SEO Headlines 06/25/2008

Search Engine Optimization Can’t Be Rushed

Birthday boy Lee Odden started a great conversation with his post about the importance of staying on top of your search engine optimization campaign and taking the time to do it right. We really can’t stress this enough. SEO is not a one time deal, regardless of how big a company you are or how great your product is. Long term rankings mean truly investing in search engine optimization and continually tweaking campaigns for optimum performance. Working hard to get your site ranked and then forgetting about it is simply a waste of that initial investment.

Lee really hits the nail on the head with this:

“Companies that take their search engine visibility for granted or that ride the technical SEO loophole/manipulation train often get a hard smack back to reality when their online sales disappear. Orders start to slip or fall off the map altogether and the IT team red alert phone rings off the hook with calls from the business owner, “What the hell happened to our rankings???”

Amen, Lee. What happened was that you got lazy or you thought your big brand name would carry you through the SERPs. It won’t, especially with how competitive things are today. How embarrassing is it when a savvy mom and pop shop is able to outrank the Best Buys and Nikes of the world simply with some elbow grease and creative thinking? Search engine optimization is important to your business. Treat it as such and don’t let it fall by the wayside.

For a more in depth look at this issue, I’ll point you back to our When is Optimization Necessary? And for How Long post from February 2007. Ah, I was just a baby back then. ;) [But not anymore! Send birthday cards for your favorite blogger to Bruce Clay and be sure to get them here before the weekend! -Virginia] Did you just call me old? You did, didn’t you? Watch it n00b.

Siloing, Siloing, Siloing

Lots of chatter today about Bruce Clay, Inc.’s concept of siloing. Rae Hofffman talked siloing and PageRank sculpting in her recent Search Engine Land article about 404 pages and Shimon Sandler followed suit with Advanced SEO: Siloing Content. It’s good to hear people talking about siloing, especially in the context of advanced search engine optimization techniques. See, guys, “advanced” doesn’t have to mean “spam”.

If you haven’t silo’d your Web site you’re missing out on serious ranking opportunities. Siloing splits the focus of your Web site by grouping content by theme, which in term allows you to rank for both your targeted and broad keyword phrases. It also takes into account everyone’s favorite buzzword of 2008, PageRank sculpting, so that the most important pages on your site are getting the most juice.

We’ve written a lot about siloing in the past, so if you’re still curious about what siloing is, how to do it, and how it can help your site, I recommend you visit our six-part newsletter series Building a Web Site Theme With Silos, as well as our blog post from earlier this year entitled Hey Rand, Do You Mean Siloing.

John Carcutt Wins 10,000 SEJ Prize, Donates It To Charity

Today Loren Baker revealed that John Carcutt was the winner of Search Engine Journal’s Guest Blogging competition which ended in a blog off between John and Richard Burckhardt. When all was said and done, however, it was John’s Are SEO Forums Still Needed? post that put him over the edge and helped him claim the amazing $10,000 prize package being offered by SEJ.

Amazingly, John says he will donate his prize package to a Mexican orphanage so that they can improve their Web site and raise awareness. How much do you love John? Like a gazillion percent, right? I know, me too!

Donating search marketing education to nonprofits is obviously something we’re passionate about, as evident by our own SEO Charity Contest. For an update on that, check out the mid July edition of the SEO newsletter where we’ll check in with our winner Ryan Freeman to hear about how his nonprofit is benefitting from white hat search engine optimization training.

Lisa Barone is a writer, content marketer & VP of strategy at Overit Media. She's also a very active Twitterer, much to the dismay of the rest of the world.

See Lisa's author page for links to connect on social media.