Flatter and more-responsive organizations. Working on SEO is like taking your Web site to the doctor: a good SEO consultant will tell you what you have to do, but the hard work is up to you. Companies that listen and respond will do better than companies that justify, finger-point and go on the defensive. Healthy companies look for ways to improve; dysfunctional companies offer reasons why improvement is impossible. Companies that refuse to do the heavy lifting required to whip their site into shape generally are equally negligent in other areas of their business.

Better communication channels. SEO is by nature a cross-functional exercise. It involves many different departments, all working together toward a common goal. This approach is well within the comfort zone of healthy organizations, but totally foreign to dysfunctional ones. An SEO initiative severely tests the communication and cooperative capabilities of an organization. It requires marketing, IT, product managers and often legal to all work together, and the faster they can do this, the more positive the results will be. SEO is not a one-shot tactic. In the most competitive categories, it’s a full-out and ongoing war. The companies that can respond and adapt quickly will win that war. The ones mired in bureaucracy and butt-covering will inevitably sink in the rankings.

Healthy community connections. The new era of digital communications requires companies to be engaged in an ongoing dialogue with their community of customers. Great companies do this instinctively. Bad companies put up huge corporate communication barricades, keeping the angry hordes at bay. Because much of this dialogue happens online, these dialogues tend to generate reams of content and links. Raving customers generate link love; angry customers generate link hate and reputation management problems. A company that can effectively engage in conversations with customers will find a natural lift in organic rankings is often the result.

Efficient execution habits. Companies that keep a clean house do better organically than companies that keep skeletons in the closet. Both approaches are symptomatic of the company’s overall approach to business. Highly effective companies constantly upgrade systems and infrastructure, both in their organizations and their online presence. They invest in best of breed tools and technology. And they are able to quickly prioritize and executive as the landscape shifts. Again, a clean technical online infrastructure makes SEO much, much easier.

Executives that “get it.” C-level executives who make SEO a priority realize that the marketing landscape is shifting quickly. They’ve been paying attention to customer behavioral trends and have committed to being proactive rather than reactive. This usually indicates well-placed intelligence gathering “antennae” and feedback loops. It also indicates an executive who isn’t hopelessly mired in “old-boy” thinking and outdated command and control management models.

Corporate pride. Content might not be the sole king anymore (SEO is more of an oligarchy now) but it’s still part of the ruling class. Great cultures tend to engender pride that naturally precipitates an explosion of content. People blog about where they work, people tweet and product managers enthuse verbosely about what they’re working on. All of this generates great, searchable content online.

Companies get the SEO rankings they deserve. I’m guessing that if you asked any SEO consultant in the world, they’ll tell you their favorite clients are the ones that are the easiest to work with: clients who listen, are proactive and for whom continual improvement is a religion. Based on what I’ve seen in the past decade, this attitude extends beyond the SEO team (indeed, it has to) and permeates the entire culture. There are those who game the system and gain undeserved rankings, but more and more, “organic” rankings are just that: rankings that come from the very nature of the company and how they conduct themselves in the marketplace.

Covario’s study—“A Statistical Analysis of Features Affecting Rank in Search Engine Results”—cited external inbound links from educational (.edu) sites, the Delicious social bookmarking site, government (.gov) sites, the blog indexer Technorati.com and Wikipedia, in that order, as returning particularly high page rankings.

In considering differences among the search engines, Covario reported that Google and Yahoo put more weight on external inbound links than did Microsoft’s Live Search. Yahoo and Microsoft, meanwhile, appeared to severely penalize pages with long URL names, while Google did not; although Google gave more weight to having large pages.

Covario’s study analyzed rank results using critical terms identified by its advertiser clients. More than 25,000 different URLs were analyzed.

“While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing. Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large. This study explains why.” The increasing reach of “Member Community” Web sites across 2008.Facebook is the most popular social network and is visited monthly by three in every 10 people online in the nine markets that Nielsen tracks social networking use. Orkut in Brazil has the largest domestic online reach (70%) of any social network in these markets. One in every 11 minutes online worldwide is accounted for by social networking and blogging sites.

The social network and blogging audience is becoming more diverse in terms of age. The biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to “Member Community” Web sites globally came from the 35-49 year old age group (+11.3 million).

Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in social networking. UK mobile users have the greatest tendency to visit a social network through their handset, with 23 percent doing so, compared to 19 percent in the U.S. These numbers are a significant increase over last year- up 249 percent in the UK and 156 percent in the U.S.

First, a little background… EnvisionWeb came to me after first learning the power of web technology back in 2003. I had an idea for a business but with no real goals or background in anything web related, I knew I had a long road ahead. In that time and to this day, I would defy the critics and never stop trying to fulfill my dream of owning my own company. In turn, my ultimate goal is giving back to those who helped me along the way.

After years of constantly reading blogs, books and asking a ton of questions, I felt  my passion and direction was going towards internet marketing. Along the way, I kept learing web programming, IT and a little design along the path. I would write small programs  that were filled with bugs but I knew that internet marketing was my thing. I learned SEO from constantly reading and tweaking and then got a break doing pay per click marketing. I had no direction, just a budget of $10,000 but I knew I had to show my value. Needless to say, the $10k ran out in about 3 weeks and we only got a few sales. Luckily, my boss was forgiving and gave me a few more chances. From there I made sure to learn as much as possible and still keep that mindset to this day.

After years of dreaming of this business, we are finally here and ready. EnvisionWeb  is a full-service digital agency based in Charlotte, NC focusing on unique and kick-butt web design, web development, and interactive marketing. Wheter you need a site from scratch or need to freshen it up, EnvisionWeb is here to take care of all your digital needs. Drop us a line and tell us about your needs, and experience the unique approach EnvisionWeb can offer. Also, feel free to let us know what you think of the new site.