So, shouldn't your SEO program follow suit? Yes, it should.
Here are a few SEO/SEM guidelines that will help you to confirm that your company's strategy is sane and efficient.
1. Your web site should not be optimized for more than 5-7 keyterms per page? 3 per page is better. Reason: Your page content should be developed to serve a fairly specific subject matter in order to create content that is attractive to Google and other search engine indexing. If your SEO firm has crammed too many keyterms into the copy, it is likely that page won't serve your visitors well, or be highly positioned in searches for those keyterms, since it is likely to be penalized. If you are competing locally or regionally, you can allow for up to 7 without a problem, due to reduced competition for those terms, generally speaking.
2. If your SEO firm claims that it will optimize your site for hundreds of keyterms, they are probably setting you up for a long, expensive contract with alot of visits, but few quality leads. If you have an ecommerce site that sells hundreds of categorized items, then this might be feasible. However, if you are in a vertical, b-to-b market, you are likely to have anywhere between 20-50 high-value keyterms to target. That would mean, approximately 7-17 optimized pages, with 3 keyterms per page. This is just a guideline.
3. Your SEO firm should focus more time on keyterms that are getting attractive visitor stats, i.e. time per visit, pages per visit, and low bounce rates. If you don't know about Google analytics, or your SEO firm hasn't implemented it for your site, make sure they do, immediately, and supply you with regular reports.
4. If your SEO firm is developing page content, make sure that they are qualified to write sales and lead generating copy - ask for samples and sample Google analytics reports that shows that visitors are getting to the right spot on the client web site.
5. If they are executing a backlinks/link building program, make sure they are using strict, sound requirements (Request our FREE Get Links Guide).
6. Finally, once your program has been running for approximately three months, it is important to monitor results. You should be receiving reports from your SEO partner, including Google Analytics information, such as comparative visits (before start of program vs. following), non-paid keyterm search report, avg. pages viewed per visit, avg. time on site, % of new visits and bounce rate %. I will provide some information on where these numbers should be in a future article.
And, since many leads that come in from internet searches will be in the form of phone calls or direct emails, it is critical that you track these and add them to your online marketing ROI if you want to know the real value of your efforts. If you've asked your SEO company to prove results, you need to share this information with them so that they can report accurately.
SEO is a relatively new frontier. It's hard work for us marketing pros to keep up with the changing landscape out there. So, your best course of action is to take time to choose your SEO firm, wisely. Then, make sure that you are clear in your objective to develop the most effective, yet value-driven SEO plan possible. Ask them to explain how they are going to live up to this criteria.
Finally, if you've not reached what you consider an adequate ROI within 6-9 months, reevaluate your SEO firm's SEO direction, and have another SEO firm provide a simple evaluation, simultaneously, in order to identify best practices.
If you have achieved excellent ROI, consider increasing your spend - ask your SEO firm where you could effectively invest in breadth or depth of optimization.
