Source:http://www.ecommercetimes.com

Marketing budgets are under the microscope now more than ever, but some simple and relatively inexpensive moves can help companies gain higher placement in search results. Steve Riegel of marketing firm Faction Media offers six SEO tips that can bump up the page views

Every marketing tactic gets more scrutiny when budgets face the severity of a struggling economy. Marketers are increasingly responding to the accountability found in digital marketing, placing their budget toward efforts that they can clearly measure against.

Put SEO under this microscope, and it consistently delivers. But marketers need to insure they are getting the most out of search engine optimization (SEO), especially during a recession. Every search matters, and an “optimized” SEO effort can yield ever more value to an organization. With this in mind, here are 6 key tactics to maximize your SEO efforts.

Eliminate Navigation Barriers

Search-engine spiders prefer easy-to-navigate sites as much as your end users, with all seeking to understand where to find information on your site. Providing clear pathways to all the pages on your site is essential for “findability.”

Create an XML site map for spiders and a user-friendly site map for your visitors. XML site maps provide guidance to spiders in regards to what pages exist on a site, and how often you update them. They are becoming the standard for crawl submissions. User-friendly site maps provide additional navigation links throughout your site for users and spiders alike.

Check Your Code

If the spiders can’t understand your code, they will miss your entire page around a few “simple errors.” Is your code valid? Validate your code often through tools like those available from W3C.

Check your robots.txt file to make sure that it’s not blocking spiders for any content that you want indexed. It’s surprising, but companies have blocked spiders from their entire sites with a misplaced backslash or other errors. Don’t let this be you.

Go for Quick Wins

Searchers rarely go beyond the top 20 search results, but you should check your rankings across engines for phrases just outside the top 20 and target those for additional efforts.

Nudge these rankings up by creating additional on-site content and placing an additional emphasis on on-site promotion such as featured home page links.

Meta Info – Describe Yourself

You should not have “home” as a descriptor of your business in search results unless you are either a Realtor or a builder (Google “cat” to see what I mean). Every page on your site should have a unique title and description based on the page’s content.

Title tags are still one of the most important elements of most search engines’ algorithms. Keep the title tag under 128 characters and keep any branding to the end. Meta information helps the search engines define your content as well as provide added relevancy to the searcher as they find you in the search engines. Added relevancy may bring additional visitor opportunities.

Optimize Your Keyword Platform – Be Analytical

When combined with site analytics to measure campaign success, there is a fundamental path to be in the right place at the right time for your audience no matter how they may change search behaviors. You can generate and measure keyword targets for search engine marketing (SEM) by evaluating your Internal Search, pay-per-click (PPC) and SEO successes.

First, make sure that you are capturing your site’s internal search results to understand the content navigation needs in your audience’s voice. Isolate the terms that are leading toward success events and then test these directly in a PPC environment. Your PPC test terms should drive your audience to the landing page identified in your internal search success. In turn, take the successful PPC terms and place an emphasis on these terms for future SEO efforts. This is Keyword platform optimization.

Be Reachable

Whether you sell directly or through distribution channels, you can support Linux MPS Pro – Focus on Your Business – Not Your IT Infrastructure. $599.95/month. Click to learn more. your sales efforts directly by placing detailed sales contact information on your site. On average, 7 percent of searches include some sort of location modifier.

B2B sites tend to show locations only when a searcher goes to a career page. Let your audience know where and how they can contact you or your distribution partners at the most local of levels. Highlight each location; create a directory with standalone location pages to widen your search footprint.

Place your address, or at the very least, city and state contact info on every page. Let the world know where you exist and how to contact you.

World economic trends are going to be the topics of 2009 and with it come the stock market speculations guided by experts. Acquisitions and mergers of business giants are on the anvil, including that of popular Search Engines and one can not foresee what is to happen in 2009. But one thing is certain for Search Engine marketers – it is not going to be what they have been experiencing over the last decade and major changes are sure to take place in the whole system.

Marketers should get ready for three primary changes. Integrating the search options together with planning of other media options, inasmuch as the search volume is driven by any offline event or media campaign of significance and this is essential in capturing the demand.

Next is to achieve best results, planning well the SEO and paid search is important. It has been well proved by studies that by clubbing Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing together, great results can be achieved.

Finally video media and transparent display of search results are going to be prominent for future searches through popular search engines and such others. Result is, simple clicks on the lists and conversions effected by them into business will not be enough, and they have to transform into meaningful engagements. Brand marketers of large volumes will be attracted by these offerings of Search Engines. In addition, the Search Engines as well as portals would like to have more up-sell options continuously, considering the effectiveness of Search Engine Marketing. In short, the way search engine result pages are shown to viewers will be changing dramatically, in view of the fact the present templates used are much older by a decade now and a change is imminent.

Migration to new search options:

Online searches are no more the monopoly of few traditional search engines alone and this extends to newer platforms and portals as reported by the trusted sources – Ad Age and comScore. Within days of their reporting, that Yahoo is relegated to third place by YouTube as search engine, the latter announced a brand new platform for advertising.

Myspace is emerging as bigger search engine with 563 million queries from US, as reported by comScore, in 2008 October, compared to AOL with 424 million queries and Ask.com with 362 million queries. Similarly MSN.com with 1.04 million queries is almost touched by eBay, Amazon and Craiglist by handling combined queries of 980 million totally.

Marketers have a lesson or two to learn from these statistics. Although we can not equate these queries with regular search engine enquiries, as they come from a totally different platform of video sharing site or social network site, the message is clear. The fact remains they are very great in volumes, judging by the numbers and search marketers can do well to keep an eye on these non-traditional sources of search and keep their sites positioned right there as best as possible.

SEO Models take a change:

First of all these non-traditional search platforms, where millions of viewers make their search, are having their impacts on the traditional Search Engines as well. The concept of Search Engine optimization undergoes a major change. It is not any more that a site is getting the prominent rankings in the Search Engine Listings that could make best conversions of business. It is how it reaches all the top listings of any given result page of the Search Engine that warrants merit.

There are consumers reaching the marketer’s site directly through Search Engines, by the prominent placement of the site in their result pages. There are also consumers who get access to the given site through intermediaries, such as social networks, blogs, photo-sharing sites, Wikipedia, Twitter and the like. These consumers are steadily rising in numbers, with a striking popularity and the site marketers should never let go this opportunity. What is required is the change of mindset to optimize their Web presence, rather than optimize their site concerned.

Search Engines are getting replaced by other devices:

The surest possible change in 2009 will be that consumers will be not entirely dependant on their computers alone for making searches. Irrespective of the Search Engines, they have started using other devices – mobile phones for one. For entering their searches mobile devices like iPhone which perform the applications of a hand-held computer or Google Android SDK software stack, providing the tools and applications have emerged. The search queries raised from these devices are surprisingly large and with an array of novel features enabled by these devices, marketers should give importance to these devices.

Along with the primary task of getting top rankings in Search Engines alone, the new features of devices such as iPhone like text messaging by SMS; mobile couponing; click-to-call should be made best use of. The targeted audience should be reached through these devices to optimize their landing page and increase the opt-in traffic of consumers to the best advantage.

Again, Internet searches are extending beyond PCs to overlap other devices – for instance new TV models and set-up boxes enable searching the net through the TV screen using the remote, obviating the necessity for a computer screen. Besides there are vehicle telematics like GPS device to make on the spot searches for locating navigation to a drug store, important tourist attraction or restaurant. All these devices are growing wider and faster to occupy the place of computer and enhance the web experience of the consumers.

Marketers will do well to take into consideration these existing devices as also those yet to come, to play a vital role in consumer searches and be ready to modify their strategies for popularizing their web presence.