SEO: Best Practices

By John Sylvester

A few nights ago I was asked by a regular in a bar I frequent: 'what is this pub doing with a website? Somewhat bemused, I replied that it receives substantial hits to its website and that it is listed on all the Bangkok portals. More importantly, they have consistently remained at #1 on Google, Yahoo!, MSN and the other major search engines for well over a year. Visitors the site, although not verifiable, must convert into a lot of money.' He looked slightly bemused, shrugged his shoulders and muttered something about not knowing much about search engines.

That is where we stand on building websites: our philosophy is based on making the web work for our clients; in providing them with a new revenue source. We don't just deliver tastefully designed websites, we also provide detailed research which we convert into accurately anticipated keywords likely to be used by potential visitors when searching for a source of information.

With this knowledge, we optimise our clients' web pages and register it with sites we know will boost its rankings. This strategy has been successfully employed on sites based in Thailand, the UK, Germany, Australia, France, Austria and France.

But there is another option to be seriously considered: commercial search. It is by far the most dynamic and fast-growing industry segment now, estimated to extend beyond $5billion by 2006. Pioneered by Overture (now Yahoo!), pay-per-click was created in response to three fundamental issues concerning internet search: poor quality results; random ordering of listings; and a weak advertising revenue model. It solved these problems by creating a real-time market for keyword bidding.

Recently, however, it has spawned a series of bidding wars among a growing number of marketers wanting their ads displayed alongside the top search results, and the demand for placement now seems to have reached an almost critical level. Highly popular search terms can easily get you involved in a cost escalation dynamic: extend your bid to the top spot and there's a good chance that, within hours, #2 will outbid you. This process can go on indefinitely until the actual 'market space' for these search terms is inflated beyond reach, which can take several weeks to stabilise and return to some kind of equilibrium.

Also, whilst pay-per-click can be the best marketing tool on the web if 'conversion rates' are high, there are four fundamental objectives to be recognised:

1. The content of your site must exactly match the keywords you intend to bid on;

2. All of your keywords stand no chance whatsoever of being listed in the top ten positions on the major search engines;

3. The cost of bidding will be more than recovered, as visits to your web pages will convert into quality leads or actual sales;

4. The more popular the search term, the more expensive.

If you think it's worth the investment, then take the plunge.

In the main, robots index websites, and few people look beyond the first 20 results. This has driven Google, Yahoo! and now MSN to devise a more specific search trend: e-marketing driven by localised search advertising, personalisation and increased specialisation. When fully operative, these initiatives will narrow the scope of the problems inherent in generic search results.

In the meantime, V9 will continue to provide our clients with optimum results: we have the expertise and proven credentials in providing Thai- and foreign-based businesses the opportunity of profitable expansion.

Media Director of V9 Design & Build, providing both local and outsourcing web and SEO services: we provide both brochureware and custom-designed websites, with tasteful design and branding, professional design and build, proven and successful SEO and e-marketing, e-commerce-driven database integration and content management systems.

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