Keys to search engine visibility

BY BRIDGET CAREY

Good search engine results are vital to the success of a business. If a company is struggling to get traffic to its site, perhaps there is a need to seek out a firm that specializes in search engine optimization for websites -- which are natural results from a search engine -- and search engine marketing -- which are the paid ad link results in a search.

Andrew Wetzler, president of Boca Raton-based MoreVisibility, spoke to The Miami Herald about what businesses both large and small should keep in mind in order to get the best possible search results for their websites.
He explained that keys to a successful search are to have strong content, the right keywords, other related sites that link to your site and a site design that does not have too many ''bells and whistles'' such as Flash programming features, so that a search engine can understand the site.

Q: What trends are you seeing now in search?
A: One of the most interesting things that is gaining momentum is the impact of social search on how companies market online. We do a fair amount of writing of blogs for companies and set the blog up and put all the pieces together properly.
The reason that that is important is that blogs by nature are content rich and very targeted to what the subject matter is. The more content that is posted on a continual basis, the greater the likelihood that the site will do well naturally with search engines.

Q: What are things about search that people tend to misunderstand?
A: I think there is a tremendous amount of misunderstanding in terms of the paid aspect of search. I think there are a lot of searchers that don't even know the difference between a paid result and a natural result. So one of the things we try to communicate to our clients is the importance of what we call honoring channel preference. There are certain people out there who would never click on a paid link. There are other people who believe if someone is willing to be there, then they must have something good to talk about because they are willing to pay for the traffic. And then there's a huge body of people who I believe don't know the difference. I think you need to be in both places intelligently.

Paid search today has become very competitive in that if you're going to bid to be at or near the top at a particular keyword, you need to be very certain that you are converting an appropriate number of visitors to new customers. Whether you're a real estate firm that's looking for buyers or sellers or whether you're a hotel looking for visitors or you're a university looking for applications -- if you're going to do paid search you need to really have an understanding of the different variables of a campaign and manage them carefully.

The narrower your keywords are, the less the competition, and typically the higher the conversion rate. And less competition equates to a lower bid price in most instances. And the closer you are able to get what someone is actually searching for, the greater the likelihood is that when they show up on your website, they are going to do what you want them to do.

Q: What sort of changes have there been in the industry in the last decade?
A: Not only has paid search become more important but also things like analytics, and that's a real scary term for business owners, large or small. It's extremely important that you have an analytics tool in place that can look at the traffic that's coming into your site and see which traffic is converting and which isn't and modify campaigns accordingly.

Several years ago, people could only measure by how much traffic did I get and how much money is in the bank, how many sales did I get. Today we can segment so much more efficiently than we ever have before -- which keywords are driving conversions, which landing page is generating a better result, which engine converts better.

Q: Is it possible for a small business to improve its search results without going to a consulting firm, even if that business isn't tech savvy?
A: I would say it's a function of how much time they want to invest. There's no question that if someone is willing to spend the time and make the commitment to learn Internet marketing, search marketing, they can do it. But it's extremely fast-moving. There are so many different variables involved in making a program successful, both on the optimization side, as well as on the paid search marketing side. I would certainly say it can be done, and you can do it yourself if you're willing to make the commitment.

Q: What advice do you give a business that is a beginner in search engine optimization?
A: I guess the first piece of advice is to make sure you have a website that effectively communicates the message that you want to share with others. Because if you don't, very little else will work after that. You may be successful in driving paid traffic to the website, but if it doesn't complement your offerings, you won't be successful. If the site isn't in sync with the keywords, it won't be successful. So having a good website that is intelligently put together and is user friendly is the starting point for anything that you will do.