You can create and design a great website, but if no one can find it then it doesn’t have much value.  At Losasso we try to impart the importance of SEO to our clients.  We are not in the camp of “all traffic is good traffic” but rather we believe that driving qualified traffic to our client’s sites through solid search engine optimization is what is important.

There are some fairly simple steps you can follow to make sure your website is optimized and easy to find.  In an interview with USA Today, Google’s Matt Cutts imparts some of his SEO wisdom to the masses.  From making sure you are properly utilizing you “tags” to creating a blog, take a look at this article to read all the simple steps Cutts suggests in order to get your site in good SEO standing.

Marketers aren’t the only ones using SEO to their advantage.  According to a 13-month study recently released by Google, malware (short for malicious software) authors are using black hat SEO techniques to push fake anti-virus software to unsuspecting users.  Fake anti-virus programs account for 15 percent of all malware Google sees on the Web.  Malware authors have been running these fake anti-virus programs since as early as 2003, but with Google’s evolution to allow users more transparency with things like Google Trends, it has gotten extremely easy for malware writers to access trending data, stuff web sites with trending keywords, and increase the infected page’s search rankings.

Don DeBolt, director of threat research for CA’s Internet security business unit says, “They [malware authors] have perfected the use of Google trend data to build viable targets, because the content indexed is driven from popular searches at any moment in time,” he says. “In the past we saw mass keyword SEO, where static content was placed on compromised Web sites and later indexed by Google, but now that content has grown more dynamic.”

The study notes that fake anti-virus distributors rely a great deal on on-line advertisements and pages with trending keywords to do their dirty work.  They have also become quite savvy with their distribution networks, constantly rotating among “short-lived domains” so they don’t get caught.  So far, it’s worked pretty well for them, but Google is doing their best to fix the problem.  In the meantime, be cautious with what and where you click on the Web in order to remain unaffected.

You can read Google’s report here.

Google adds another signal to their search rankings algorithms:  site speed. What does that mean for you?   Possibly, not much.   Google has already implemented the change, so if your site rankings haven’t varied much recently chances are your site may not be affected.  In fact, according to Google, “Currently, fewer than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed signal.”

While site speed may not hold too much bearing on Google’s search ratings as of now, some of the other benefits of having a quick site may have you kicking your site speed into high gear.  Results from Google’s internal studies reveal what anyone who has ever used the Internet already knows, faster sites make for happier users.   But what they also show is that the speed at which a site loads plays an important role in how much time a user will spend there.

Another advantage of faster sites is reduced operating costs.  O’Reilly’s blog, Radar, sums up some of the presentations from Velocity 2009 Web Performance and Operations Conference including a presentation by Bing’s Eric Schurman and Google Search’s Jake Brutlag detailing the findings of  their independently conducted latency experiments.  Bing found that just a 2 second slowdown lowered requests per user by almost 2% and revenue per user by nearly 4.5%.  Google search discovered that delay of only 400 milliseconds caused a drop in number of searches per user by close to 0.6% and that even after fixing the delay searches per user were still down but just over 0.2%.  This shows that a slow site can negatively affect users behavior even after the problem is corrected.  Check out the whole post here.

The bottom line?  Making your site as speedy as possible has more benefits than just upping your Google search ranking – it also helps ensure your users have a pleasant experience when visiting your site and keeps them coming back for more.

Google has compiled a list of tips and tools to help you make your site run faster.  Check them out here.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is an evolving field that requires constant monitoring by a professional interactive agency. While a do-it-yourself approach to search engine optimization might seem like the fastest and cheapest method when seeking to improve your site ranking in the search engines; the truth is, doing it yourself can end up costing you more time, effort and money – and deliver less than satisfactory results.

A professional SEO consultant can point you in the right direction at the beginning of the process. If your site is floundering, they can help quickly identify what may be going wrong and develop a plan to boost your results.

Unlike a paid search (pay per click) campaign, organic search takes time to achieve results, even if you’re “doing everything right.” Working with an SEO specialist lets you focus on your business, not on the ongoing monitoring and adjustments needed to achieve and maintain good search results.

Knowing what techniques are effective, and allowed by Google and the other major engines, is critical. Experimenting with questionable techniques – known as “Black Hat SEO” – in order to boost results is one of the fastest ways to get your site banned from the search engines. A reputable SEO specialist knows what works and won’t risk using questionable tactics that could do more harm than good.

Make sure you work with an SEO specialist that understands your business. For a firm to deliver strong search results, they need to understand your business, your customers and how those customers are searching for products or services like yours. If a company promises the moon, but doesn’t want to learn more about your business, its probably time to look for another partner.

Developing and implementing ethical, effective search engine optimization techniques includes a wide range of activities. From research and planning through optimization and results tracking, SEO is an intensive process. People searching online for products or services like yours are hot, qualified leads. Make sure you are there when they are actively seeking to learn more or buy.