I DON'T "DO" SEO - HERE'S WHY

i’m going to be honest, i don’t do seo.

There’s a whole industry around optimizing websites for search engines. There are a lot of really smart SEO practitioners, and there are more bad ones. Some claim they are “white hat”, others “black hat” while some will pridefully proclaim “grey hat” status.  Most will sell SEO by pitching keyword optimization, code updates, continual management, copy changes, new pages, inbound link building, and so on. All of these things are extremely important, but they aren’t the most important. They are pieces of a comprehensive content and digital strategy.

As search engines move toward hyper-local, personalized, social results, traditional SEO is on life support. Optimizing for keywords is only useful if content is dynamic. Inbound links are only important if your visitors stick around and share with each other.

Search-friendly content should be your web standard; it’s a tactic that should be present and considered throughout your digital strategy. It should be baked into your website, content and social media. But it shouldn’t be done in a silo.

The best SEO happens when a website draws people in with valuable content, and then uses social media and offline content to share this valuable content to other people who also find it valuable. SEO tactics will make these web components even more powerful. SEO – done alone – will fail in the end. You need the ingredients to make it sustainable. Here’s what you need:

Content element: Below are minimum pieces of content you should prepare and be updating for your brand.

1. A properly structured, clean website.
2. Dynamic, frequently updated content such as a blog.
3. Hubs outside of your website that houses brand content (slideshare, youtube, etc.)
4. Social media links, channels and management programs.
5. Solid online PR strategy.
6. A Content strategy
7. Ways to build initial traffic or distribute content.

Tactics for each content element: Below are the SEO tactics that you should think about and administer for every piece of content you produce. If you don’t know how to do some of these things, have someone to consult you, but make sure you have the above elements in line first.

1. Keyword research – find out what people search on, where there is opportunity, but most importantly how to boil down your content to it’s core based on searchability.
2. Meta-data – All of your content should be prepared with metadata so that search engines can read it.
3. Social tie-ins – Social media buttons should be built into everything you develop online. Adding buttons to your content makes sharing easy and build inbound traffic, discussion and engagement around your brand online.
4. Measurement and optimization – you should always be looking for what works best, what keywords are being used, and what people want to view, download or share. This information should be used to build new content and strategies that work even better in the future.

Like I said, I don’t “do” SEO. SEO is cheap. I’m a digital strategist. SEO is a tactic in my toolbelt which helps be build more effective online brands, websites, content and strategies. SEO is more than about building links and keywords; it's about building brands.