Developing a Model to Faciliate Search Engine Optimization of Websites by Non-IT Professionals

For enterprises which are operating websites, the promotion of its presence is a vital part of a
successful marketing. By randomly selecting websites and analyzing their content it seems
that the potentials of Search Engine Optimization are widely underestimated.
Since the beginning of the widespread use of Internet search engines IT professionals have
been trying to optimize the website content to get to the top position of the Search Engine
Results Page (SERP). Over the years search engine algorithms had to be changed because
spamming attempts like keyword stuffing, or the use of link farms made relevant content to
seem less important than the one offered by individuals who use such unethical procedures.
[1]
For the average website owner or manager it seems very difficult to decide what procedures
have to be applied to make a website’s presence more successful. Out-dated procedures are
still widely used, so enterprises have a very low chance to reach the Internet users who are
looking for the products or services they offer.
To improve the current situation the communication between non-IT professionals and IT professionals
has to be assured. The website owner or manager who often plays a passive role
in the website’s optimization process has to actively take part. The role of the IT professional
is to explain the potentials of an optimization, and incorporate the website owner’s agenda.
In this work 3 company websites will be analyzed and recommendations will be given to improve
the content and source code of selected pages. The website owners or managers will
be given instructions to implement the recommended optimization over a specific period.
Feedback loops will show if the suggested procedures have been implemented, and how
these were handled.
According to Sitecore (2007) the optimization of websites has to be regarded as continuous
process. [2] On one hand, this statement is based on the fact that the content of a website
and its pages rarely stays the same. Every time content changes the optimization procedures
have to be applied again. On the other hand, the website owner or manager has to be aware
of the technology changes. Search engine algorithms can change at any time, and ignore optimization
attempts. Also the discussion of the semantic Web where the content of a website
not only has a meaning to the user, but also to search engines, has to be included. Although
there is still no intelligent (semantic) search engine available to search the whole Web, the
direction to this kind of technology has to be considered, whereas the personalized search
promises to solve the current problems best, as it was explained by Coyle and Smyth (2007).
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