Search Engine Optimization, or replace last word with Marketing, Ranking, Positioning, or Promotion. Also known as (in varying degrees) as Web Marketing, Online Marketing, Internet Marketing, and/or eMarketing is a process by which the end goal is to generate “more exposure” so that as one example: the website owner can develop more sales.

SEO (and all of its aliases) isn’t about any one thing. It is the process of tying a vast assortment of uniquely different attributes to gain a competitive advantage.

Regardless of which side of this equation you are on (the owner, the webmaster, the SEO, etc.), the resulting output should produce “more sales” (if sales is the goal) even if the parties involved are not physically accountable to this degree of improvement.

To this end – I professionally believe the role of an SEO is changing, or more importantly must change in order for clients to achieve a positive cash flow on their investment.

To illustrate, a while back at a conference, a representative for the king of banner ads – Double-Click was asked a question; “what should we assume as a fair Return-on-Investment (ROI) for people wishing to purchase banner ads?”

His response was; “You shouldn’t look at this as ROI, keep the cost high (the same) no matter the outcome then the client will have no recourse but to use you or someone else at fair market value”.

Hmmm… fair market value implies “return” does it not? I mean, if something has “no or less value” how can it be fair?

Recently, a number of threads and posts attempt to make meaning of the SEO landscape for those that know little about it. As true as these statements may be without the knowledge and background of why they may work, and the ever present reality that too much of any one thing is worse than doing nothing at all is also as true.

Guide to SEO (from an eMarketing perspective).

A client must have ROI – otherwise there is no reason for them to employ your services – you can’t get around this for very long. ROI isn’t about keywords. It’s not found in rankings alone, or even visitations alone. You must therefore strive to include market appeal and the desire for visitors to take the next step, help develop “brand trust” and ultimately appreciate the differences between cost for services rendered, and net return on those costs for services rendered.

When evaluating a new client – I first look at the difference between gross return and net return of one sellable unit as this will ultimately determine how far, and how fast I must push their site to generate “first” my fees for services rendered, so not to be a bigger burden (liability) to their company for an unrealistic period of time. I tend to use a margin difference of $10.00 and if less turn them down. First it’s a waste of my time and second “I would be a bad investment” at least in the short-term (where someone else would be cheaper and may develop this company to a higher level where I might be more feasible).

Sometimes you are a bad investment. A recent example I was contacted by someone selling “cel phone ringtones” whose net return was $1.00 per sale. In this event to pour all my resources and time his way – the first 3,000 ringtone sales would be simply used to pay me – each month. I could possibly produce the desirable effect however, if the demand and market saturation isn’t there the client would likely become disillusioned quite quickly in the relationship as increasing the current bottom-line must include my service fees not just his current expenses.

In this event – I now have a choice – reduce the fees and work for less than with other clients or continue to allow the client to be disillusioned longer… I would sooner not go down this road… the upfront money isn’t as important as a trusted relationship develop over years of working together.

That’s reality — SEO isn’t some magical act – overnight successes do not happen.

If they have the necessary margin to ensure that (if I can) create a positive cash flow in short duration… we now have some place to start contract negotiations.

That’s the first step

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Step two is recommending PPC (if not already doing so). Although this is market, industry, and regionally dependent and above the costs of SEO fees – there is often an immediate return. (In some cases to the determent of the relationship).

When a client goes from nil sales to $2000 per day and the majority coming from AdWords they tend to wonder why they are paying you. PPC however has a fix return you tend not to get more simply by paying more… thus ranking in SE results becomes more attractive even if you need to wait a little longer.

That’s the second step.

W3C Validation

You can argue a waste of time and the benefits are limited thus open for debate. What isn’t open for debate is that validating a websites code gets you directly inside the website itself; it makes you appreciate what the site is about (from the bots perspective). Once validated not only do you have a better understanding of the website itself (as a unique entity) you are more in-tune to how to improve it. Also validation provides a link (once validated) and your link back ensures that bots see that link (admittedly W3C) through the robot.txt disallows these pages from being crawled from their end – notwithstanding on every site I have validated I see PageRank appear on the W3C page where none should exist according to Google’s (if not part of the archive) thus the lost/gain risk in my opinion is in favor of the client.

That’s the third step.

Page Elements

I’ve seen so many websites that sport titles (among other things) say “Place Title Here” or the whole site simply indicates the company name/website name.

A rule of thumb – title is a part of brand but branding only works when people know what your brand is about – thus in SEO you must not only associate the company’s pages with something generic (what their markets will type in, in lieu of brand names) but you also must make a concerted effort to protect that unique brand. This is easier said than done – but not impossible.

Also adding common attributes to the website pages is instrumental in a coherent strategy. I’m not saying that each individual element/attribute is extremely beneficial — but the sum of all is a competitive advantage and competitive advantage is the highest degree of ROI an SEO can actually produce — unilaterally that is.

That’s the forth step.

Link Development

The lure of PageRank/Link Popularity is a strong one — admittedly without this though the likelihood of strategy success in limited – but link development is also a game of tradeoffs and not all of the tradeoffs are immediately apparent.

Suffice to say – again — link development (including PageRank/Link Popularity) is not the end objective and you should strive to look beyond the immediate considerations – like PageRank/Link Popularity.

The debate of this is endless, as there is no definitive “one size fit all” but I would like to share an example of how link development is not always what it appears.

A worthy cause (possibly non-profit but does necessarily need to be) can have monumental gains in link development. Recently two such examples developed where a single link preemptively developed (for those interested in PageRank – PR6) – has been the benefactor of numerous returning links that support “the cause” not in support of PageRank — yet PR7 and PR8s returns are a benefit nonetheless, that would have unlikely materialized had I not saw value in the cause.

Granted, you cannot predict these actions, but if you never try… you never know what missed opportunities will pass you by.

That’s the fifth step.

Content Development

A website that is stagnant is less appealing to search engines. You must continue to develop new directions to move into, open new market areas which in turn help to secure or improve existing ones. Anyone that believes Google or any other search engine will stop seeking out new content that directly competes with your client’s content or that their competitors will simply “give up” attempting to displace them – is not forward thinking.

Each of these steps assists to develop a competitive advantage. No single one is mutually exclusive to working better than the group.

Rodney is an independent contractor in eMarketing, search engine optimization and an accomplished strategic planner who brings 22 years of experience in information technology and data analysis interpretation. Rodney has 14 years experience in the fields of project management, electronics, adult facilitation, and marketing in the tourism and culture, forestry and agriculture and education sectors.

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