Establishing a Presence on Search Engines Organically:

Placing in the main region of a search engine result page is the result of organic search engine marketing. Search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, organic placement is a free service.

The means by which one may successfully implement an organic search engine marketing campaign takes time and patience, however successfully appearing on the first page may result in a lucrative return on investment (ROI) when compared to the monthly cost of participating in a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign.

There are several options available when developing a multi-faceted organic search engine marketing campaign. They may include any or all of the following:

Stage 1: Optimization and Registration

1. Optimize every page on your site: Every page on your website should be written so that they pass a meta tags and website content optimization test.

A free webpage analyzer is available at: http://www.widexl.com/seo/metatag-analyzer.html.

2. Register your website: Once all of your pages have been optimized, register your website on all of the major search engines, Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, etc., as well as major local business directories.

Stage 2: WordPress Blogging

3. Establish a blogging campaign. Blog articles should be on subjects that relate to your site and your areas of expertise, from a how-to series to your assessment of topics of interest in the news today to reviews of products and services related to your field. This may draw interest from both search engine spider-bots and repeat visitors to your site. Posting new articles indicate site activity. Site activity helps to rank your site as important to spider bots which in turn helps to rank your site higher in search results for the same keywords as competing websites.

Note: Every article that is tagged and optimized may be found via search engine searches. Reposting your blog article on social networks and article directories with tagged keywords may help to propagate your web presence on multiple search engine result pages for the same targeted keywords and phrases with a high search engine rating. Piggybacking on other high ranking websites such as http://www.reddit.com/ and http://www.ezinearticles.com/ may help you command the board of a search engine results list.

4. Utilize WordPress: In regards to blogging, a WordPress blog or website is tied to the WordPress blogging community, and includes an RSS feed. Many social media networks recognize WordPress and are tailor-made to link to these blogs and incorporate them within their own construct.

Note: WordPress includes a server side content management system (CMS) that enables the WordPress users to self-maintain one’s own website or blog. If you have a standard informational website, you may want to consider redeveloping your site using WordPress, if for no other reason then for its ease of use of its maintenance tools. For more information visit: www.wordpress.com.

Stage 3: Social Media Marketing

5. *Implement a YouTube video campaign: Why YouTube? Google owns YouTube and videos that have been tagged with specific keywords and phrases propagate very fast in Google’s search engine and are in turn adopted by other websites such as AOL video. Creative Developments can shoot, edit, render, tag, and upload your videos to YouTube with the goal of propagation on Google’s search engine as well as Ask.com, currently tied to Google.

Think of 20 topics of interest that are related to your field and focus on highly searchable keywords and phrases for each video in your campaign. The successful implementation of a YouTube campaign can produce almost immediate dividends on Google.

6. Participate in social networking: Repost your web page articles and post feeds on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as well as on social media sites such as Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Stumbled Upon, Stumpedia and other social networks. The more active your participation in the social network spheres, the more likely you will obtain ping-backs to your website and have your social network profile show up on a search engine result page on other highly ranked and recognized websites. Referral traffic is good traffic and should be taken advantage of.

7. Post ads on Craig’s List: Yes, Craig’s List. Not only can you generate referral traffic through Craig’s List “small biz ads” directory, their site is an organic search engine monster. Many are not aware that Craig’s List is highly tied to search engines. When keywords are targeted within your ad’s written content they are picked up in a search engine query and your ad may in turn appear in a search engine result.

Note: Presently you may re-post a duplicate ad every 48 hours. In addition to small biz ads, Craig’s List has several forum boards wherein you may repost a blog article and promote your business through discussion, further generating referral traffic to your site and propagation on search engines.

Stage 4: Link Building Strategies

While on-page optimization is a good first step, you will ultimately get much more leverage by having links from other sites to yours. Inbound links influence your search engine rankings as well refer traffic to your site.

8. Inbound links: Participate in link exchange programs with peers, associates and affiliates within your industry. Obtaining inbound links (links from another site to yours) can be helpful in developing a Page Rank which in turn helps your site’s ability to be found before other sites for the same keywords and phrases. The best inbound links are nonreciprocal inbound links from sites that have a high page rank. A .edu and .gov site are very good websites to seek out an inbound link from. If you are an alumnus of a university, sign up for an alumni profile. Most of these profiles have a field for you to enter your email. This site in turn will then point to your website and be seen by search engines as a high quality inbound link to your site.

Of lesser value yet still worth pursuing are reciprocal links. This is basically a link exchange between your site and another website. You post my link and I will in turn post your link back to me. Be selective, try to exchange links with reputable websites that have a decent page rank.

Another approach is to examine the inbound links to your competitor’s site and attempt to obtain links from the same highly ranked sites. Much of this requires reaching out to other companies by phone or email, engaging with them and asking if they are open to the idea of linking back to you.

9. Industry Directories: A continuation of link building, add your profile to industry directories related to your field: Note, many listings charge a one time or monthly fee for listing your profile, but the benefits may far exceed the nominal cost. Example: if you are a therapist, you may want to obtain membership on psychologytoday.com.

10. Submit articles: Write and submit informative articles to websites such as www.ezinearticles.com or www.newsvine.com (and re-post them as blog articles on your own site). There are those that dispute the validity of this exercise in terms of garnering a higher page rank but articles that draw interest from the reader and are re-posted with your referral footer that includes your URL may draw traffic to your site, helping you to be seen as an authority in your field and generate repeat visitor interest in your site. Additionally, these articles also propagate on search engine result pages for targeted keyword phrases.

Conclusion

Any or all of these options may be implemented. In combination, over time, you may well rule the results boards for certain geographically specific keywords or phrases and draw traffic to your site that otherwise would not exist, all without having to resort to a pay-per-click campaign.

Note: You must nurture an organic search engine marketing campaign. It takes active participation in your blogging efforts and participation in social media networks, but your efforts may begin to show fruit within the first 2-4 weeks and continue to build up thereafter over the next several months as your site ranking increases and successful placement may well result in a profitable return on your initial investment.