Making up the foundation of search engine optimization are four key concepts on which you should build your SEO strategy.  The four cornerstones are: content, keywords, linking, and architecture.

Content
What is content? Why is it important? Content is all of the words that appear on a page or in the code of your website.  Think about your business and what you wish customers knew about your product, service, location, or team.  Do you have special promotions or certain offerings you would like to feature?  Writing about these different subjects fills your site with content.  Adding new content to your website in a timely manner helps search engine spiders recognize that your site is active.  Additionally, websites can develop an onsite blog as a place for announcements, information, and other pieces of new content that could embellish the website.

Keywords
What is a keyword? What is a keyword phrase? What are long tail keywords?  You may have heard or read about keywords when trying to develop an SEO strategy.  Keywords are words that represent the main topic of each page of your website.  For example, if you have a business like an Italian pizzeria in South Florida, your main keyword will most likely be “pizza.” Since you are not the only (theoretical) pizzeria in the world, you will want to have pages on your site that have more specialized words describing your specific pizzeria.  These combinations of keywords are called keyword phrases.  Keeping with the pizzeria example, three keyword phrases could be “Italian pizza by the slice,” “Theoretical Pizza by Juan Carlo,” and “pizza delivery near University of Miami.” Very granular (and often long) keyword phrases are called long tail.  An example for our pizzeria could be “New York style pizza with garlic bread crust near University of Miami.” Choosing your keywords carefully and monitoring to see which bring in customers can help you grow your online presence and your business.

Linking
Why do you want related sites linking to your webpage? Why is proper internal linking so important? Related sites linking to your webpage (not just your homepage) show search engines that your site is relevant to your industry. A webpage’s ranking potential is partially determined from the quality of relevant sources that link to the website.  When structuring the links of your website, make sure that there are no dead ends.  It frustrates users and search engine spiders alike.  Use proper sitemap syntax.  This will tell the search engines which pages to index, in case they missed any when crawling the rest of the site, and how to prioritize the pages they have found.  Additionally, a large push to increase the number of links coming into your site all at once could have an adverse affect.  Search engines know that it is a slow process and understand that as you add new pages and additional content to your site more people will link to you.

Site Architecture
Do you know how to communicate with the search engine spiders? The robots.txt file contains information of where you would like search engines to visit (such as a link to your sitemap), but also information on where the search engine spiders should not go.  Making sure search engine spiders can find all of your pages that you want indexed and none of the pages you don’t should be a part of your strategy and not left to chance. How your website is designed is also important.  Search engines have a hard time reading Flash along with some other fancy design features.  Users visiting your website may also complain of slow load times and music they can’t figure out how to turn off.  Simple, user-friendly design is often better for SEO. 

Additionally, structuring your site so a majority of your content is contained in images is troublesome for search engines.  Other than the image’s file name and alt tag (if there is one) the search engines see empty space.  Paying careful attention to site architecture when designing your website can save you from a costly redesign down the road.  If you did not have a strategy in place during the formation of your current website, a redesign may improve sales and show a significant return-on-investment.

These four cornerstones make up the foundation of a solid SEO strategy.  They work together to increase the number of indexed pages on a website and to increase the chances those indexed pages will show up in search rankings.  All can be optimized for placement of your website near the top of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

Search is vital for all businesses, whether B2C or B2B, big or small, eCommerce or service based.  Any industry can benefit from search engine optimization.  Having a sound SEO strategy in place is increasingly important as more and more consumers rely on search engines.
 

Let’s face it, social media is everywhere.  When listening to the radio or watching the nightly news, it is hard not to hear about the wave of social media.  Many businesses are jumping on the band wagon and dipping their toes in the social media water.  While this can be a great marketing strategy, it is also important to note, that social media channels are not the “silver bullet” of online marketing.  Many times marketers will neglect one aspect of their marketing campaign to try another one. 

As a business, moving into social media is a great idea, but not at the expense of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  It is important to make sure that you do not neglect your website as you move resources to developing the various channels necessary to have a strong presence in the various social media outlets.  When moving into social media, it is important to have a plan to keep your website updated and relevant for the users.  This will also help to support your social media effort.  Below are some things that you should always be working on with your SEO alongside your social media campaigns.

Title and Description Meta Tags – Does each page of your site have unique meta data that is relevant to the page content?  If not, work on this to ensure that every page of your site has a chance of ranking for the keywords that are featured in the content.

Keyword Research – When was the last time you researched the words you are going after?  Keyword research is something that should be done on a continual basis.  As search trends change, you need to update your keyword lists so you can target the words that your customers are searching for.

Linking Strategy – What is your linking strategy?  Do you have one?  Building backlinks is one of the most important factors when it comes to boosting search results.  Having a strategy to build high quality links to your site should be on the top of your list for things to accomplish.  Links can come from directories, blogs, authorities in your industry and other websites.  Create a plan and stick to it.

Web Design – Is your web site still the one that your cousin created for the business in 1996?  A well thought out optimized web design can be the difference between conversions and a 90% bounce rate.  If your site is not appealing, you will lose customers once you get them to the site.  Now may be the right time for an updated look and feel, or a complete redesign.

Social media and SEO go hand in hand.  It is important to make sure that you have the bases covered in both and are creating content in each to give your customers new and interesting information, so they will have a reason to continue visiting your website and your other social media channels.

While browsing through one of my favorite morning show websites, I noticed pictures of a charity event.  As I followed those links and went to the event’s page, I also noticed that there was a page with a list of sponsors.  To my surprise, the links to the websites were not “no follow”. The links also contained quality anchor text.

This made me think about how sponsoring events could be a great link building opportunity.  Sponsoring local events in your area is positive for the community and beneficial for your link building efforts because the links are high quality and relevant. 

With the summer approaching, many communities and organizations in your area will be hosting events, fundraisers, running events and more.  Keep your eye out for these events to see if there are relevant sponsorship opportunities to incorporate into your link building efforts.  Sponsoring events can not only help your link building efforts, but it can also increase your brand’s reputation on and offline.  Showing your customers that you care about the community can help to solidify their decision when choosing your goods or services versus a competitor’s.

So, the next time you are involved in an event, ask about the sponsor page and think about the possible link building opportunities that can go along with it.