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Those who have been in the industry since the late 90’s have seen huge changes in SEO. The industry has really matured. But in the grand scheme of things, if you were to plot SEO on a product life cycle chart you would see that the industry is still in its’ infancy.

Except that we’re poised for some serious growth.

SEO - Introduction Stage - Starting about 1998
Companies who were around in the introduction stage often had to build product awareness and develop a market for SEO.

In the early ‘2000’s, many of our clients had just build their first websites. This was a significant investment for them and they thought that now that they have a website, the online sales would just flow in. Many didn’t realize that they had just invested serious coin into an over-priced business card. Because nobody could find them.

At this point, there was little consistency in the product. And as the algorithm got more complex, the SEO offering varied more. Some companies were offering to “submit to hundreds of search engines” (some still are) whilst others were offering usability, analytics and site architectural input in addition to on-page and off-page SEO.

SEO - Early Growth Stage - we’re still just at the beginning of it.
In the early growth stage, smart SEO companies are beginning to think about building their brand and to increase market share.

Demand is increasing as more customers understand the benefits of “getting found”. There is some competition at this stage but because the market is broadening so much, competition is limited and there is still a huge amount of camaraderie within the industry.

10 years into it, it’s easy to assume that our industry is more mature than it actually is.

We’ve only just begun.

Customer Implication
Demand has already started to increase but it is going to skyrocket. And it’s going to come from all types of business from very small customers to Enterprise type of businesses.

Up until recently, the neighborhood dry cleaner didn’t care if someone across the country found their website because they deal within a 5 km radius got very little benefit from optimizing their website. Now as search gets much better at localization, those local business will become much more serious about the opportunities online

It is also likely that we’ll see a lot of growth from Enterprise clients. These clients previously resisted SEO due to the complexity of working within legacy back-end systems. As technology increases and back-end systems become less expensive for more capability, we’re going to see companies replace their antiquated CMS’s with SEO friendly options.

Another change that this stage of the product life cycle will bring is in our relationship with the client. As SEO becomes a bigger part of the mainstream marketing mix, our customers will become more and more knowledgeable about SEO (we’re already starting to see this).

We’ll move from having a sales / consultative role to being a thought partner. Our clients will have a good understanding of what needs to be done but they’ll outsource it to us because we’re more efficient at implementing.

Competition Implication
With high growth in revenues, low barriers to entry, and no certification required, the SEO industry is prime for attracting any and all new entrants.

There have always been new competitors. But the face of our competition is going to change greatly. Up until now competition has focused primarily on small start ups and web design firms who decide to add a search component. Some stick around but many are wiped out with the next major shift in the algorithm.

This phase of the SEO life cycle is going to attract better capitalized, stronger competition from many sectors. These new entrants are attracted to SEO by the potential for profits not by the fit with their offering.

We are already starting to see traditional media firms seek to protect their eroding revenues by grabbing a slice of the online pie. But WalMart has shown us that future competition could be anyone. And it will be.

No all new entrants are attracted by dollar signs. There are also companies that are feeling increased pressure to offer a more well rounded package. As the integration of offline and online marketing services increases, customers are putting more pressure on agencies to handle the full scope of their marketing spend including the online component.

Although we’re already starting to see increased competition, many existing SEO companies aren’t feeling the pinch yet because demand is also increasing.

One implication of increased demand coupled with new entrants to the market is the impact on supply. We’re starting to experience a shortage of experienced SEO talent

SEO talent is a scarce resources. And this scared resource is not yet being renewed at a fast enough pace. Whilst some colleges are starting to offer digital media / internet marketing diploma, these grads know very little about what it takes to optimize a website.

Moreover, what they do know is limited to theory. It’s one thing to know that links are important to ranking. Its an entirely different thing to know how to effectively build links.

So what?

Who cares where we are in the product life cycle?

Although we’ve already experienced a lot of growth, this growth is nothing compared to what we’re about to experience.

In this next stage of the SEO life cycle, we’re going to see shifts in our clients, competition and product offering. Knowing that this is coming, will allow you to prepare.

If we know that face of our competition is going to change from other small to mid sized SEO’s to large Agencies and Enterprise size companies in totally unrelated industries then we can prepare for this by determining how we’re going to differentiate ourselves from the new entrants.

And if we know that there is going to be increased pressure on skilled resources then we should be developing in house training programs now.

The future is now. And it’s only just begun.

Tags: search engines, Website Promotion

Just like a plant, organic search engine positioning is based on cycles. While getting there may be half the battle, understanding the growth, gestation and the budding cycles of SEO as well as understanding temporal relapses in positioning (while data centers unify results a.k.a. the Google dance) for ranking stability is all part of organic search engine optimization.
Just like starting with a field full of potential, you have to plant the seeds to harvest the rewards. That reward is 100% all-natural organic search engine positioning, which is well worth the wait.It is a know fact that 8 out of 10 people (look left) on the screen when skimming search results and focus solely on organic / natural search results while the other 2 out of 10 people (look to the right) and scan or click sponsored pay per click results.

If you are relying on PPC as a marketing medium and spending more than $5K per month, then you may wish to consider implementing a cost-effective, long-term organic organic SEO management campaign. This can reduce your dependency on PPC and offset the rising costs of bidding on keywords based on search volume / supply and demand. Organic traffic is natural and is accomplished through building quality content to funnel relevant traffic to your site.

Without observation (market analysis), opportunities for optimal positioning could pass you by, without participation, the competition takes the lead. If you want increases in user engagement, increased traffic, higher page rank, a higher percentage of sales conversion, then first you’ll need more content to increase the probability that someone, somewhere will be drawn to it and find your pages useful.

But before you look beyond the horizon and obsess about results, having a clear understanding to guide your actions is needed. With a blueprint, you can scale results systematically or determine where you are in each stage of the process.

Observing time cycles for content, the rate in which it gains or loses positioning in the SERPs (search engine result pages) is important. Looking at this from the standpoint of (a) where you are and (b) where you want to be, it is all about developing continuity and developing the trust and exposure required to get there.

Organic Search Trajectory Cycles - determining how new keywords fit into the existing theme model of your existing content (just wanting to rank for keywords is not enough, you have to build the content).

Example, if you have a site about frogs and you wanted to rank for insects, you would have to create a logical bridge between the two categories to expand the focus of your site, without diluting or losing relevance for the terms you have developed already.

If done tactfully, and gradually over time while reinforcing certain aspects of your internal linking as well as adding links with authority form the new topic (from related sites), you can enter a market with enough momentum to out rank your competition in a fraction of the time.

The Cycles of Velocity - The idea behind velocity in content development and building links, content and topical relevance simultaneously is the key to stable rankings.

In the beginning it is harder to make the initial impression as you are dealing with the defensive factor of the other more established pages and their SEO efforts, so you have to really push the envelope to make an impression.

After mid phase (5 articles or blog posts tactfully integrated with enough related material to be considered a valid / relevant result by search engines) it’s still a struggle, but at least you can start seeing the fruits of your labor and hit the top 50 organic results in search engines.

Then, in the end-phase of the gestation process, closing in on your demographic and appearing for a number of related phrases as well as making a debut in the high vertical marketing channels (the top 20-30 results) a new tactic is required to polish the relevance score for your pages which can stem into multiple high ranking phrases.

Creating islands of content is one method that is effective for this strategy; this method relies on making each related segment just as strong as the one above it. So, instead of having flat architecture and having your root folder strong, all of your sub folders and other categories each have the capacity to rank well and elevate the entire site as a result. This requires internal and external links, diversity, topical modifiers and a tactful direction of how those links distribute their weight.

Holistic Nurturing through Consistency - Ensuring you make your rounds to schedule routine internal link audits or check to see how each segment of your site is evolving. The key here is to go back and track your progress as you break into the upper echelon of an industry.

SEO is a process of tilling the soil (keyword research), planting the seeds (content and links) and being patient enough to see the results rise through the surface and achieve relevance from consumers invoking the pages from the index with related search queries.

Search engine optimization, organic search in particular is all about managing multiple miniature campaigns holistically as part and parcel of a larger marketing strategy. It truly boils down to positioning and relevance.

If your positioning is strong in search engines, then you have the potential to be discovered on accident (much like an impulse purchase). You never know exactly which key phrase combinations a search engine query might latch onto, which is why it is important to write quality topical information.

So, appearing in the same genre of results at the right time, for someone seeking a related query is ideal. Through tactfully promoting your content purposely through organic SEO in this fashion, not only does your traffic, branding and exposure reach new heights, but you truly start to appreciate and understand the infrastructure of what drives an industry (through tracking and analytics) and how to hone your pitch to reach each audience with a unique message.

Tags: Organic Positioning, organic seo, Search Engine Positioning, SEO and the Sales Cycle

Here in part one of “Linking Practices” I will run through and explain in a little detail.  While each method of linking has its benefits it also often has disadvantages.  More often the advantages outweigh the disadvantages - if done correctly.

Reciprocal Links:
While many believe reciprocal links to be dead, these links have the potential to be either very useful or very useless; it all depends on the source for this one.  A reciprocal link is a link swapped with another website.  While the search engines don’t really give these all that much weight (unless from an authority site) these can be useful in driving traffic to your website from related websites.  With enough of these links each driving small amounts of traffic to your website the increase in traffic can be quite noticeable.

A reciprocal link from an industry leader or a related industry leader can often lead to good volumes of traffic to your website.  The greatest benefit here is that these are visitors that are already interested in your product or service.  The disadvantage of running reciprocal links is that you get the world and his brother wanting to swap links with you, usually with absolutely no relevancy at all.

One Way Links:
These are the most valuable links when considering the search engines.  A “direct “or “one way” link is a link to your website that is not reciprocated.  The reason that this is so much more valuable is because in this case it a website that has linked back to yours without any solicitation (or at least that is how the search engines see it).  The theory behind this and the PageRank algorithm is that every link to a website counts as a vote.  Obviously the more votes you have the move important you site is seen to be.  However it is also believed that every vote that you have to send out weakens your importance.  Kind of like if you had a group of 10 people that all gave you $10, you would be up $100, but if you also had to give out $10 to each of them, then you simply break even.  In the same way, the more votes that you are able to “bank” (not handed back) in this case the better off you are.

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Tags: deep links, Linking Strategies, links