Is your website living up to its full potential by communicating your message to as broad an audience as it can? Without planning and optimizing for search engines, the answer is “no.”

The team at Nuffer, Smith, Tucker employs a comprehensive SEO process as part of our interactive design services. Here is an overview of how we do it:

Step 1: Keyword Identification
The terms typed into search engines when searching for information on the web are called keywords. In this phase, all potential keywords are plotted on a spreadsheet and then narrowed down through an extensive evaluation process to the most relevant words and terms we’ll optimize the site for. These words and terms are called keyword gems.

Step 2: Build Search-Friendly Site Infrastructure
Our newly discovered keyword gems are integrated into the website elements that weigh heavily in search engine rankings including page titles, anchor tags and URLs, providing the site more
visibility.

Step 3: Determine Benchmark Data
Analytics are integrated into the site to get a clear picture of how the site is performing by tracking traffic driving-keywords, referring sites and custom goals.

Step 4: The Balancing Act: Writing Content for People and Search Engines
Content that incorporates keywords and clearly communicates key messages is developed for the site. The key is writing content for visitors while keeping search engines in mind.

Step 5: Links and Google Page Rank
A link-building strategy may be customized. Incoming links to a site generally indicate to search engines that the site contains valuable, linkable content. Links should not be traded or purchased from link swapping services because search engines consider this cheating and will penalize the site’s ranking.

Step 6: Social Media as SEO
Social Media can also be a factor in SEO and NST helps clients develop strategic social media efforts.

When the NST SEO process is complete and the optimization and measurement tools are in place, your website can reach a broader audience and help meet overall organizational goals.

From the best screw up in news media to how to double food production to feed the hungry, in case you missed it, here’s a sampling of information shared this week by the gang at NST:

Some believe there is an entire generation that has never dialed a 1-800 number. Where are these digital natives and other web-savvy consumers going to air their grievances? http://bit.ly/eOevmS

A website called Regret the Error, which follows corrections, clarifications, apologies, and trends in the world of journalism, has some fun each year by picking its annual “Error of the Year.” http://bit.ly/evL4kZ

Given the state of the U.S. economy, the recent news of the growing number of those losing their jobs and uncertainty in Congress about extending jobless benefits, we may be facing something bordering an epidemic of hungry, needy families. http://bit.ly/fpE0ds

To adorn the office of his new Brooklyn apartment, Saif Ahmed chose a truly one-of-a-kind piece of art. He bought a kit from online retailer DNA11.com to swab some of his cheek cells, and then mailed the sample to the company. http://on.wsj.com/ihisRi

With the launch of Places, Facebook began allowing businesses to merge their Page with a Place they’ve claimed. While there are some advantages for businesses focusing on generating foot traffic to a single physical location, merging has important disadvantages including lost functionality (at least for now). http://bit.ly/evygtK

To have success as a PR professional, as with all professions, it is essential to keep up with the latest news and techniques in the industry. http://bit.ly/ejS2hs

We’ve all been hearing about Facebook’s new promotions guidelines, and here they are http://on.fb.me/a0XuTZ.

We’re getting uncomfortably close to the day when there won’t be any surviving vets of Pearl Harbor or WWII.  The history books just don’t capture the heroism of hearing these stories from the mouths of grandfathers. http://bit.ly/ewtq91

Everybody loves viral videos. That’s why they’re “viral.” Ad agencies have been trying, in their own way, to replicate the success of viral videos to help their campaigns get exposure and new fans. http://on.mash.to/ggG72D

If you’ve noticed the Google search box is now making suggestions as you type in your query, you may be wondering how this helpful change is impacting the search engine optimization strategy you painstakingly implemented on your website.

Google Instant, which launched in the U.S. in early September, begins to populate the results page before you’ve even finished typing. Google claims that Instant does not impact the ranking of search results, but the suggestions rely on human behavior and topic trends. How many people will abandon their initial search query to click on one of the suggested terms or search results that pop up as they type?

More than ever before, searchers are going to be making split second decisions about the relevancy of your listing. Organic listings, those in the first and second spots, will see higher click-through rates, and those in the third and fourth position will fall, because typical Google Instant search results show three paid ads and one organic listing while a person is still typing in the search box.

While the full impact of Google Instant is a long way from being known, there are some immediate ways you can make adjustments to keep up with the shift in search.

Revising Your SEO Tactics

New best practices advised by SearchEngineNews.com include:

• Add a call-to-action to meta tags and browser titles on main pages. The title itself has to capture attention to stand out among the paid listings that dominate the search screen.
• Type in your most popular keywords to trigger Google Instant recommendations and adjust your keyword strategies accordingly. Both broad term and long-tail keyword phrases need to be reviewed. Traffic levels for long-tail keywords are already dropping off between 20 and 47 percent since Google Instant launched.
• For Pay-Per-Click campaigns, watch your click-through rates carefully. The new streaming results will affect paid search by focusing on broader terms – creating even more competition and higher costs per click. Pay attention to your negative keyword lists, so your ads are not displayed for less relevant terms.

While facilitating a crisis media training session for a relatively large national brand, one of the participants quipped, “But I don’t even care about social media. I’d rather just deal with real people.”

So would most of us.  I long for the day when people less than a half-dozen steps away would get off their arses and have a conversation versus send a stream of e-mail notes. But I digress, and I was one of those curmudgeon print reporters 20 years ago (albeit a cub) who thought hell would freeze over before people would opt for reading their news on a computer monitor.

Every organization should realize social media’s impact on dissemination and consumption of information, news and entertainment. Market power is shifting from organizations and brands, consumer and trade, to the consumer largely because of technology. Social media continues to grow as a consumer tool for decision-making, and it still seems many organizations and brands either struggle with, or refuse to accept, how or why they need to know how to engage in the Internet-connected, Tweeting, Facebooking, photo- and video-uploading stakeholder-engaged world. The seemingly few who are connected, Tweeting, Facebooking, et al. and inviting engagement from stakeholders recognize these connections are good for their organizations, brands and their business.  They “get it” that engagement is critical, whereas hordes of others in social media just see this as another platform to push out marketing messages a la Web 1.0

This consumer-driven engagement brings peer-to-peer endorsements and criticisms on organizations, brands, products, services and issues to an extraordinarily higher level than ever experienced. Word, not too long ago, spread gradually – days, weeks, maybe even months.  Today, with the Internet and all its social media outlets, we’re talking a matter of hours and even minutes, and not just with the families on your block.  Consumers can reach entire communities locally and globally.

That alone has a profound impact on how we manage crisis situations.  Social media is becoming the preferred platform on which an organization’s crisis unfolds and where control of the matter at hand is won or lost.  And that preference is coming from all corners except the organizations facing the crisis.

A prime example is the “United Breaks Guitars” fiasco.  The airline refused to take responsibility for breaking Dave Carroll’s guitar, and after nearly a year of getting nowhere, Carroll released his now famous video about United on the Internet, exposing the airline’s poor customer service. The video gained more than 500,000 views within a week, and mainstream media, including CNN, NPR, CBS, USA Today, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other traditional outlets globally, picked up the story, some citing “digital revenge.” Experts far and wide said United waited too long, finally proclaiming on Twitter, “This has struck a chord w/us and we’ve contacted him directly to make it right.” Too little too late? Many say, “absolutely.”

Ditto for Domino’s.  The pizza HQ waited 24 hours before posting a response on YouTube, where two workers – clearly anticipating their Culinary Institute of America acceptance letters – literally picked at some new ideas for ingredients.

There’s also Nestle, when consumers got a sweet tooth for revenge over the company’s interactions with consumers and Greenpeace supporters on Nestle’s Facebook page.  When you insult someone online, be prepared for the mob mentality – and to never win.

And there’s British Petroleum.  Where do we begin?  How about just looking at the hijacking of its brand on Twitter (see @BPGlobalPR).  Yes, it can happen to you and most know it’s a fake, but the lesson is realizing the risk of losing control of your brand.

This is all what digital trends expert Steve Rubel says clearly about what we’re facing: “An entire generation is growing up that will never dial a 1-800 number to reach customer care.”

We are dealing with real people, about 227.7 million of them in the U.S.; just not on the phone or in person – they’re on your desktop, laptop, mobile phone, iPad and soon to the next tech gadget coming down the pipeline, except for Kin.

Are you ready?