by flickr.com/dnsnfr
Mark Jackson’s recent article in Search Engine Strategies Magazine, titled “3 Keys to a Successful Web Presence” is a well written “nutshell” explanation of the important factors of creating and promoting a website. Chock full of real world analogies, the article states that the 3 keys are:
- Your Brand: “The look and feel of your website is a key component to online success”
- Your Website’s Usability: “Every click to your website is valuable, yet many don’t put the effort to get the most out of every click.”
- Search Engine Optimization: “The creation of your [website] should absolutely be done in conjunction with your SEO efforts.”
That’s a nice bite-sized list (which Mark expands on in his article), but I would also add ‘PR‘ and ‘Social Media‘ as key factors to web success. The reason he probably left these out is because he’s in the SEO business (SEO people sometimes lump SEO, PR, and Social Media all in together, when they’re actually distinct efforts). If you’re promoting a product or service online you just can’t ignore the value of PR and Social Media “ratings and stars” and now “Tweets” on sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Twitter.
Whether you group those last few items together or not, you can see there are several pieces to this internet marketing puzzle…so the basic rule of thumb is this: if someone tells you they can make you successful online by taking care of one piece of that puzzle (for $199), you can expect you’re going to get what you pay for. But maybe less obviously, if a seemingly legitimate service provider tells you that he can get you ranked #1 on Google at all, you might want to ask yourself – what keywords are they going to get my site ranked for? Are those rankings going to do me any good if I don’t improve my website’s look and feel, or usability? There’s more to it than just search engine rankings.
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