Mark Royko + Associates

Some of the most common spam landing in my mailbox these days starts with the subject line, "Rank Your Site Number 1 in Google." These are always from fly-by-night optimization companies promising that their SEO techniques will catapult my site to the top of the search engine charts. These are easily as annoying as emails from Nigerian Princes, and they might as well be coming from the same offices.

Sure, it's possible to rank number one on Google, but for what term? How long will it it take? What will it cost? Will it be for paid search or for organic search? Will it be specific to a single landing page or to the whole site? Will it be qualified traffic that wants to buy a product, or traffic from some link farm in Uzbekistan?

If you're starting out with SEO, the first thing you should realize is that it's not all that difficult to get your site to the first page of Google for "a" term. But it can be a long road to get your site well ranked for the term of your choice. (Even this may not be what you really need because ultimately, the most important SEO term isn't necessarily the one you want, it's the one your visitors are searching for right now. This can often be a term that you haven't even considered and can change over time.)

What spam SEO emails wont tell you about optimizing is that it's not magic: It's a collection of techniques starting with analytic research, creating relevant content, implementing solid site architecture, generating reciprocal links and establishing ongoing engagement with your visitors.

Using these best practices as a foundation, it's then best to focus on specific actions you'd like your visitors to take. If you want to push a certain product, focus on that. Build landing pages with clear calls to action. Follow your visitors throughout your site. And when you're done doing that, it's time to lather, rinse and repeat. It's not necessarily a quick road, but then again, did you really think you were going to get rich overnight from a Nigerian Prince?

Every site owner wants one thing: a better return on their web site investment. In return for their time and money, they want more traffic, higher conversions, higher sales, and a greater audience share. They want their site to come up first on every search engine. They want eyeballs scanning their site 24 hours a day. In short, everyone wants to be a rock star.

But the online world can be a frustrating place, especially for small businesses that don't have a full time staff or large advertising budget to devote to web marketing. And to be fair, it is a bit overwhelming: There are so many variables, so much jargon, so much obscure information that the average web site owner doesn't have the first idea where to start. Should a small business invest in an Search Engine Optimization program? Should it buy advertising? Complete a redesign? And what about Facebook, Twitter feeds and other social networking options? In short, what are the keys to getting a better return on a small business website?

I'm going to spend the next several weeks trying to clarify some of these issues and whenever possible, use real world examples -- sometimes this site -- to show the theory, execution and results or a highly focused performance project. Read more »