Online marketing companies often struggle to describe Search Engine Optimization to prospective customers. Typical conversations include a discussion on "on-page" search engine optimization and "off-page" SEO. The process should always include a detailed analysis of a website's HTML code. Off-page SEO encompasses the ways in which the Internet relates back to a website, usually via back-links which are website links that point back to a site. Although the major search engines are constantly updating their ranking algorithms, back-linking, social media exposures and references from quality websites have always been heavily weighted by the search engines.
It's no surprise that the web design process is still very much a design-driven industry. This is because most web design companies are owned and managed by web designers and as such, the main goal of the design process is to create a great looking design. A web designer's main goal is not usually, however, to create a website that is designed to achieve high organic search engine rankings.
It takes at least three skill-sets create an SEO friendly site. You need a great designer that can deliver the eye-candy. Any company that is spending money on a custom design will want a great design that has the "WOW" factor. Second, you also need a talented, disciplined developer that can take the digital artwork and convert it to clean, validated website code. The third is the SEO talent. Your consultant needs to be able to research and develop the search data and work with the web developer to weave the strategy into to first line of code.
While this three-pronged approach is the ideal, website are rarely created in this way. All the effort is put into the design. The coding is often hacked together just to get the website to meet the minimum functional requirements. Internet marketing is usually not addressed at in the design phase. It is not until later when the client realizes that their site has no search engine visibility that the SEO problem is addressed. Then they often seek out an Internet marketing firm for assistance.
Then the company gets the bad news: they have to re-code the new website from scratch to get search engine rank - which is what motivated the company to re-develop the site in the first place! As SEO's we need to be able to explain in clear and simple terms why brand new (and often costly) websites do not rank. The following are some popular anecdotes that have been used by a leading Kansas City web design company:
1. Racing: Professional race car driving is used as an analogy in business quite often and in terms of SEO, it is definitely one of the best. To be effective in search engine marketing, your company needs to have a great design with best practices coding. In this analogy, the race car is the website. No matter how fast your car is, it still needs a professional driver to be able to compete. The world's best driver cannot win a race without a great car. This is a perfect analogy for SEO. Your company needs a great web design AND a skilled online marketing professional in order to achieve the highest search engine visibility. The key difference is that while races have a finish line, the race to the top of the major search engines never ends.
2. The Home Builder: The web design process is similar to the design stage of construction. This is the time when the sketches and drawings can be easily be modified. Once the blueprints are approved and the concrete is set, it becomes very difficult to move a wall or change the floor plan. Website design and development is the same way. Designers can modify digital construction plans quickly. When the coding process starts, however, design changes are harder and more time consuming. In terms of SEO, the home construction is similar to the role of the builders and inspectors. In web design, the search engine optimization consultant should be managing the design and development stages so that the website has the best possible chances of ranking highly on the major search engines.
3. The Sharp Shooter: This analogy is simple and concise. A champion sharp shooter is powerless without a high caliber firearm, and the best gun on the planet cannot aim and fire itself. Just like the race car driver analogy, you need the equipment AND the talent to get the best results.
4. Landscapers: Landscaping may be one of the best web design analogies in terms of the amount of time and effort it takes to design, install and maintain a landscaping plan. After installation, a residential landscape needs periodic watering, pruning, pest control, mulching and fertilization. The regular maintenance aspect of landscaping parallels the ongoing effort that a website needs in order to grow into high natural search engine positions. The process takes time and consultants with digital green thumbs are usually able to provide their clients with much higher search engine visibility that the could have achieved on their own.
5. Fishermen: Although last on our list, the Fishing analogy is one of our favorites. Perhaps the most effective use would be further compare commercial fishermen to recreational fishermen. Think of recreational fishers in an area that are using luring methods such a strong smelling liquid chum to draw schools of fish into a body of water. Even though this method can draw a large number of fish, recreational fishermen typically use special lures and bait to catch fish one at a time. Recreational fishing is like very similar to traditional mass marketing via print, phone directories, television and radio. These forms of media are meant to mass market in an effort to catch a relatively low number of potential buyers. SEO, on the other hand, is more like commercial fishing. We design a great ship with a huge net. As other people create the mass media demand, we use our top ranking websites to catch large sums of buyers. Search engine optimization is all about leveraging your competitors' offline marketing dollars in a way that enables you to take market share from them online!
If you are a web developer or Internet marketing professional, try using one of these analogies to explain SEO and web design to your prospective clients.
It's no surprise that the web design process is still very much a design-driven industry. This is because most web design companies are owned and managed by web designers and as such, the main goal of the design process is to create a great looking design. A web designer's main goal is not usually, however, to create a website that is designed to achieve high organic search engine rankings.
It takes at least three skill-sets create an SEO friendly site. You need a great designer that can deliver the eye-candy. Any company that is spending money on a custom design will want a great design that has the "WOW" factor. Second, you also need a talented, disciplined developer that can take the digital artwork and convert it to clean, validated website code. The third is the SEO talent. Your consultant needs to be able to research and develop the search data and work with the web developer to weave the strategy into to first line of code.
While this three-pronged approach is the ideal, website are rarely created in this way. All the effort is put into the design. The coding is often hacked together just to get the website to meet the minimum functional requirements. Internet marketing is usually not addressed at in the design phase. It is not until later when the client realizes that their site has no search engine visibility that the SEO problem is addressed. Then they often seek out an Internet marketing firm for assistance.
Then the company gets the bad news: they have to re-code the new website from scratch to get search engine rank - which is what motivated the company to re-develop the site in the first place! As SEO's we need to be able to explain in clear and simple terms why brand new (and often costly) websites do not rank. The following are some popular anecdotes that have been used by a leading Kansas City web design company:
1. Racing: Professional race car driving is used as an analogy in business quite often and in terms of SEO, it is definitely one of the best. To be effective in search engine marketing, your company needs to have a great design with best practices coding. In this analogy, the race car is the website. No matter how fast your car is, it still needs a professional driver to be able to compete. The world's best driver cannot win a race without a great car. This is a perfect analogy for SEO. Your company needs a great web design AND a skilled online marketing professional in order to achieve the highest search engine visibility. The key difference is that while races have a finish line, the race to the top of the major search engines never ends.
2. The Home Builder: The web design process is similar to the design stage of construction. This is the time when the sketches and drawings can be easily be modified. Once the blueprints are approved and the concrete is set, it becomes very difficult to move a wall or change the floor plan. Website design and development is the same way. Designers can modify digital construction plans quickly. When the coding process starts, however, design changes are harder and more time consuming. In terms of SEO, the home construction is similar to the role of the builders and inspectors. In web design, the search engine optimization consultant should be managing the design and development stages so that the website has the best possible chances of ranking highly on the major search engines.
3. The Sharp Shooter: This analogy is simple and concise. A champion sharp shooter is powerless without a high caliber firearm, and the best gun on the planet cannot aim and fire itself. Just like the race car driver analogy, you need the equipment AND the talent to get the best results.
4. Landscapers: Landscaping may be one of the best web design analogies in terms of the amount of time and effort it takes to design, install and maintain a landscaping plan. After installation, a residential landscape needs periodic watering, pruning, pest control, mulching and fertilization. The regular maintenance aspect of landscaping parallels the ongoing effort that a website needs in order to grow into high natural search engine positions. The process takes time and consultants with digital green thumbs are usually able to provide their clients with much higher search engine visibility that the could have achieved on their own.
5. Fishermen: Although last on our list, the Fishing analogy is one of our favorites. Perhaps the most effective use would be further compare commercial fishermen to recreational fishermen. Think of recreational fishers in an area that are using luring methods such a strong smelling liquid chum to draw schools of fish into a body of water. Even though this method can draw a large number of fish, recreational fishermen typically use special lures and bait to catch fish one at a time. Recreational fishing is like very similar to traditional mass marketing via print, phone directories, television and radio. These forms of media are meant to mass market in an effort to catch a relatively low number of potential buyers. SEO, on the other hand, is more like commercial fishing. We design a great ship with a huge net. As other people create the mass media demand, we use our top ranking websites to catch large sums of buyers. Search engine optimization is all about leveraging your competitors' offline marketing dollars in a way that enables you to take market share from them online!
If you are a web developer or Internet marketing professional, try using one of these analogies to explain SEO and web design to your prospective clients.
About the Author:
About the author: Kansas City Web Design is an Internet marketing and web development company based in Overland Park, KS. For more information on the author, visit: www.Kansas-City-Website-Design.com
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