Friends,
It became apparent when I first built my custom jewelry website that
potential customers doing searches had to be able to find it on the
search engines using relevant keyword searches. That was almost
seven years ago. I read all I could on the subject of search engine
optimization or SEO. This included sites devoted to the subject,
newsletters and forums. Seven years ago the search landscape was
much different than today. Google was just an infant. Search engines
came and went. They merged or used each others results. Change was,
and still is, the norm. They eventually evolved into what we have
today, the big three, Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Well what have I learned over the past seven years? If you want to
be ranked highly in the organic or non-paid search results you had
to follow certain guidelines to make your site search engine
friendly. What amazes me today is how little site owners and
webmasters use proven SEO practices as part of their site design.
When you mention search engine marketing they usually think of paid
search or pay-per-click. You still have webmasters using all flash
sites, title tags that say “Home”, and who exhibit a total disregard
for simple SEO practices. I have read recently that even when given
recommendations by SEO marketers their advice is often not followed
by site owners or IT managers.
Part of the problem might be that comprehensive SEO is difficult and
practices must be constantly adjusted to meet new challenges. One
way to do this is not to put all your Internet marketing eggs in one
basket. It doesn’t matter whether that basket is a certain search
engine or a particular group of keyword phrases. Also as many SEO
experts say, “relevant and original content is king”. This is very
true, however, off site practices are also important such as
relevant inbound links and other marketing practices. One new area is
the blog. I recently added a blog to my site and have found it to be
a valued addition. I can post my new jewelry creations as they are
completed with a picture and description.
Something else that amazes me is that there is so much emphasis by
the search engines on who has the largest data base or pages
indexed. The problem here is that people generally only look at the
first page of search results. Some even only the first listing on
that page! Well that means that only the first ten sites out of
millions are even looked at by potential customers. So what
difference does the rest of the listed pages really make? Maybe
searchers will become more sophisticated and use more than a two or
three word phrase to search. Or maybe local search (using a place
name in the query string) will become more popular with time. Both
of these developments should be important to site designers.
The bottom line is that basic SEO is simple and should be used by
all site designers/owners. Simple SEO doesn’t cost a thing. Also the
search landscape is constantly changing. Sites need to be constantly
updated not only for the search engines but for their visitors. Fresh
content is important. Lastly I hope that organic search will remain a
part of the Internet. If it is eliminated completely I think we all
will suffer a great loss.
I welcome any comments and questions you might have about this
subject.
Tony Payne
Payne’s Custom Jewelry