When you’re in online marketing, you trust that people will always question you. This is just a fact that comes with being involved in this particular profession; the non-common sense part, if you will.

ZDNet.com released a great article about SEO last week that I think explains the best way to approach SEO if you’re not an “SEO Master” of sorts. Their advice? Lose any preconceived notions you may have had about SEO and leave it to the professionals. This is not meant to offend anyone, it is meant to let people know that unless SEO is your full time gig, you might want to consider consulting the pro’s. Just like if you want a good steak, you know you’re not going to McDonald’s.

For example, just because you sell “dinner plates”, doesn’t mean that optimizing your site for the phrase “dinner plates” is going to get you ranked #1 in the search results, nor should you expect it. Think about it. How many people sell dinner plates online? Approximately one gazillion, give or take a few, right? The whole concept of SEO is to drive QUALITY traffic to your site, not just put the most common keywords or keyword phrases on your site and hope that the marketing gods will shower you with conversions. You have to get specific with the type of traffic you want to bring to your website and create a game plan so you aren’t just throwing dollars to the wind. The more specific you get with your keywords and keyword phrases, and the more research you do upfront on those terms and different traffic avenues, is what will help you lay the foundation for a successful website.

I think the number one rule people should remember about SEO is that it takes a great deal of PATIENCE. Rome wasn’t built in a day; your marketing campaign shouldn’t be either.

The answer is called a “301 redirect“. A 301 redirect is the the most search engine friendly way to redirect users from one page to another.

How They Work
Someone goes to a search engine, types in something they’re looking for more information about, and they get a link to your website as one of the results. If the link is one that directs users to a page that is on the older version of your website, a 301 redirect will direct users to the newer version of that particular page on your current website when they click that link. Essentially, the 301 redirect is telling the search engine that you have permanently moved the info from your old site to this new link.

How to Set Them Up
How you would go about setting up 301 redirects depends on a number of items; whether your website is built within a content management system, who your hosting provider is, etc. If you need assistance setting up 301 redirects for your website, contact GnomeMedia and we can help you figure out what you need to do.

Let’s say you own a brick and mortar store that sells tennis shoes. How is everyone going to know you own a store that sells tennis shoes? Hopefully you chose a popular location that is easily accessible for shoppers, you advertise in newspapers, pass out fliers, attend events related to shoes to let people know you exist, and basically take continuous action to make sure you are getting your name out there.

These same ideas apply to your website. Just because your website is on the World Wide Web, does not mean everyone who interacts with the web across the world is going to automatically know your website exists.

Why is SEO so important? Your website visitors need to be able to find you online, which means you have to take action to ensure that you are working on getting your name out on the Internet. One of the problems people have with understanding SEO, is the idea that you have to constantly work at it, exactly the same way you have to constantly work on your advertising for a brick and mortar store.

According to the Compete Online Shopper Intelligence Study, more than 80 million shoppers use shopping sites that show price comparisons. Knowing this, means that you have to work even harder to get the products on your website noticed.

In future posts, we’ll dive further into what simple SEO techniques should be implemented on your website.

So, when is it good, or not good, to use Flash in a website?

Well, if you run an art gallery or movie trailer website, you’re probably going to want to bedazzle your visitors visually to keep them interested in the content on your website. So, you’ll probably use Flash or something similar.

If you want to get noticed in the search engines, having a Flash website is not going to help. Why? Search engines can’t read text that is being displayed within Flash, or any images on the site, unless you insert a great deal of extra code into the back end of the website that describes what is being displayed on the screen.

Not only is the extra code “behind the scenes” helpful for the search engines, but it is also helpful for the hearing and visually impaired that rely solely on image descriptions to understand what is being displayed on a web page.

Even with going this extra step, every time you change the text on the front end of your site, the code on the back end also has to be changed, which can be an ongoing hassle depending on how you are able to get your website updated. (e.g. You rely on someone else, or you have to find time to do it yourself.)

One other item to note about Flash, is that unless the visitor to the website has installed a Flash plug-in on their computer, they won’t be able to see the website correctly until they download and install the plug-in.

Also, if you want iPhone users to view your website, and you have Flash on it, they will only be able to see the non-Flash elements of the site, as iPhones do not support Flash yet.

So, while there is the “shiny and pretty” aspect of Flash websites, there are a lot of other items to consider as well when developing a website that may contain Flash, or be built using only Flash.

If you have additional questions or concerns about Flash, please contact GnomeMedia.

Why do I need a site map?
Site map’s are important if you want the content on your website to get noticed by the search engines. Putting a site map on your website is like saying, “Hey, over here! Take a look at me!” The easier you make it for search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask, to pull text content from your website, the more likely it is that your pages will get found and start showing up within the search results.

Having a site map is not only good for search engines, but it’s also good for the visitors to your website. Giving your users one central location to find information they may be searching for on your website can be beneficial.

How do I make a site map?
There are many resources online that enable you to make a site map by just entering in the URL of your website. You can find some of these tools by doing a search on Google. If you are not code savvy, contact GnomeMedia and we can help you get one created in no time.

1. PPC is NOT cheap. Over the past few years, the cost per click (CPC) has increased so drastically that unless you’re willing to drop anywhere from $50-$100 per day at the very least on some advertising, it’s pretty much useless to jump into the PPC arena. Depending on the size of your company, products, services, etc., even that much might make you look like the cats that tried to climb the slide. You can’t expect to have a monthly spend amount on Google AdWords that’s the equivalent to the cost of an extra value meal at McD’s…super sized.

2. SEO takes work. I’ve heard people say, “I feel like doing something good in the world. I’m going to start recycling.” Then they get about 2 weeks into cleaning out every can they use, peeling the paper labels off, taking the lids off of every bottle, and then say, “Screw this! This is hard and way too time consuming. I’ve got better things to do.” Umm, well yeah. If you stop recycling, that doesn’t mean the world is going to continue to have less trash in landfills. Same concept applies to SEO, you have to keep at it or else you’re not going to get anywhere close to the results you want.

3. Online marketing costs money. See 1 & 2.