Search Engine Optimization: A Tandem Approach

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary has five definitions for the word tandem. Used as an adjective, tandem means:

“1: consisting of things or having parts arranged one after the other

2: working or occurring in conjunction with each other”

If you are marketing your business on the Internet, you may be faced with this challenge and dilemma: the popularity of the Internet with the major search engines and the popularity with your potential customers do not necessarily coincide. In other words, search engines, and Google in particular, rank sites in terms of quality content and link popularity to other relevant sites. People rank sites based on their immediate needs or preferences.

Consider this: is the site listed in the top position on page one in Google always the best fit for what you’re looking for? Of course not. Could there be another site among the ten million sites listed that would lead you to a better product or service? Absolutely. Are you going to search ten million sites to find out? No way. It’s like the old philosophical question: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it fall, was there a sound when the tree fell? If you can’t find the best site, it’s better that it doesn’t exist.

In three previous articles: 1) Search Engine Optimization for Beginners; 2) Search engine optimization: the long road to success on the Internet; and 3) Website Redesign: A Dangerous Path. This author described the steep learning curve required to try to understand the ever-changing goal called search engine optimization for his website. The purpose of this article is to describe a joint approach to search engine optimization and why this technique can be useful in achieving the dual goals of popularity of your site with search engines and popularity with your potential customers.

Every day the Internet becomes more and more complex and sophisticated. Things we take for granted today, like Internet radio, movie trailers, Google Earth, social networking, dating, multiplayer video games, You Tube, could hardly be imagined five years ago. People like moving pictures and good sounds on the Internet. It follows that if your site has some of these types of features, people may like your website more.

Today search engines do not see dynamic content on the internet. It’s like a movie that is visible to visitors and invisible to search engines. It is this dichotomy that inspired a tandem approach to search engine optimization. A site can have a normal static section (or version) where nothing moves and a dynamic section where many things move to draw the visitor’s attention to the product or service. The two approaches can be combined on one site, but it can be extraordinarily annoying to have things in motion if it annoys your prospect, and extremely boring if your customer prefers flashy images with content. It’s a tough decision to settle for a combined static and dynamic site, or a tandem approach. You can give your visitors a choice with the tandem approach.

In 1892, Harry Dacre wrote a song called Daisy, Daisy; most people know it as A bike made for two. Here are the lyrics:

There is a flower inside my heart

Margaret, Margaret!

Planted one day by a glancing dart,

Planted by Daisy Bell!

Whether she loves me or loves me not,

Sometimes it’s hard to tell;

Yet I long to share the lot

From the beautiful Daisy Bell!

Chorus:

daisy daisy,

Give me your answer do!

I’m half crazy

All for your love!

It will not be an elegant marriage,

I can’t afford a carriage

But you’ll look sweet in the seat

Of a bicycle built for two!