Choosing the ‘right’ Search Engine Optimization Goal
A very typical answer from any organization when asked about their SEO objective is to be seen on top or top 10 in organic results. A surprising number of companies simply focus on what they think is the right goal for themselves, steering the whole effort in a wrong direction!! Picking the right goals is a key to the success of any SEO effort.
When we select a wrong objective, we invest all our efforts and energies in achieving that wrong objective and hence lose out on the ROI! Let’s have a look at some of the most ‘sought’ after goals which are finalized without much thought into it. Since everyone else is doing it, we should do it too is the basis of these wrong direction goals.
Rankings
By far the most popular goal for many businesses, very often we hear from clients to bring their site on number 1 rank in organic results for a particular search term. Do you think the new businesses generally get top rankings? This is a long term strategy and not a short term goal
Let’s assume that we do manage to get the organization on number one ranking for their search term defined and perhaps that would also result in increasing the web site traffic and may be sales increased too by approximately 10%, is this a good result, yes indeed…
However, if the same organization could have taken the same SEO efforts and energy and increased the ‘relevant’ traffic to the site by 20%, and grown sales by 20%, wouldn’t that be an ideal scenario? Hence, rather then concentrating on just one search term and coming on number one rank should be the goal or should you be concentrating on getting relevant traffic to a site generally coming from long tail terms?
Number one ranking does have its branding value; however having relevant traffic which results into higher sales is the main objective of any business. So would you prefer a 20 percent increase in business or a 10 percent increase? The SEO effort to drive relevant long tail traffic is fairly a different one then to drive a single term to the number one position
Traffic
Are we buying traffic here or we buying Intent? That’s the biggest question boggling marketers around the world. Let’s assume that we increased the traffic to a website by 20% however what good is this traffic if it is not relevant to the vertical or product/service we offering? May be this will result in increasing the sale by some small percentage however if we concentrate in increasing the traffic by 20% of the users with strong buying intent for our product/service? Which one you think should be chosen, I don’t think we have a debate here.
"X" New Links per Month
This goal is rampant now days, sort of commoditized goal. Some people think that 50 new links per month will do the trick and some think that 100 new links will be able to get them what they need. However, we need to decide whether we want 100 such links which will do hardly anything to grow our business or do we need one authoritative and relevant site link which will help us manifold times. Higher number of links with marginal impact on business or select few links from authoritative relevant sites and bumper increase in the impact?
Buying links is a dangerous trick of this trade, whereas linking to proper, relevant and strong source is the way to go…
Conclude
This discussion was to understand that poorly or wrongly selected goals can take your energies in wrong direction as well. Choosing the ‘right goal’ is applicable to any walk of life and is as applicable when choosing your right search engine optimization goal as well. If your goal is to increase sales or leads or impressions or branding, you should tie your SEO goals to these metrics to derive the maximum out of it. You will be glad you did :)
Internet and the Web Evolution
On October 24, 1995, the Federal Networking Council famously passed a resolution defining the term Internet:
“The Federal Networking Council (FNC) agrees that the following language reflects our definition of the term ``Internet. ``Internet refers to the global information system that - (i) is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons; (ii) is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and (iii) provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein.” - Source Wikipedia
Web 1.0 (1995 - 2004) During this time we have been reading about the companies, clilent server, HTML, Home Page, Lectures, Advertising and Services Sold over the Web. It can be summed up by the user’s experience of “I’m free to roam.” People discovered that they can surf the globe for information, albeit usually alone with their computer.
Web 2.0 (2005 – 2007) During this time we have been writing online, about communities, peer to peer interaction on the web. It was more aout XML, Conversations, and our online surfers graduated to share experiences and asking “What information have you found?” To facilitate this experience, people joined communities and started write blogs signaling the start of social networking. The technological advancements improved the brodband that resulted in better speed and bandwidth to better browser, Ajax applications, lots of flash applications were started showing their presence online. And the mass production of widgets such as Flicker and Youtube. The static webapage were getting coverted into dynamic web pages, where people use to have their own profile on a static webpage transitioned into Facebook, MySpace. This new transition was more interactive, where people could wrtie, and reply on the post, blogs, and forums. And, the user themeself became the contributors to the information.
Web 3.0 (2008 - ?) dawned with users realizing there is too much information coming at them from all angles. They have start asking, “How do I make sense of it all?” This is the beginning of social filtering where people seek ways to get only the information they need.
That's not all. Many of these experts believe that the Web 3.0 browser will act like a personal assistant. As you search the Web, the browser learns what you are interested in. The more you use the Web, the more your browser learns about you and the less specific you'll need to be with your questions. Eventually you might be able to ask your browser open questions like "where should I go for lunch?" Your browser would consult its records of what you like and dislike, take into account your current location and then suggest a list of restaurants. The new flexible and linked data model.
To many, Web 3.0 is something called the Semantic Web, a term coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the (first) World Wide Web. In essence, the Semantic Web is a place where machines can read Web pages much as we humans read them, a place where search engines and software agents can better troll the Net and find what we're looking for?
Today, we are still setting up the boundaries of web 3.0. What we know that we have started a new journey that will shape up the World Wide Web with new more meaningful flavors in the coming years.
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