October 5, 2004 - Hartford, Connecticut - Business owners today may understand the sales and marketing potential of web sites, but, "You can't simply build a site and expect people to come," Dianna Huff, a marketing communications consultant and copywriter explained at a meeting of the Connecticut Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (CT/IABC) in Hartford.
The way to help others find your site without investing huge sums of money is to place in the first to third pages of search engine results. "The only way to get on the search engines and in the first few pages is to have an optimized site," said Huff.
Making a web site work effectively with the various search engines means paying heed to how potential visitors will define their search terms. These "keywords", warned Huff, are rarely how you yourself would define a search for your site. "One firm I worked with had a list of 50 keywords. When checked against the words actually being used for searches, more than 50% weren't being used at all." Once understood, applying keywords methodically to "meta" page titles and the content of a web site are keys to improved search performance.
Search Engine Optimization is not only valuable, but measurable and trackable, making it easy to understand the return on investment of this marketing and promotion endeavor. Huff recounted examples of traffic increasing from 100 to 2,500 -3,000 per day after she optimized her own site, and a 20% increase experienced by a client.
Search Engine Optimization and the search industry as a whole is booming, noted Huff. Now a $2.5 billion industry, projections are that it will reach $8 billion by 2007. Yet the field is still in its infancy, much the way the widespread business use of the Internet was just a few years ago. Understanding this and taking steps now to use good SEO practices will give businesses a leg up in the increasingly competitive Internet space.
About the Connecticut Chapter, International Association of Business Communicators - CT/IABC (www.ctiabc.com) is a local chapter of an international network of more than 13,000 business communicators in over 60 counties. Chapter members work with corporations, non-profit organizations or run independent practices in areas ranging from employee communication, marketing communication, executive communication, investor and financial communication, public relations and training. The chapter meets monthly with guest speakers, as well as formal and information networking opportunities.
About Dianna Huff and DH Communications. Dianna Huff is President of DH Communications (www.dhcommunications.com) and an Accredited Business Communicator (ABC). She specializes in marketing communications copywriting for companies such as Cabot Corporation, SAP and Thermo Electron. She is a frequent contributor to print and online publications, the publisher of the successful monthly e-newsletter, "The Marcom Writer" and an e-book titled "25 Ways to Grow Your E-Newsletter Subscriber List."