Don't create an SEO bridge to nowhere
If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.
And if you don't know your target audience, any keywords will do.
This is why it's important for PR people to be involved with SEO strategy. You can't optimize a page until you know why and for whom you're optimizing it.
The key concept of SEO is to know what you provide and what your customers are looking for -- and then create a bridge between these worlds with the right links and copy.
This sounds straightforward, but it can take some investigation to get it right.
Jen Keller, a Milwaukee SEO consultant, shared a story about one of her clients who sold furniture to facility managers and purchasers at universities.
Originally, they wanted to rank high in search results for "dorm furniture" related terms.
The only problem was that people searching for "dorm chairs" or "lofts for dorms" are parents and students. That wasn't the client's target audience. It would have created a bridge to nowhere.
Their real audience -- the ones with the power to make purchasing decisions for universities -- referred to their product as "residence hall furniture." So that's what they went with when they optimized their pages.
"The details, Keller said, "make a huge difference."
Want to learn more about SEO strategy? Here's a link to Keller's SEO presentation.
Photo credit: Praline3001 on Flickr.