Search Engine Optimization: How to be Found When Clients Comb the Web
In a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit and Google, nearly 90 percent of executives said they use the Web to look for professional services firms, even if they have a prior relationship with a firm. Some 41 percent said their opinion of a professional firm was influenced by its website and 21 percent by search results. Sixty–seven percent said that in choosing a professional firm, "I first consider firms I have worked with previously but also conduct research on new firms that may specialize in the type of work I am seeking," and 20 percent said, "I usually begin by researching firms that best meet my needs rather than considering firms I already know."
Furthermore, when researching professional firms, 38 percent cited search engine queries as one of their three most useful sources, 24 percent cited professional services firm websites, and 13 percent cited online content sites.
So it clearly stands to reason that if you want to be considered by an organization that hasn’t previously engaged you, the quality of your website is important—as is your firm’s ability to move its ranking higher on search engines.
To put that in context, if an executive at a financial services firm needs help with IT strategy, there is a one–in–three chance that she will type "financial services IT strategy consultants" (or something like that) into Google, even if she already uses such a firm. (She may use another search engine, but Google today accounts for more than two-thirds of all search engine queries.) Therefore, if financial services IT is your business, it behooves you to a) be findable on that search, and b) have a site that captures her interest when she gets there.
Although many larger professional services firms have made search engine optimization (SEO) a part of their ongoing marketing effort, many smaller ones still have not. This article will explain what firms must do to their websites in order to capture the interest of executives looking for professional services. As a fast–growing number of prospective clients begin their hunt for "the expert" through a search engine, finishing high in search results will increasingly determine whether your firm gets on the client’s short list or not.
So how does my site get found?
First, it must be findable on search engines for the terms that people are likely to use. This not only means making sure that your site’s character is clear to your prospects when they arrive, but also that it can be understood by search engines when they index it. Google gives advice in plain English on what to do with your website to make it more findable.
Search engines love text. A site with a lot of words on a topic (e.g., supply chain consultants) likely will rank well when someone types supply chain consultants into Google. On the other hand, search engines do not love images. An executive visiting your site may connect the pictures of trucks you’ve put there with your expertise in supply chain operations, but Google won’t. Google does not "get" pictures, but it will give you some credit for the words that are attached to your pictures or other media, such as video. This is partly because it needs descriptors to help people who are looking for those media, e.g., people searching for images related to supply chain. If there are no descriptors for the images, ("alt tags," to use the lingo), the search engines can’t offer up yours because they won’t know what they represent.
It follows that you need to know what words people probably will be using when searching for the services you provide, and it is useful to know how many other sites are waiting to capture those searches. If there are a lot of them, you can optimize for other, similar search terms that people use. For example, instead of supply chain consultants (where there’s a lot of competition), you might want to capture searches on supply chain challenges, and post some useful content about supply chain challenges on your site.
Search engines are wise to most of the tricks that people have pulled in the last 10 years of online searching and they will punish you for employing stunts such as hidden text and doorway pages. Your site may even be removed entirely from the search engine’s results. Ergo—don’t do it—and don’t listen to website developers or SEO consultants that tell you they know how to fool the search engines. Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google’s founders) are a whole lot smarter than the average SEO consultant. That’s perhaps why they’re each worth about $16 billion and those consultants are not.
You should also know that Google uses a metric called PageRank to help determine where a page should appear in its listings for a particular search. This is a topic all its own, and indeed it appears in Brin and Page’s original Stanford paper that set them on the path to founding Google. You can read it here if you are inspired, but the most important thing to understand about PageRank is that it is a measure of how “important” a page is on the web. Google determines this by how many other pages point to it (and their respective PageRanks). A page with a higher PageRank will appear in a higher position than a similar page with equal relevance to the search. If your pages have useful content, other pages will link to them and your pages’ position will rise organically, but you can jump–start the process in many ways—for instance, by submitting your content to sites that publish articles. If you are a management consultant, for example, you could submit an article to Consulting Magazine, with a link back to your site.
If you would like to see how this works, type supply chain consultants into Google (or click on this link) and (as this article was written) you will bring up, in third place, Tompkins Associates, a supply chain consulting firm. It’s not a pretty site, but it is chock full of relevant content. (Remember, search engines don’t appreciate pretty, unless P–R–E–T–T–Y is spelled out, in which case, they get it.)
When you search for supply chain consultants, you may also see PRTM in the sponsored links at the top or to the right of the results page. PRTM is a good–sized operations consulting firm with a particular capability in supply chain, but it doesn’t feature in the natural, or organic, listings (or at least not in the first 10 pages, which is further than most people would ever look.) Its site is professional and attractive but, as we know, that is irrelevant to search engines, so PRTM pays to appear in the sponsored listings. This is a rational choice if a field is so competitive that it’s too difficult to rank high organically, but it may be avoidable with good optimization, which brings the added advantages of a) not having to pay for click–throughs and b) benefitting from the extra credibility that a high organic listing conveys.
There are several features on the PRTM site that limit its findability and which would not be difficult to fix. On its home page, for example, the most important text about the firm is embedded in a graphic where search engines can’t read it. The page’s title (in the browser title bar or tab) is Where Innovation Operates; search on Where Innovation Operates (or click on this link) and its site appears on the top of page one, but no one uses that phrase when they’re looking for help with their operations. The particular page that describes PRTM’s supply chain services is reasonably well optimized for supply chain innovation, but this is also a rarely–used search phrase. More difficult to fix is that fact that pages are delivered dynamically by the server so that the url for the supply chain page, (http://www.prtm.com/strategiccategory.aspx? id=299&langtype=1033) does not tell search engines anything about what the page contains (whereas http://www.prtm.com/supplychain.htm) would.
Can money buy me findability?
If your content will not get you found, you can pay to appear in the search engine returns. Even if you have optimized your site, for, say, supply chain consultants, and you rank well for that, you may not have been able to rank well for logistics consultants (the more keywords or phrases for which you try to optimize, the harder it is to do well for any one). In that case, here are some other possibilities:
- Google AdWords – for a fee, essentially determined by Google, your ads will appear above or to the right of the natural search results for however many search terms you nominate, and as often as your monthly budget will permit. These ads may also appear on relevant websites where the owner has volunteered to host them for a fee (Google AdSense).
- Although Google AdWords is the most important paid search channel, both Yahoo and Microsoft have similar offerings: Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.
There is a host of other ways a site can be found that don’t involve search engines at all. This is a subject that could occupy many pages, but here are a few important channels:
- Display advertisements: Companies increasingly are discovering the attractions of advertising on sites their customers frequent. If your target market is CEOs, for instance, you might place an ad (with, of course, a link to your site) on www.nytimes.com, www.wsj.com, www.economist.com, www.ceo.com, or www.ft.com. One advantage of display advertising over search engine advertising is that you can, of course, catch your audience’s attention with images.
- Content sites: Instead of advertising on sites targeted to your reader, place articles on sites with synergistic content. For example, depending on your business, you might consider marketingprofs.com for marketing content, or manyworlds.com, a content aggregator for thought leadership.
- Specialized directories: Because people find these to be useful sources of information, Google generally ranks specialized directories highly. For example, if you search for architecture firms in Massachusetts, you’ll find that the Boston Society of Architects directory appears second in the listing. It is probably impossible to optimize a site so that it ranks more highly than a directory for the search phrase you’re using, so make sure that your firm is listed in the directory. Along with providing an opportunity for you to be found by people who go to the directory, this will also create a link to your site that will contribute to its PageRank.
Optimize and Ye Shall Be Found
The greatest advantage of being findable on search queries is that it gives you a good chance of engaging a prospect at his or her point of need. No broadcast media, be it print, email newsletter, television, or radio, can do that without wasting most of the effort on people who don’t have that need, at least not at that point in time. Another advantage is that improving your findability need not cost you anything—anything beyond, that is, the edits to your site that make sure someone can find it when they are looking for it. Once you do that, all that remains is having a site that encourages visitors to tarry a while and enjoy your material.