What percentage of value does SEO make versus just building a quality site? Are there required SEO things that you really gotta go for?
Links is the name of the game. Build a good website, excellent content and get a lot of links. That is 95% of the game.
Great question. I've been wondering the same thing. One thing I think is important is building links with the right anchor text. You need good SEO skills (or hire a good SEO) to decide on your best keywords. If you don't have the right keywords then you won't get nearly as much traffic as you could with the right keywords.
High quality sites should make SEO easier. If your site is high quality it will attract links naturally and you will not need to spend so much time doing link trades, or purchasing links.
SEO should be part of any new site development. Usually the case is just the opposite. Alot of our clients developed web properties based upon their personal interests and hobbies. These sites happen to have taken off to the point where they become dependent upon the income derived from the site. Because they neglected the optimization and marketing from the get go... they call us to correct the matter. So far... we've been very successful at turning around sites which previosuly ranked high or found themselves in a ban of some sort. So do yourself a favor... address the SEO/SEM from the start either from a company/firm such as ours or by yourself if you know how. It saves tremendous cost, headaches, sleepless nights and ulcers in the future.
You could have the greatest content in the world but if no one finds you it is worth very little to the world. Based on that, I'd say SEO is at least as important as good content.
what use is good content if no one can find it? without good seo it is not possible to make it big on the WWW unless you have your fate written on a gold platter with diamonds studded on it. seo is not necesary on a site where you have a very very useful service or took but if you got text on your site which you want people to read and want some of them to click on your ads then YES seo is the way to go. Link building is a part of seo not seo itself.
Hi FWIW, I think basic optimization makes a huge difference. I used to build sites (I'm a copywriter) for clients without focusing too much on keywords and the SEO basics, just focusing on great content. However, although the sites converted well, when I researched keywords and links, and started to apply those basics to sites, it meant that the owners got better results, even though they were spending much less (zero in some cases) on PPC. SEO (keywords, internal and external links, spiderable site structure) is a fantastic value-add. (You still need great content however.) In brief, SEO takes time, but it's worth it. Cheers Angela
When it comes to getting search engine traffic anchor text is pretty much everything. For a good solid site though you do need good content as a base, start there. Build up backlinks and learn about seo and researching keywords.
This is the best advice so far. In the long run, it's not about having the best site, its about having an average site but being the best marketer. Good luck!