Organic
search and why it matters
I recently attended a search marketing conference and realized I'm so deeply entrenched in web writing and search engine optimization, I lose sight of the lack of knowledge of the majority of the rest of marketers. Case in point: I knew a lot more about organic search than most--if not all--of the other attendees at this conference. So I decided this month's newsletter would assume most-if not all-of you would benefit from an organic search overview…and why organic search matters.
What
is organic search?
There are two ways for your site to get found
online via search engines: paid and organic (or natural) search. Paid
search is just that, the pay-per-click ads you buy. Organic is about the
content (and links but we're sticking with content here), meaning the text
on your site. Not the graphics, not the design, not the forms, not the
pictures…just the text. Why just text? Search engines crawl and index text
only. They can't crawl anything but words.
Why
should you care about organic search?
People like paid search
because it's immediate, tangible and measurable. But organic search gets
better results and more qualified leads…and it's free. Organic search
results are also viewed as more credible by the searcher, as objective and
more likely to deliver the information they are looking for. Unlike paid
search, however, organic takes time and it's not as cut and dry.
How
do you optimize for organic search?
Optimizing your site can be as
simple or as complicated as you want. Of course the more time and effort
you put into researching your keywords and writing great keyword-rich web
content, the better your results. The topic of "how to" is more that we
can tackle here, but for a jumpstart, I offer 5 quick tips for optimizing
your Web site for organic search:
- Double-check your keywords: When was the last time you reviewed them? Are you using the best ones? Are there new keywords that people are now searching with that you could take advantage of?
- Check your URLs: Are you using keywords in your URLs?
- Revisit your title tags: Many companies make the mistake of putting the same title tag on every single page within their site. And usually it's a pathetic one. Give every page a different title tag so you can take advantage of more keywords. And make sure your title tags are doing their double duty: Serving up keywords to search engines, but also giving people a reason to click on you in the search results.
- Make sure your headings are text-not graphics-and use the "H1" tag. Have your Web person make it so.
- Review your anchor text (the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink). Instead of "For free marketing tips, click here" use your keywords like this: "Read the free marketing tips."
The best results come from a mix of paid and organic search. Just make sure you don't take the easy way out with paid and think you have your search bases covered: Put some effort into the organic side too.
Until next month,
Sharon
*Don't know how to research and choose keywords? Wondering what a title tag is? We Know Words can help. We can even do a Web site assessment to determine just how well your current site is optimized for organic search…and for your users. Just email sharon@weknowwords.com.
