Various Search Tactics for your Website

Search is a many petaled flower and anyone who knows anything about SEO knows you can’t stop with just one set of optimizing tactics!

There is paid search and there is organic search. There is social search, and mobile search, and local search and image search and social search. There are feeds, blogrolls, links, and hundreds of other ways people can find your site. You have to take advantage of every single one!

Develop a search strategy that involves all of these concepts. Don’t listen to people who tery to tell you that ’paid search is bad’ or ’organic search is stupid’ or ‘social search is a waste of time’. Step back and look at the whole picture!

Of course, there are some businesses that will be searched for more in one form than another, so you do have to allocate your rtime and funds to make sure you get the most visibility. Pizzieras, Dry cleaners and other such venues need a strong local and mobile prescence; online stores will strive more for a solid grounding in paid search; and organic search is a must have for affiliate sites.

Of course results will vary from type of business to type of search. Just don’t go throwing babies out with bathwater. Immediacy is the only real objective for some; paid search does offer immediate impact; organic takes time. Paid is also fairly simple – hire one person to do ad copy and throw moolah at teh machine. Organic done right requires a dedicated team to keep fresh content flowing, and knowledge of SEO is more important.

Peaople use different types of search for different things, as we saw above. For example, people looking in local search parameters are generally looking for something very specific. A vacationer might not just want a specific Hotel, but one with an indoor pool and a hot breakfast buffet. Remember to include important features like locations, phone numbers, services offered, hours of operations, and reviews. This will encourage users to choose you since your info is ready to hand, and add relevancy to your listing for brand searches and service-related searches; you can also expect a good following on mobile..

Organc search is the slow but steady route – if you educate yourself it is also the cheapest. Put in the time to learn SEO, and you can provide your own content and placement. There’s no exact formula for gauging the potential impact of SEO, but it remains one of the best ways to grow natural search.

Social can be used for all sorts of things – but man is it a time suck. It’s all worth it if you get something to go viral, but if not you may be eating man hours with nothig to show. Use your social time wisely for best results. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter can be incredibly trafic driving if handled correctly.