Optimization Options For those who don’t feel comfortable optimizing on their own, a bevy of search engine optimization companies such as Search Engine Optimization, SEO Image, and eBrandz purportedly help companies boost their standings with search engines. For a (sometimes hefty) fee, these companies will examine a site, suggest keywords and other methods of optimization, and offer metrics for tracking traffic and its originating locations.
Most of these companies claim to have considerable impact on their clients’ search standings. San Diego-based Search Engine Optimization, for example, says in its online literature that search engine optimization can provide a “100 percent to 6,000 percent increase in Web site traffic” and offers “fast, measurable ROI.”
Multifamily companies say they have seen some results. AvalonBay, for example, found that the number of Web visitors has increased more than 350 percent since optimizing its site. Before signing up with a search engine optimizer, Thompson says, “the [number of] words that resulted in us being in the top five was zero.” Afterward, however, “we were in first place over 100 times, and our top five [standings] went from nine to over 500, and the top 10 went from 34 to just under 800.”
And AMLI’s Small notes that the company has secured solid leads from Internet searches thanks in part to the efforts of West Monroe Partners.
Let the Buyer Beware As attractive as the claims by search engine optimization companies might seem, experts warn many companies won’t necessarily garner the same results as AvalonBay. “It’s a numbers game. How can five different [search engine optimizing companies] help 50 companies get a top-10 spot?” asks Mike Feldman, president of Data-Rite Systems, a New York-based company that builds database applications and Web sites for a wide variety of customers. “Some of these [search engine optimizing] companies will get you banned.”
It’s true that search engines have eliminated many once-popular practices. Google, for instance, has a list of no-nos for sites looking to optimize searches: The banned list includes strategies such as keyword stuffing, outright manipulation of Google’s PageRank feature, duplicate copy on Web sites, and overly aggressive cross-linking.
Other practices that Google warns companies to avoid are creating shadow domains (often owned by a search engine optimizer) “that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects” and placing doorway pages “loaded with keywords on the client’s site.” The danger with shadow domains is that a search engine optimizer “may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor’s domain” if a relationship with a client goes south. “If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by” the search engine optimizer, note the Google guidelines.
It is important to note, too, that optimizing one day does not guarantee high rankings the next day. Your competitors, too, are also attempting to optimize their sites, which could knock a search leader off its perch. “Everyone is trying to break the code,” says Thompson.
And that code is constantly changing. Google and other search engines are perpetually revising their algorithms, with one researcher noting a trend toward “organic” searches which are less favorable to optimized sites.
So for now, people still trump the machines. “If you are as valuable as possible to human beings,” Sterne says, “the search engines will reward you.”
–Teri Robinson is a freelance writer in New York.