The Big SEO Picture

This week, Jill Whalen suggests to Don’t Sweat the Small SEO Stuff. Rather than chase the search engine algorithms, search engine marketers should concentrate on:

• Age
• Popularity
• Authority of Your Site
• Usability
• Overall Appeal to Your Target Audience

More specifically, making your site more relevant to your target audience by building your brand and credibility to the site.

Yes, I do agree with Jill’s message; however, I have a slightly different philosophy towards search engine optimization: “Take Care of the Small SEO Stuff, and the Big Picture will Fall into Place.” Now I’m not saying you should obsess about keyword density on a page or meticulously plan out the placement of your keywords in the keyword meta tag; however, if you plan and execute a well thought out SEO plan, paying attention to the small things, then the rest will take care of itself.

I agree with Jill that well thought out keyword research is critical to creating that plan, and yes, while some of the long tail keyword phrases make excellent low hanging fruit, I wouldn’t recommend making that the core of your SEO campaign. Try for a little balance, a mix of low hanging fruit and more competitive phrases. Map out your SEO strategy to make sure you’re not missing any of the details. Keep detailed documentation of what you did so if there’s an issue, you can go back and see what influenced the SEO campaign.

Yes, build your brand and credibility on the Web, but do it using small SEO steps, keeping the Big Picture in mind.