MarCom Services: B-to-B Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

How do you determine if your site needs search engine optimization?

Take this short SEO quiz to find out.

1. Pull up your company's Web site and look at the top of your Web browser (the blue bar at the top of the page). Does it say, "Welcome to Widget Company"? Do other pages on your site read, "Products Page" or "Services"?
2. Pick three of your search terms and plug them into Google and Yahoo. Are you in the top 30 listings?
3. When you look at your source code, can you read your site's copy?
4. Does your site use frames, "dynamic" navigation or a Flash intro?
5. Type your company's name into Google or Yahoo. How many listings do you have that come from other sites linking to you?

ANSWERS

1. If you answered "yes," your meta title tags are not optimized. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of meta titles. Not only do search engine spiders read them first, but it's what the search engines usually show in their listings.
2. If you answered "no," you may not be listed due to poorly written page titles, "wrong" keywords, or other problems.
3. If you can't see text in your source code, neither can search engine spiders. Spiders need to "crawl" text in order to determine what your site is about.
4. Search engines don't like frames, dynamic navigation, and Flash. However, there are work-arounds that can improve search engine rankings.
5. Backward links, those links to your site from other sites, are critically important in determining your site's "relevance" (and hence, where you come up in the listings for a given search term). The more quality backward links, the better your position.