Earlier this week I wrote a post titled Search Engine Optimization: Understand The Terminology where I referred reader on to an excellent glossary of terms related to search engine optimization. In the post I wrote about understanding the concept of search engine optimization.

Nick La of Web Designer Wall has a great post, SEO Guide for Designers, which looks at search engine optimization and web design. However, don’t be fooled by the title. The post is a great introduction into the world of search engine optimization. In fact, rather than repeat his post, I will just nick his paragraph headings and you can head on over and read at your leisure.

• Why Should You Learn About SEO?
• The Basics: How Search Engines Work?
• Your Job As a Search Engine Optimizer
• Top 9 SEO Mistakes Made by Designers and Developers
• General SEO Do’s and Don’ts
• Search Result Position
• Resources to Help You Go Farther

It is a long post however when it comes to learning some of the basics of search engine optimization, it provides a good coverage including links to authority sites with more in depth information.

One of the things I like about Nick’s post is the easy to understand language he uses – it is not full of unnecessary search engine optimization jargon. A great post for search engine optimization newbies looking for a weekend read.

Search engine optimization and reputation management are two distinct areas of website management. They do however rely on each other for success.

There is one clear advantage to having a strong search engine optimization program, you should be able to take the top spots in the search engine results pages. If you do have top spot, any negative pages that come along are likely to appear below your number one spot. If they take over that number one spot, you have a problem.

Last week we wrote a post on search engine optimization and indented listings. If you can achieve the top one or two positions with indented listings, the chances are that any competition will appear below the fold and unseen on first glance.

Many online commentators try to make clear distinctions between reputation management and search engine optimization, however in practice they work hand in hand along with social marketing to form a holistic optimization of your web site.

Being able to claim that number one position has more benefits than just delivering organic traffic. Search engine optimization can help to bury any negative reputation slurs which should provide you with enough breathing space to resolve any negative issues. Search engine optimization is not reputation management – but every little bit helps.

Many business owners are now turning to the web to gain an online presence in an attempt to remain competitive. Search engine optimization has become a requirement if you want that presence to be successful and many business owners are simply outsourcing the task to consultants.

Engaging a search engine optimization consultant is often a sensible move as, in the long run, it saves time and money and can bring results relatively quickly. Business owners who are new to the internet face three problems.

The first problem is simply understanding the language of search engine optimization. There are many sites that have good glossaries, one of the best being SEOMoz and their “A Complete Glossary of Essential SEO Jargon” – if you have difficulties understanding the terminology then I suggest you check out their glossary. It well laid out and accessible alphabetically.

The second problem facing new entrants into the online world is understanding the concept of search engine optimization and how it can help their business. Many consultants deliver a sales pitch heavy on the jargon with the simple message buried.

Search engine optimization has one role – getting a site listed as high up in search results pages as possible and making your listing attractive enough to gain that all important click through to your site.

The third problem that many website owners, new and old, face is the concept of social marketing and how it can help their business grow. Again, in simple terms, gaining a social presence is a continuation of search engine optimization with the ultimate aim of delivering traffic to your website.

As a business owner you need a basic understanding of search engine terminology along with an understanding of how search engine optimization can help your business to grow.

The web is getting bigger and search engine optimization is getting bigger with it – and more complex – at least according to Melissa Fach in her article on Marketing Pilgrim yesterday.

Melissa wrote about the new search engine optimization role that includes, amongst other tasks, SEM and SMO. A little web design thrown in along with the ability to communicate and inform clients adds to the daily toil.

I fear the task is only going to get more complex: not only will we need to constantly update our methods as search engines change their algorithms; we will need to deal with webmaster demanding higher rankings in an ever growing competitive field. Search engine optimization has been relatively straight forward in the past. If you were to graph the increase in search results for a given keyword, you would see it heading through the ceiling, and the increase is noticeable on a daily basis.

Melissa makes some interesting points, and none more so than:

…..This means those of us offering search engine services need to take our job very seriously. We have a massive responsibility to do what is right for our clients because our failures, lack of hard work or unethical behavior could result in terminal damage to a business

So I will have to add at least one other task to Melissa’s search engine optimization task list, that of reputation management. We can be as honest and ethical as humanly possible, however we can, do and will make mistakes. A little reputation management may help us catch any problems before they get out of hand.

The role now involves search engine marketing, social marketing, reputation management, PPC marketing, e-mail marketing, customer relations, web design consultant, domain name consultant; oh – and don’t forget search engine optimization in there somewhere too. I wonder – does anyone know a decent therapist – talk about split personalities.

A vast majority of web sites rely on a steady flow of traffic, much of this coming from organic search engine results. If you don’t have a search engine optimization program in place, you can forget the traffic.

New research results published on Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog reveals that 41% of users will only look at the first page of results; a further 27% would only look at the first few results. That is 68% of users only going to page one of the results. If your search engine optimization program doesn’t have you on page one, you are fighting for a share of 32% of search results.

The post goes on to offer some advice on how to improve your position in the search results pages. The recommendation was, as part of your search engine optimization strategy, you start to look at your ‘digital assets’ and optimizing them.

Using all your digital media in carefully optimized pages using search engine optimization techniques such as alt tags and closely related text, the post suggested also optimizing your digital assets through social media such as YouTube. To quote from the post:

But don’t stop there. Take these same assets and find resource sites (e.g., YouTube) and social media sites (e.g., Facebook) to post and tag them, so that you can expose your brand to visitors of those sites who may otherwise have never visited your corporate website.

This could be quite time consuming and would require a carefully thought out plan, however, as part of a long term search engine optimization program, the results will speak for themselves. As the Yahoo! post stated; “major search engines show more than just text in their search results, in what we call “blended results.” .

Offsite search engine optimization strategies used to mean gathering backlinks, now it really is “offsite optimization”, this time for digital media.

The field of search engine optimization experts is growing on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Like everything web related, these experts are starting to develop niches, whether is traditional search engine optimization consulting, social marketing, or search engine marketing to name just a few – and yes, former SEO ‘experts’ are now claiming to be marketing experts as well. Perhaps they are!

With so many search engine optimization experts, websites and blogs around these days, what are the options for a new entrant? I see two niches that are probably under-developed at present and may offer opportunities to a new players.

The first niche that may prove to be profitable into the future is social page optimization. We see a lot of talk about social marketing, however, when you visit sites such as Facebook and Myspace, the term social is still very evident. Pages are certainly not designed to represent business interests – they are often more like family site. Whilst not true search engine optimization in nature, it is an area that requires developing as part of an overall package.

The second niche is one that is covered fairly well, but not as seriously as it could be. Search engine optimization training for small players has hardly been touched. There are e-books and several sites that will tell you all about SEO for your site, however, many are user unfriendly and/or expensive.

If you can design a simple 7 or 10 day follow me type training program with perhaps a short video each day; and made the program affordable, and for that I am talking about under $25. People seem to have short attention spans these days and at the same time require hand holding. Seven to ten day training – one hour per day, using a follow me style could work well. Search engine optimization is one area that can be done easily in a follow me style. Get the time, delivery and price right and you may have a winner delivering training to those who want a DIY search engine optimization strategy.

Search engine optimization is becoming very competitive and unless you can bring a totally new approach, you will find it difficult to get started. Find a niche that is in demand with little supply and may do well.

As search engine optimization consultants we are often asked to get a web page to the number one ranking for a particular keyword. It’s not easy – and that is not an understatement.

Getting to number one in the SERP rankings requires far more than just the basics in search engine optimization. It requires a high level of investigative skills to try and determine what your competitors are doing and what it is we can do to outrank them.

We can work hard to try and outrank them, all the while they are working hard to keep us out. We cannot beat them in every case. Search engine optimization can only go so far. If we cannot beat them, we certainly cannot join them. So what next?

Often, the main thrust in search engine optimization is all wrong from the beginning. Why try to beat them? Perhaps the key lies in thinking laterally. We cannot beat them on those keywords – but then, are those keywords the best possible for your site? Just a little tweak of the keywords may see you at the top of the SERP’s and receiving traffic that your competitors are missing. The tweak may simply involve a brand, location or alternative spelling.

You don’t always have to beat them using the same keywords. Develop keywords that can be targeted to your web pages and search engine optimization suddenly becomes easier and more productive. Don’t keep up with the Jones’ – become a Jones yourself.