Esther C Kane

I read this wonderful post on SEO Design Solutions, one of my favorite feeds.

Websites do not optimize themselves, but knowing what to expect is instrumental prior to embarking on the journey of targeting competitive keyword verticals.

1. It takes time: Like anything worthwhile, good things come to those who wait? Of course while you’re waiting, you could always spend money on PPC if you are impatient. Cost for cost (SEO pricing vs. PPC) is all about cost to value received, SEO is an investment while PPC is just like paying rent. Sure, they both drive traffic, but one is far more sustainable than the other (providing less risk and greater reward).
2. You may have to change a few things: There is a reason why sites that are optimized and ones that are not rank differently. It’s all about the continuity of purpose that unifies each page in a site for a particular purpose with optimization and the best sites only have minor differences on the outside. It is what occurs on the level of site architecture, naming conventions, meta tags and internal links that can rank of tank a site, so don’t be surprised if some pages don’t make the SEO grade and need a slight makeover to change things up.
3. Monitor the baseline: You need to know where you’re at, to understand where you’re going. What metrics matter most? The answer is simple, traffic and conversion, but more importantly more relevant traffic and using a diversity of related semantic content to target a market and not just a few keywords.
4. There is no such thing as too much Keyword Research: Keep in mind that what is relevant and hot today, may be yesterday’s news tomorrow. There is no such thing as too much keyword research, so dig deep into trends while improving traction for your markets root phrases and lucrative two and three word keyword combinations.
5. Understand the value of perpetual momentum: Once a site gains a significant foothold in a niche or market, the barrier to entry lessens. Specifically the more related and overlapping keywords surrounding a contextual array of phrases you optimize for, the better. Each page optimized for 3 distinct keywords can translate into dozens of keywords if a website has authority. The more authority a website has, then the less you have to concern yourself with optimizing for keywords, just the mere fact that someone searched for a related phrase or keyword that happens to exist on some page in your website, if you have more authority then your site can outrank your competitors based on the degree of trust it has acquired.