We believe that by focusing on doing the things that it takes to increase Search Marketing Equity℠ -- namely blogging, creating unique, remarkable content, on-page and off-page SEO, effective use of social media, sharing, RSS and online video -- you can create an asset for your business or organization that will pay dividends for years to come in the form of free, organic search traffic.
When we engage with clients to help them increase Search Marketing Equity, we focus on the following major components in a methodical and proven approach we call Inbound Marketing:
1. Visibility
Without the right kind of quality, relevant Inbound Links, Proper meta data on your site, listings and directories from credible sources, your website is wearing a virtual sort of Invisibility Cloak when it comes to Organic Search results.
2. Content
Pages and blog posts must be unique and relevant to your intended audience, and you need to commit to publishing new content on a regular basis. People often ask us, how many pages do I need? "More than your closest competitors" is often our first pass answer, as your presence in the indexes of the major search engines can be compared to the size of a billboard on the side of a highway. If you want bigger results, you need a bigger presence than your competition.
3. Engagement
Your audience (and are often more than one) must have a way to read and react, leave a comment, pose a question, subscribe to your content or take part in a poll or contest. This is the more sure-fire way of cultivating repeat visitors, increased time on site and engagement, and it leads to our best strategy for organic link building, which follows...
4. Sharing
The greatest content in the world is of little value to you (or anyone else) if it remains confined to your site. Great content deserves to be shared. And the best possible sharers are in your target audience, because their sphere of influence is precisely who you want to reach: Their peers, friends, neighbors and acquaintances.
5. Be Remarkable
Seth Godin is famous for many great thoughts and ideas, but my favorite is one I heard when he spoke in Southern California to a group of Social Marketing fans in about 2008. Seth simply said, "Be Remarkable. Create things people want to REMARK about." I love this idea, will never forget it, and as a result, it guides our strategy when it comes to creating content on the web: Create content that is unique, relevant to your intended audience, and remarkable, so that people will want to remark and share your ideas with their world.
The Importance of Optimizing for Search Engines
