Jordan Hardy

Just as in any other industry out there, there are quite a number of people doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO). How do you wade through the huge number of individuals, companies and techniques? Is SEO just an extra last minute marketing effort you employ or is it woven into your business? Is it a trick or a technique?

My View on SEO and Online Marketing 

I believe SEO goes beyond just optimizing a Website for search engines. SEO means optimizing a Website for users and search engines. Search engines want to help people find what they need. Just like there was Web 2.0 and then people discuss Web 3.0 and so on, there are many evolutions of SEO I read about. I prefer to keep everything under either an umbrella of Online Marketing or SEO depending on the item.

It is important to have search engines find all types of media and content on your Website. it is important to code things well, add new functionality for users and use keyword strategy. But, these items are not just for search engines as much as they are also for users.

SEO Perspective 

I have been working with SEO for more than 10 years. There are so many techniques I have learned that form my foundation of knowledge / perspective. There are a huge number of websites, RSS feeds and email newsletters I track. Sometimes there are new items of value. Some items are evolved over time. Most times things are just currently existing items discussed again and again. many items that I enjoy are articles where a marketer wants to get attention by making a jarring statement.

New Evolution Announcements 

The items I find the most interesting are those where a new item is announced, many people jump on it as if it will change everything, and quite a lot of new start-up Websites pop up. Social Media Optimization (SMO) and what I call SB (Social Bookmarking) are two examples. There are many of these sites of value to consider. Over time I have built many master lists testing over a thousand of these. As exciting as they sound and can be pumped up to be, they can be a component but not a focus of a marketing program. So many of these sites that I tracked in recent years are now gone with new sites in the same and other categories replacing them.

One Small Example of Evolution: Master Submission Lists 

In fact, if you were to look at any of my personal master lists of favorite search engines, directories and many other categories of Websites today vs. what they looked like six months ago, there would be more different than in common. A book I buy today, or list of Websites I build today, may be relevant for 1-3 months. But for sure, in that time the Internet has again evolved and new sites have risen up in importance.

My Summary / View of the Online Marketing Process 

The process is what makes online marketing so much fun. It is important to understand coding, online techniques, usability, user behavior, design, analytics, technologies, CMS’s, platforms, tools, SEO/SEM and the landscape of what has happened, is happening and will probably happen next on the Internet.  My perspective is that after building a well rounded perspective of how Websites and marketing work, there is not one magic technique to market a Website to the top of search engines. To do this it takes understanding, consistent effort, purpose to do this, Website evolutions and giving users what you know they want.

My personal choice is 100% organic SEO.

Why?

I have enjoyed managing PPC teams in the past, but PPC is more predictable. Once the money stops, so do results. With organic search engine optimization and marketing, results should continue increasing over time. There can be months where traffic or conversion decreases, but the overall increasing trend line should increase well for years.

What happens if SEO and various online marketing efforts are paused?

I’ve noticed results can slowly start to drop in 2-3 weeks if continued efforts are not done. There are so many categories of relevant efforts that I find useful. It is important to sustain these efforts. The reason for this is that people and Websites/search engines are looking for Websites which are alive, so the more your Website has going on, the better.

Finding the right SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) vendor /person is very difficult. From my experience, the sales process can be very different from what team and results you will get in the end. I’ll explain more. You can have a vendor that has what looks like an amazing proposal. They can sell you hard and make many promises. You can have terrific paperwork as you sign an agreement / contract. The team or person assigned to work on your website/s SEO can start strong. And then, the question will be will they follow through, have the right strategy, and know how to get results? Even more important, will they actually get results?

These are the ways I suggest you narrow down your search to find the right search engine vendor / person :

• Find out if the person/people who you would be assigned to work with you and your company are technical. You don’t want to be talking on a daily basis to people who cannot communicate technical details that need to be done.
• Explore their techniques. Do they believe in black hat or white hat techniques? When do they believe each of these techniques should be used?
• Find out what their strategy is all about. Will you get the same strategy as any other client? (You want a unique strategy.)
• Find out if the vendor makes excuses. Will they drag work and timelines out?
• Find out if they can promise results. Ask what increases in traffic, rankings, and conversion they can promise. If they promise the moon, with exact figures, be concerned. If they do not promise exact numbers, but do say they will over time consistently improve results, that is good. You want them to be sincere.
• Do they have experience marketing for companies of various sizes? (You want yes to be the answer.)
• Look at a few examples of their past clients. How well do they do in search engines? (Obviously new websites will take a number of months to start moving up in rankings significantly, so keep that in mind.)
• And the last, most important item is this. Don’t get fooled by a search engine vendor telling you that you need to be placed high for particular niche searches. They may name long strings of 3-8 keywords and tell you they can secure these important listings /keyword searches for you. That is easy! No one else will be looking for or securing those listings. Those listings won’t be valuable with enough searches.

Essentially, don’t get fooled. You want an honest person/vendor who knows what they are doing technically. You want someone with a proven track record who will help, not hurt your results.

Click here to learn about Jordan’s experience

What is More Important, Organic or Paid Website Traffic?

Organic.

Why is organic Website traffic more important? These are the positive aspects of organic.

• It does not turn on and off instantly as paid ads can.
• Organic traffic, on a well done website, will increase and increase with the correct efforts.
• Eat organic! Haha… just had to sneak that one in even though I only once in a while eat organic.
• Organic can include dozens of top search engines and thousands of smaller search engines. It can also include a large number of Websites in other categories.
• Organic is free.
• Organic is long lasting.
• Organic is highly trusted by users as they are natural results.

Negatives of organic.

• Can take some time for search engines to notice changes or new Website items.
• You can’t pay organic search engines for listings/traffic/rankings/conversion. You can only pay for services of someone to help you attain these results.

Positive of paid ads.

• You can turn them on fast.
• You can turn them off fast.
• You can test quite a bit.
• You have control.

Negatives of paid ads.

• Not as trusted as organic results. Over 95% of clicks on an average search engine results page are organic listings.
• They cost money.
• They turn off when money runs out.

Click here to learn about Jordan’s experience

I hope you enjoy the URLs below. I’ve got around 5000 favorite websites in various categories, all of which relate to online marketing. Of those, about 300 are closely related to search engines themselves and search engine information. There are many enjoyable search engine tools and information websites to reference, but it is often the most useful to test things oneself by hand. Remember, search engines do not want to be tricked or have things too automated.

It is very useful to look through search engines and see what they are doing live with their results. Addressed below, it is important to look at their new projects or URLs of interest. Enjoy!

1. MSN Sandbox - testing, interesting things by MSN
   http://sandbox.msn.com/
2. Google Labs - This is a great place to see new Google Beta Launches and more
   http://labs.google.com/
3. Yahoo Next Projects Page - This is Yahoo’s beta and interesting items area
   http://next.yahoo.net/archives/category/projects
4. Yahoo Live Search - it is what it sounds like
   http://search.yahoo.com/?ek=0
5. Yahoo Audio Search - interesting idea
   http://audio.search.yahoo.com/audio
6. Digg - Many interesting URLs of articles and websites can be found here on search engines
   http://digg.com/
7. Google Blog - A wealth of information
   http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
8. Google Press / News - I very much enjoy this area
   http://googlepress.blogspot.com/
9. Yahoo Press Area - Enjoy the variety of endeavors by Yahoo
   http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/releases.cfm
10. MSN and Windows Live Newsroom - As MSN is one of my top favorite 3 search engines, this is a place I bookmark and refer
    http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/msn/default.mspx

Click here to learn about Jordan’s experience

What is SEM?

SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. SEO is part of SEM. SEM is often not as cheap as SEO, but can get more results overall.

A successful SEM program often includes:

• SEO - Search Engine Optimization, where many factors are considered in making a website more search engine friendly so that it has a higher chance of ranking higher on search engines.
• PPC / Paid Ads - PPC stands for Pay Per Click. There are many types of ads that can be paid for, whether per click, amunt of time live, etc. Some ads are text links, some are Flash, and some are images. Some ads are meant to fool users so that they have no idea they clicked on an ad. Ads can cost the advertiser anywhere between $.01 and $100 per click. For example, a common search query that has low value and not much competition, such as a tulip, may be $.01 to $.50 per click. On the other hand, a porn link or Mesothelioma click may cost $10-60 per click.
• Social Bookmarking - Websites such as Delicious and Digg are ways to find interesting items other people have bookmarked on the web. If your website is bookmarked on any of these sites (there are many out there),this is a great technique of marketing you.
• SMO / Social Media Optimization - There are many social websites out there that are valuable to be part of. An example of one of the many would be Stumbleupon.
• Article Websites - There are many valuable article websites that are worth writing for or getting links from.

I would also include other items such as Wikis, email marketing, and reviews as related and affecting SEM. SEM is really about paid ads on search engines plus organic SEO, with the goal to increase visibility in search engines.

Click here to view Jordan’s resume

SEO is not just Technical Optimization

SEO is search engine optimization, focusing on “organic” techniques to help a website rise to the top of search engine listings. The goal is usually to get more traffic, higher rankings on search engines, increase conversion, target and bring the right visitors to the website, and to get return visitors.

There is a lot more art, or creative work to SEO than technical work. It is necessary to keep up to date on search engine and industry updates and news. It is also necessary to know how to code, design and build websites.

But, beyond the right fields within code (and framework), it takes creativity and research to bring in a strategy that works. That strategy can be any number of so many techniques that will work for SEO, but, it is the ideas behind the strategy that are so important. Why will people come to your website? How long will they stay? What is your end goal of the website? What paths do you plan most visitors will take as they navigate through your website? Do you need the visitor to convert? Do they fill out a form? Do you want the visitor to return or just refer friends?

When you code a page on a website, or whole website, is that page really about what you planned? Ideally, if you build it, they will come. In other words, it would be nice if you could build your page and search engines and people will just find your page. That does often happen to some extent on large websites that are already popular due to other people contributing. It also often happens on blogs. But often it doesn’t just happen.

How to Make the Search Engines Note, Index, and raise Your Site in Ranking Over Time

Establish that your website deserves to exist. Enjoy working on the website, and include other people when possible. This may mean they link to you or you link to them. It may mean they write for your website. Think, if I were a visitor, would I enjoy this website? Step back and be objective. Learn all you can about SEO, coding, and your subject matter for the website.

This is very important: If you build it, often they will not come. Or at least that is, right away. People need time to tell others about your website. They also need time to see if they really like it and want to return. Search engines need to see what happens on your website over time. They need to see and believe what your point is. All of this takes time, and therefore you cannot guess exactly when you will move up in ranking next. But, you’ll learn in future posts on this website there are SO many things you can do to increase your chances.

I personally do extensive testing to see what works. I read books, articles, and search engines themselves. I look in code on websites. I intuitively figure out what elements will help people and websites learn and crawl through (with search engine spiders / crawlers ) a website more easily and positively.

In other words, I create my own algorithm / methodology which not only updates daily with new factors I discover, but SEO also is never the same from one website to the next. Each website has unique marketing depending on their branding, location (online space or physical location), goals, and technology used.

Click here to learn about Jordan’s experience