In past blogs, we have met the Millenial, and we have discovered that, with an uninterrupted stream of information flowing in his direction, he/she is spoilt for choice and has a very short attention span. We have also learnt some tricks about riveting that attention to our content for 5 seconds – and more – and converting it into a sale. But we have made our assertions under the happy assumption that the target audience’s search engine of choice will automatically lead him/her to our website and not to that of the competition.

              Reality, as it is inclined to do, turns out to be somewhat different. A search engine will not necessarily lead your prospect client to your website unless it (the search engine) really “likes” your website. In less simple terms, unless the search engine is optimized for your website, there’s no way of knowing down which dark and spooky alley it’s going to take your client. All you really want to do is to make your intentions obvious to the search engine (ignore the innuendo), that you want it to like you enough to lead your client to you and not the competition. Launching a website without search engine optimization (SEO) is like putting on your best suit, your nicest cologne, and memorizing great pick up lines, but forgetting to wink and nod to the bouncer at the entrance to the club. (Ok! What the heck! The innuendo is pertinent, and won’t be ignored).

                 And, before the Political Correctness brigade panics, the reference to the bouncer, and to any winking therewith, should please not be taken literally. The idea (before I completely lose the plot) is that you want your search engine to announce you to the pretty girls inside before he announces anyone else. The purpose of SEO is not to “cheat” the search engine but to create a seamless experience that will “encourage“ the search engine to prioritize your link when a potential client types in a search request.

              You might remember the comparison I made of your website with pastries in a window. Oddly, the comparison remains pertinent when trying to describe the operational dimensions of the website. So, lets say that what the client sees on his device, the actual colourful glitzy alluring website, is the icing and top layer, all sugar and colour; that’s the content and the information architecture. But right below is the layer of cream; that’s where your platform is. And of course it’s all being held up by the base of the pastry; the infrastructure. Now, how many people do you think are going to eat that pastry if the cream has gone sour or the base is too hard and heavy? (As we go along, you will realize why these metaphors make sense).

                Right, then. What, you ask, are search engines looking for? I can tell you what they’re NOT looking for: it’s too much keyword stuffing, buying external links, or an unhappy user experience through an overabundance of advertising content or difficulty in navigating the content you do want your prospect to see. Like a monk, a search engine has a very simple goal in life: the search for “relevance”. And the factors that determine relevance for your website are:

(i) just the “right” content (and no more),

(ii) the speed at which the content can become available (less is more),

(iii) the frequency with which your site is sought by other sites as a reference and, well

(iv) the ease of navigation and the level of security your website offers.

                This obviously raises a very obvious question for you (and it’s not whether I can or cannot use “obvious” twice in one sentence), and that question is: do you really know what you want your website to be doing for you? How does your business model define a conversion? Is it determined by “visits” or actual clicks? And have you determined your assets and liabilities? Once the truth of these questions has dawned on you, you will know in your heart how light and fluffy but full of flavour and nutrition you want your pastry to be (Yes! It’s late and I’m hungry).

           But please, please when you are optimizing your site for successful and seamless search engine, do not forget the various platforms it may be accessed – and accessible – from? The Millenial user can just as easily want to access you from Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn as he is from Google or Firefox or Bing. Being consistent with keyword phrases within these platforms will not only help your branding efforts, but also train users to use specific phrases you’re optimizing for.

                But your website also needs to be optimized to be equally accessible from different device platforms. The average user is increasingly using his tablet and smartphone, and if the website doesn’t interface very seamlessly with these devices, you’re at the risk of losing a significant portion of your target market. We’ve been over this in our previous blog, but the importance of  rich media content – such as video or graphics – cannot be emphasized enough. Simply, it’s just so much easier for a video to rank on the first page of a search than it is for a plain text page.

              Optimize your non-text content so search engines can see it. If your site uses Flash or PDFs, make sure you’re abreast of the latest best practices to help the search engine  that content and give your site credit for it.

              And of course the need for consistency should extend to Domain Names as well. Domain naming is a critical plank of your website architecture,  so you’re best served using sub-directory root domains (pastries.ca/delicious) versus sub-domains (delicious.pastries.ca). Now here comes the consistency challenge: if your client types in www.pastries.ca, but the search engine does not – horror of horrors – direct the search to pastries.ca, it  means the search engine is seeing two different sites, one of which may get surreptitiously bought by the competition to leech off your goodwill. This isn’t effective for your overall SEO efforts as it will dilute your inbound links.

                While we’re on the subject of domain names, I would recommend going with the tried and tested. Old domains are better than new ones, but if you’re buying an old domain, make sure that the previous owner didn’t do anything shady to cause the domain to get penalized. That said, even when purchasing an existing domain, you do want to ensure that the keywords you’re trying to rank for are contained in the domain name you are about to buy.

              Finally, don’t ignore your Meta Data. Meta keywords are pretty much ignored by search engines nowadays, but if you still use them, make sure it talks specifically to that page and that it is also formatted correctly. Your meta description should be unique and also speak to that specific page. Duplicate meta descriptions from page to page will not get you anywhere. Title tags should also be unique!

                 In summary, you may have a great website, but if it’s too unwieldy in content or infrastructure, search engines will, by and large, not post it on the first page of their search. If it’s not nimble enough to be accessible from different apps and different platforms, your client is not going to wait to get home and search for it on his desktop; they’ll close the deal on a rival site. So, while it’s great to build a site you can crow about, your ultimate goal is that others should see it, easily and often. And the only way to get there is through Search Engine Optimization.

Want to learn more about SEO and how your site can be optimized? Sign up for our absolutely free consultation now!

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