The Invisible Website Syndrome

Simple point,put in the right perspective..
Surely the sites have to linked to search engines with relevent search words.

Sanjeev,
Thanks.. but even with SEO, think of the extent of competition. If you are a diamond jewelry company, you really do not just want that absolutely “long tail” keyword phrase like ‘Diamond ring with 4 diamonds of 0.5 ct in mumbai” to get your site into the top search results. Anything which is a little more generic is tough to compete with. So where does that really leave you??

This is always a problem with big companies why not trying smaller company who have lesser presence in local market but technology oriented ? That is very obvious – as running a web development company myself, you will get what you are paying for – so if customers are not asking for SEO their website, we basically ignore that when developing sites. Social media is a part of the total game plan for promoting websites as per my personal opinion. Another good way is Web Based Press Release – ( sometimes manipulated ) thats give best backlinks easily.

Krishnendu,
Thanks.
Whenever I talked to the web dev companies, and pointed out these issues, they also said that “SEO was not done”. It is not about “doing SEO”. It is simply about some standard HTML practices, which do NOT take ANY extra effort, and which ensure at least, that the site is search friendly in the first place! I do not agree that it is a budget issue, in such cases.
Sure, Social media is part of a total game plan. And more about that in the follow up post.
Backlinks are just one more SEO aid. Unless done strategically, they are unlikely to generate lot of traffic by themselves. We are not discussing SEO strategies here, more about a macro level understanding of what a website owner could possibly do, to ‘become visible’!

Having owned and operated an SEO firm for the last 12 years, I can tell you that many clients require that SEO firms sign a confidentiality agreement. My biggest clients as well as the ones with the greatest success online require that I never disclose that my business is working with them. This, they believe, is their competitive advantage.

Of the clients I can freely discuss, I wouldn’t disclose how we optimized the site, rather that we achieved the client’s goals. Each client has a different set of goals, and with the way people find sites online any business that feels that establishing a presence online primarily through SEO is really preparing the noose, so to speak, to hang themselves.

I work with many clients who want a web presence and feel that SEO (onpage that is) is least important to them. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but I do work on other ways for them to establish a presence on the web besides SEO. For example, Google uses over 100 points of criteria to rank a website. Interestingly enough, they look for information off the site, and off site SEO efforts weigh more heavily.

In the case where you felt that the sites provided for you to evaluate were not SEO friendly — is it because you were looking only at on page optimization — meta data, alt tags, hyper text, headline tags, limited areas of on page content? If on page optimization is the only part of the site which you evaluated, then sadly the correct method to evaluate a website’s “presence” was not used.

When clients are evaluating our work, I recognize that nearly 100% of them have no idea of the metrics we use to measure success. So, I tell them that they need to evaluate the site using these measures.

For example, I suggest using competitive analysis tools — how does my client’s site score among some of the top line competition. I look here for traffic, rankings in Alexa, I use SEM rush, Google Trend tools and Quantcast. That should give a fairly good snapshot of how my client’s site scores among its competition.

Also, when possible, I urge prospects to evaluate conversion factors on the site. In other words, is there a call to action? Can support or service be easily contacted? Does the shopping cart work well, etc.

These are just a few methods I use and urge prospects to use when evaluating a website.

Other factors should include: how often is the website featured in blogs,social media, etc. Remember, people today are far more savvy that they used to be. They aren’t looking just for search engines to give them input. They are turning toward social media to see the “giants” out there.

A website doesn’t need to be in the top of the search engines to get quality and viable traffic. However, they do need to be found on the Internet and right now, being found in social media weighs heavily on success.

I’m not talking about running a blog. Blogs are so, well, 2008. Today, what matters most is Twitter and other forms of micro-blogging. When I put out a Twitter post, I can easily gain 100+ followers within 5 minutes just by writing quality tweets. For businesses today, the measure is not where you rank, but how many people are following you and writing about you. If all you are doing is writing a blog, it is time to think about more proactive/interactive ways for your audience to find you, talk about you and generate buzz.

And finally, writing today means far less pitching. If you want people to follow you, you need to think and act like a leader. That means offering more quality advice and less semi-pitchy closings to articles. Give people access to quality content and they will follow you.

Interesting conflict. Website or not. SEO or not. I hade many rather controversial discussions on SEO with friends, customers, students and others.

Where do I start? Full disclosure: I don’t believe in SEO.

If a business get searched and found it may be a lucky punch to show up high but then still people use that to “model” their impression of what they want. Your website may be the most attractive and most educational – still that doesn’t mean that a client buys. It’s like in the past – people shop around and buy from people they are comfortable with.

Further more, most websites get so “SEOed” that you can’t find what you want, you no longer understand what they say and the structure at the end is perfect for a search engine – but NOT for a human being.

Now – if we buy from the people we trust or from people others recommended to us, wouldn’t it make more sense to invest in Social Media and networking, relationship building, trust development… then in optimizing our content for a machine – a search engine?

Neither me, nor my website is SEOed in any way or shape. I didn’t pay any attention to SEO – but if you type “Axel S” in Google you find me – approximately 100,000 times or so. Why? Because I’m PRESENT, in blogs, networks, have conversations, comment on blogs, try to be helpful as good as my schedule allows…

Hence – I don’t care about SEO at all – but than this is just me and my companies, maybe I’m wrong – but at least honest

@AxelS
Http://www.socialmedia-academy.com

Very interesting comments, Axel, as could only be expected from you!
To respond:
1. The web is ‘supposed’ to have opened up a global market for businesses. Does a business have time and energy to become ‘friends’ with 10,000 prospects, and then attempt to sell to them?
2. Which to me, means that while there is certainly a role for social media to create those relationships, you also want to be reached by some folks you may not even be aware of, and who could potentially be prospects. If there was a way to get searched, you at least go from being a masterpiece that was never discovered, to one that people knew about?
3. I agree and completely detest as much, the overly SEOed sites. Although my understanding of search engine algorithms is that increasingly these are ranking those sites higher, which may also be good for humans. In short, a site may not be able to fool a search engine and disappoint humans for too long now (hopefully!).
4. Well, I am sure Axel is found all over. But we are not talking of celebrities
What about the mom-and-pop business which aspires for a larger audience? That lawyer, that insurance man, or that creator of fascinating gift items who could have a global market? Challenges are for those guys.

Thanks for your feedback. Will help me as I work on the follow up post.
- Sanjay

Hi Kris,
I really appreciate the time taken by you to write this detailed response. It is indeed extremely useful.
Let me take up few points for my specific response to your comments:
1. We agree on the fact that dependence only on SEO is certainly not enough.

2. I am aware that Google uses several factors to influence rankings. My points with regards to my observations on web development companies and their clients was the total disregard for on-page efforts. Now that was certainly not smart, was it? If they had done on-page work, that would have not assured them a good SERP. But by not doing that basic task, and which I believe, is best done, with small effort, just at the time of site creation, those companies are saying that “they couldn’t care less about search engines”!

3. I agree that its not just about SERPs or even getting the traffic in. And finally it is the conversions that matter. But in a funnel effect, you need a large enough starting volume, so as to get the conversions happening, ultimately. And indeed, to make those happen, the call-to-action, the shopping cart functionality etc. have to be in place perfectly.

4. I would tend to disagree with you in your statements regarding blogs vs twitter etc. To say that blogs are passe and that twitter is the be-all-and-end-all today is not quite right. If traffic on blog posts is anything to go by, they are alive and kicking. In fact, the whole twitter follower size bit is grossly overdone. If I have 5000 followers, what is to say that they have seen my tweet and are acting on it? But then again, I am digressing, and perhaps, I will keep my views on twitter strategy for another post down the line. What I would rather emphasize is that one cannot be dismissive about social media technologies – about placing one over another, etc. The fact is that the entire gamut of social media – blogs, videos, social networking sites, microblogging, social bookmarking, etc. – is all relevant. And what works better or worse is a matter of a specific business, and related to what its prospects are doing on Social Media. If I am addressing a semi-urban housewives market and they are not on twitter, I would completely waste my efforts jumping on to twitter. If they are rather reading blogs, I may be better served by writing content of their interest, etc. In short, it cannot be a one-size-fits-all situation.

I once again thank you for providing excellent dialogue on this topic.

Sanjay,

First, I want to set the record straight. I never said that blogging was no longer a valid form of marketing. What I did say was that blogging was the fad “last year” and that the new fad is Twitter.

I also want to clarify that I never said that Twitter was better than other forms of online marketing, or that it was the preferred form of social media marketing. I said that microblogging is one of the hot trends in social media marketing.

In case that still wasn’t clear, let me by crystal clear: Online marketing strategies must be unique to each website/customer, their goals/objectives and the desired target audience.

I also want to state that not all websites are SEO friendly. Some make this decision by choice. I have had clients that are creating new marketspace and choose not to optimize their site until they are clear about their focus. That’s common with new businesses, especially those who are creating uncontested markets. SEO is NOT a one-size-fits-all solution. In fact, unless SEO strategies are employed by a SEO expert, I would rather see no SEO than SEO coming from someone who places a website in jeopardy due to improper SEO.

Again, to clarify, Twitter works when it is used properly. I have no idea if it would work for “housewives”, but having been one early in my marriage, I can assure you that we’re not all sitting around in sweatpants, eating bon-bons and letting technology pass us by. Whether Twitter works or not varies based on a number of factors: Do you know your audience…where they hang out, who do they follow, what kinds of media gets their attention, etc. This is all demographic research 101, which should be part of any marketing plan.

The bottom-line in all of this is that marketing strategies — whether SEO, Twitter, Social Media, etc. depends on factors which involve the goals of my client, information gleaned about their audience/marketspace, available budget and so forth. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution in marketing — whether in traditional media or online. Whatever the solutions are, marketing must find a balance between losing control (e.g. opening the door for honest feedback from the audience) and gaining influence (in the desired audience.) How that magic happens is up to the marketer to define, develop, implement, analyze, measure and refine again.

Kris,
My apologies for having misunderstood your previous comment. It was unintentional, rest assured.
Thank you again, for the detailed response which is very informative to me, and to other readers of this blog too, I am sure.
- Sanjay

Sanjay,

No need for apologies, but I thank you nonetheless.

Thank you for the interesting post. It does make one wonder, doesn’t it, why companies with millions spent on branding are still convinced that SEO is not needed to protected their branded assets!

[...] There is a website visibility series blog, which is in the working. Meanwhile, pitching in with this post. [...]

SEO or SMO is a debate that will keep growing.

However, in the Indian context for Social Marketing, it will be a good idea to experiment with the younger audience in specific verticals. Travel for instance is one. There is a definite user group in India which plans its travel through internet. Most of the search results throw websites from tour operators or the much advertised/hyped travel companies. Although these are well SEOed sites, full of content but none of them are relevant to the traveler. It doesn’t matter to the traveler, how well the site describes the Taj or how many keywords it has. What she is looking for is how hot it is there during the day, whats the best place to stay nearby, where to hang out in the evening and where to look for fresh food. And this is usually found at a user blog, forum or tweets providing great & live information.

The amazing thing about Social Media is that the information doesn’t just travel from top to bottom or the other way, it also travels side ways. And attending to one customer query in a communication mode visible to all has a multiplier effect as the community grows.

As we always believe in direct results, I reckon many travel companies can see the benefits of social media in marketing to the younger audience.

Mani

[...] was a lot of discussion generated around my earlier post, about the Invisible Website Syndrome. Besides the comments and discussions on the blog here, there [...]