How to Spot Great SEO
SEO is truly a mindset a business or a person must realize that it is more than just search engine rankings. The companies and individuals that realize this are the ones that are really reaping the benefits of marketing themselves online in the search engine space. Great search engine optimization doesn’t just happen overnight or with some “tool” you found out there to make it happen quicker. Really good search engine optimization is a craft that takes time to acquire and the companies that are doing it right are visible in many areas.
Here are some ways to spot a great SEO program:
Overall Search Visibility: A company that really gets it and understands the concepts is visible in many different areas online. I still talk to business owners that are hung up on just ranking for a keyword or two thinking that is a successful marketing approach. A good search engine marketing approach is being visible in multiple areas. I’m even going to go as far as saying that pay per click, even though it is not SEO, shows that you clearly understand the concept of visibility. If it was called search engine visibility people might approach it slightly differently.
Social Communication: A company that understands the process and power of online communication with their audience will have a strong presence in the social media space. Social media has a very serious and strong overlap with SEO that many people don’t seem to understand sometimes. Social media is not a fad or some fly by night approach, social media is here to stay and it is starting to have a much stronger impact on search results. More and more Twitter posts and Facebook feeds are starting to find their way directly to organic search results and the companies that embrace it are the ones that understand it and are reaping the rewards.
Embrace The Cloud: Marketing a business on the cloud has a lot to offer and the entrepreneurs and business owners that use and open mind to market themselves understand that almost everything that goes online has some sort of search engine optimization value. Not everything is meant to increase rankings which some businesses don’t seem to understand. You are going to perform certain actions online that might generate visitors directly to your website from that action but will not necessarily increase your rankings which is fine. A visitor is a visitor regardless of how they make their way to your website. The cloud is full of traffic generating sources just waiting to be utilized. The only way you are going to benefit from it is if you have an open mind and realize it requires utilization of everything the search space has to offer.
Quality v.s. Quantity: Dumping 1,000 articles into a directory is not good SEO. Writing a few strategic articles and having them visible in locations where your visitors are hanging out is. A company that understands that good SEO requires strategy and quality and not an approach that includes “science” to gain visibility is on the right path.
Branding Importance: In my personal opinion the companies that hit the nail on the head are the ones that incorporate heavy branding and marketing while introducing hefty SEO elements to get the job done right. In today’s market place there is so much clutter and noise you don’t have a choice but to do something different in order to stand out as much as you can. Without a strong sense of branding you are going to get lost in the sea of noise that exists in almost every vertical and category now. I think some website owners seem to forget just how powerful the power of branding really is. Branding is sometimes much more powerful than rankings. Even great rankings don’t always work anymore if your website is not designed correctly.
Website Conversions: A company that truly understands their SEO knows that their search engine optimization is only as good as their website. If your traffic finds you and your website is set up horribly than nothing is going to convert. There is a series of efforts that are required to really put the pieces together and if they are not set up correctly your SEO efforts will hit bottle necks.
Great search engine optimization requires knowledge, an open mind and a big marketing hat. Without those you are never going to really flourish how you would like.
22 Responses to “How to Spot Great SEO”
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Journal is Written by SEO Expert:
Nick Stamoulis
Tel - 781-999-1222
nick@brickmarketing.com
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
Thanks for the article. I think that you nailed it on the head with these points. You brought up an interesting point about article marketing.
Are there are sites or services that you would recommend for quality, user-beneficial written articles? I realize that this probably depends on the industry you are targeting.
Hi Jared,
Thanks for reading and your comment!
It really does depend on your industry, there are many great places to find specialized writers, one company that we have used in the past and had great success is Article Content Provider:
http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/
I hope this helps.
Take Care,
Nick
Thanks, it does help.
I am in the experimenting phase with article marketing to see what services do the best job of syndicating to quality sites. I realize that link building is much more comprehensive than this tactic, but I think that it can be an effective technique.
Nick,
Maybe we should start using “search engine visibility” or SEV instead of SEO..
Is it really possible to spot good SEO, or is Good SEO the art of making a site appear highly but appear as if it was not SEO’d?
Fantastic article good SEO is often very easy to spot…. it’ll be on page and at the top! Embracing the cloud is a very good point, and a must for all great SEO campaigns.
Hi Adam,
Great, point about search engine visibility!
Take Care,
Nick
Nick –
Totally agree with most of your points. The concept of interrelatedness is a very difficult one for most to embrace since it is all encompassing. One must step back and take a look at the total picture. It really took me 2-1/2 years to grasp the concept, but then WOW, it is rather simple!
Yet, this is so different that what most business people have been taught and actually used up until now to market themselves and their businesses. This is a dilemma and I see you face similar frustrations.
Effective SEO takes time and repetition, trial and error. The beauty of it is once you establish your target market, your can own it. Plus the formulas can be replicated across the board.
Talking about clutter…I see too many people watching one Webinar or reading one outdated book who think it is gospel. With that knowledge they already understand how to implement an effective marketing campaign. One does not graduate from college taking freshman courses.
Will certainly use your post as an example on my blog and refer others to it as well.
Michael
Hi Michael,
Thanks for reading and great points! Also, the age old saying…Rome was not built in a day applies here too!
Thanks again & take care,
Nick
On quality vs quantity – Could not possibly agree with you more. One well written, keyword rich, industry focused article well placed and marketed is worth 1,000 articles poorly crafted and blasted to 10,000 worthless directories.
ALWAYS go quality! Yes it costs more. More money, more time, more effort more sweat. But the returns are worth it!
I’m looking forward to sharing this — it reinforces the message we’re sending to our audiences.
Hello Nick, how are you always happy about. Thank you.
Interesting how I received an email from Brick Marketing today that had a link to this article- noticed how it was published nearly two months ago. In my opinion, that’s great recirculation and whether it is or is not SEO, it’s a great example of branding Brick Marketing.
Thanks for your insights and opinions. I enjoy your articles.
Nick,
I totally agree with this statement:
“A company that truly understands their SEO knows that their search engine optimization is only as good as their website.”
I run up against this on a daily basis. I’ve found that sometimes I become less of an optimizer and more of a website improvement specialist by necessity.
I think that only after you understand and overcome a website’s shortcomings can you properly optimize it. An only then will a site begin to produce.
If you properly identify and fix a website’s structural (and maybe even design) flaws, you should be setting up the site for great success down the line as it will take on a more friendly design and hopefully better SEO.
Hi Nick,
I’m a learner in the SEO space and not-so-regular reader of your newsletter (sorry, I spread myself a lot recently). Fortunately this one just hit my eyes, and I finished reading it now. I think you have summed up the idea of SEO in this article. It’s often we loose the big picture while running for the ranking. Thanks for pointing that out.
Regards,
Gautam
I agree about branding- a lot of websites just seem to slap a bunch of canned articles on and think they’re done. But branding takes some work- setting yourself apart, looking different, better, and unique. I strive for that on all my blogs. I don’t always nail it, but I certainly try to find an angle that no one else has, and be that- staying within the theme.
Hello, good article, as always on time.
Hi Nick,
I appreciate your comments on embracing the cloud. There seems to be a growing conversation about “cloud marketing” and how it can be used to for drive traffic from multiple channels ( natural, social etc). However, there is a large degree of inconsistency about what “cloud” means to SEO; I would appreciate your perspective and help in further define what the Cloud means for SEO and how it applies to both brand and converting traffic.
Thanks!
I think you couldn’t have put it any clearer than this. Thanks for the useful tips.
Every time I open my e-mail, the first thing I do is to open my news feeds from your site Sir Nick. I cant stop reading your article, and I have no regrets, especially this article you nailed it Nick, great Job.
“Great search engine optimization requires knowledge, an open mind and a big marketing hat. Without those you are never going to really flourish how you would like.
This article is not a guide, but an explanation of why Good SEO should be clean. So helpful to see the plan laid out this way. Makes the thoughts of a marketing plan easier to understand. I love the part of quantity vs. quality
because the difference I think between Good SEO and bad SEO is TOME. Good SEO builds reputation that remains, bad SEO scratches enough reputation that keeps the company struggling. Thank you so much!
Hi Adriana,
Thanks so much for reading and your comment!
Take care!
Nick
Until now I never took those emails from you in my inbox serious. It always went into my Junk mail/Spam. This has change my mindset, i’ve added you so I can get those emails straight into my inbox and looking forward to reading more from you. Wonderful!!!
Ayo Alao