By Aisling M. Brennan
Account Director
Each year is rocked by a plethora of changes in the search engine marketing landscape: the acquisition of smaller companies by the Big 3 engines, algorithm updates, and new SEO guidelines can result in massive fluctuations to organic rankings. So when it comes to 2006, below are some tips to stay ahead of the curve and gain/retain organic rankings.
1. Quality Content
I say this so often and I cannot emphasize it enough: Content is king when it comes to Search Engine Marketing! Search engine crawlers crave quality content. As a result your site should have an abundance of relevant, keyword-rich content that you want the crawlers to read and include in their index. By creating and publishing quality content, you give the search engines more reason to return. You are ultimately giving them what they want.
In 2006, you should focus on adding content, finding creative ways to get this content noticed and viewed as well as finding creative ways to publish fresh content on a regular basis i.e. blogs, forums, or RSS.
2. Refine your Link Building Campaign
Initiating a link building campaign is a very popular way to improve your rankings. However the days of tremendous link-swapping with non relevant sites is over. Don't waste your time or money signing up to sites that promise thousands of links within 24 hours. Instead focus on improving the quality as well as the quantity of those sites linking to your site.
For more information on how to conduct a successful link building campaign read this month's "Link Building 101" article.
3. RSS & XML
Two new technologies that took centre stage in 2005 were XML and RSS. In existance for a number of years and short for eXtensible Markup Language, XML enables users to assign descriptive tags to your data.
As a result this led to the advent of RSS or Real Simple Syndication. RSS enables sites to publish data to an XML file hosted on your server. Users can then subscribe to your RSS feed via the XML file and whenever you make a changes to your XML file they are notified. RSS has since become very important for content providers as a simple method of publishing content online.
In 2006 consider adding a RSS feed to your site in order to encourage regular publishing of additional content.
4. Avoid Flash and JavaScript
Flash and JavaScript are very powerful tools for creating dynamic and eye-catching websites. The problem with both technologies is that search engine crawlers cannot read them (at least not yet) which limits what can be indexed by the search engines. As a result many sites do not the recognition they deserve due to the technical hurdles that the crawlers cannot jump.
Many industry experts have speculated that the Big 3 are working on resolving this, but for the time being, avoid or limit the use of both.
5. Avoid Unethical SEO
Link farms, hidden text, cloaking or any other unethical practices should be avoided. The penalties are severe and in most cases the desired high rankings won't be achieved.
Instead focus on link building the hard way: researching relevant sites via the search engine results pages, add lots of relevant keyword-rich content to the site, and remove as many technical hurdles for the crawlers as possible. In the long-term this will help achieve your goal of high rankings
Who knows what 2006 may bring, but by focusing on the core principles of Search Engine Marketing you can achieve success and avoid any pitfalls or hurdles that may arise over the next twelve months.
