SEO: Search Engine Optimization or Site Engagement Optimization?

Every owner or administrator of a website is constantly receiving offers for SEO services. This is unsurprising, as SEO is widely regarded as key to peak performance in organic search results, which is valuable to every online business.

Nowadays, any idea or service targeted at improving search results is marketed as SEO services. In reality, there are several different activities that are used to influence search results. The first is traditional in-site mechanical search engine optimization. Broadly, I would describe this as optimizing the presentation of existing content to include search engines as an audience. Common tasks include creating rich and descriptive URL paths, providing detailed page titles, and wise use of keywords in the prose and navigational text of the site. These tasks help search engines better understand what your pages are about.

A second activity is external optimization. Productive tasks include soliciting links from peers and supporter and encouraging the use of accurate and descriptive link text. Some providers artificially create external links as part of this process, a practice widely condemned, and which risks exclusion from a search index.

A third activity, one I believe is under-appreciated, is "Site Engagement Optimization." Instead of a technical process like mechanical SEO, this is a broad architectural question. To perform engagement optimization, a site owner must ask the tough questions about what might stand as a barrier to visitors becoming engaged with the content. Site engagement, such as subscribing to blogs, sharing content on social media sites, organic linking to content, commenting on posts, or returning periodically, is critical to the success of most sites. Activity such as sharing and cross-linking impacts search rankings as well. Some questions to consider for site engagement optimization:

• Does the content have the right voice and detail level for the target audience?
• Does the site's layout encourage engagement or frustrate it?
• Is the process streamlined for quick engagement? Multi-step process are a turn-off to visitors who might otherwise engage your site?
• Is your content properly bundled? If you are selling multiple things, it may make sense to bundle it together in one site to create a bigger community or split it into smaller sites to avoid conflict between user interests.