Clients want and need SEO
SEO is essential, but it’s not fun like design or development (OK… it’s fun for us!). Most clients want SEO simply because they want to be ranked high on search engines, but it’s frequently an afterthought. SEO must be part of the process from the beginning so the site will not need significant changes to design and/or programming later on.

The user experience starts on the search engines
When searching, people visit multiple sites and will frequently do several searches until they find what they want. Visitors may have looked at competing websites before seeing the client’s site, and they very likely will enter the site on a subpage. Make it easy for these prospects to find their way.

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I get to talk to a lot of smart people about how to improve their site’s search marketing performance. And I read a lot of industry news and opinions on SEO, from both the SEO agency side and from the client side. Plus, there is such excellent research on trends and patterns, from MarketingSherpa, eMarketer and the like. It’s great to be in a hot industry.

One of the trends that gets contentious is one where we see traditional advertising agencies somehow acquiring search marketing “expertise” overnight. I’ve always contended that search engine MARKETING is what SEO is all about–and that PPC is just search engine ADVERTISING. Agencies should be able to do a good job at PPC, because that’s a world they understand (although writing classified ads is not the creative activity that justifies their high fees). On developing a robust strategic information architecture, writing page content that cascades into the site, drawing the search engine spiders along and establishing authority on choice keyword phrases? Not exactly the forte of a hot creative shop.

On the other hand, (more…)