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03.23.06
The Changing Facets Of The SEO Business
 By
Jim Hedger
The word "change" has over a dozen definitions, at least according to my electronic source at Princeton University.
Aside from the various nouns describing what is literally cold and hard cash, my preferred use of the word is as a verb. The following definition caught my eye this morning. It applies itself quite well to a situation facing most, if not all, established SEO shops.
(v) change , alter , modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation) "The advent of the automobile may have altered the growth pattern of the city"
As the automobile became the primary mode of transportation in modern urban environments, it caused great change in the way cities were built and the way we live together as a society. An invention, the car, prompted innovation, wider roads and distant suburbs. The metaphor provides a historic marker for market-forces forcing evolution within the SEO sector.
Over the past twelve months, the word change has been a mantra in the research section of StepForth's business. We have structured our staff in such a way as to provide our team with a diversity of viewpoints from my "bird's eye view" to our Senior SEO, Scott's, "reality of the trenches", and all points between. When those varying viewpoints intersect, as they often do, we know we are thinking on the right track. Similarly, we learn a lot from sharing with others in the SEO and SEM industry.
Two key topics that tend to dominate the R&D portion of our formal staff meetings and many informal discussions amongst staff members are usability and consultation. Not surprisingly, they also tend to be discussed frequently on various SEO or SEM related forums.
The first factor is website, document, or file usability . Usability is a big word that covers many aspects of design and development. From an SEO perspective, the concept of usability covers three distinct areas, search engine friendly site architecture, human-friendly layout, and well-written, optimized site content.
Most of the websites, files or documents that pass across our monitors do not meet any of the three basic criteria mentioned above. As search engines become more sophisticated and the competition for Top10 placements gets harder every day, usability concerns are a growing problem for us. While many of the sites we see might look good, the reality is they are not properly structured for search engine spiders or for intuitive human navigation.
In order to meet the obvious need for search engine friendly site design and human-friendly layout, without losing focus on the SEO work we do best, StepForth has created a new division of the company, Pure Ignition , dedicated to search-ready design and user-intuitive layout.
The addition of a search focused web design firm to our corporate family allows us to bring our services to another, much needed level without sacrificing or threatening our core SEO competencies.
Click here to read the rest of the article.
About the Author:
Jim Hedger is the SEO Manager of StepForth
Search Engine Placement Inc. |
