Late last week, as I was sitting at my workstation doing my thing, a notification window popped in from Tweetdeck showing that someone had asked the question, "Do you have a strategy or a handful of tactics". I'm not even sure if an article was linked after the question, as I was preoccupied with the task at hand, and I let the window fade with as little fanfare as it had appeared.

Strangely though, the question refused to fade. In fact it stuck with me all weekend. It stuck with me to the point that I began to really think about it in regards to almost everything that occurred over the weekend. It stuck with me to the point that I'm writing on the subject today.

Good for rank?...

I cannot deny that when I started working in SEO, (actually, applying SEO principles to the sites of my clients and myself), I was handicapped by tactical tunnel-vision and couldn't see the strategy for the trees. Keyword optimization? Check! Link-building? Check! Architecture optimized? Check! Site map submissions? Check! But what was I actually trying to accomplish?

Unfortunately, even otherwise smart business people can focus on the strategies that define success for the SEO consultant and lose sight of those which should matter to their business. If you have a strategy rather than a handful of tactics then you will have no problem responding to three little letters, W-H-Y. So, let's try that checklist again...

Keyword optimization? Check! Why? To get on the first page of Google's SERPs.

Link-building? Check! Why? To get 1000 links to my site this month.

Architecture optimized? Check! Why? So that crawlers will have an easy time on my site.

Site submissions? Check! Why? So that search engines won't miss any of my site's pages.

All valid answers to the question of "why", but not a single answer that addresses an end-goal benefit to a client's business! All of those replies are fine tactics for the SEO and even acceptable strategies for the SEO but fall short of doing much for the business owner.

... or good for business?

So, one more time, we'll look at this again, but maybe this time we start with a client' current situation, define a goal, let that shape a strategy, and use the strategy to determine our tactics.

Let's say that a client currently has a brochure site which receives 100 visits a day which typically results in 7 calls a week and 2 conversions.

MEASURABLE GOAL:

- To increase qualified leads to 70 contacts per week and to increase conversions to 15 new clients per week.

PIN-TO-THE-WALL STRATEGY:

Since the client defined hard number targets rather than percentage targets (and this makes a huge difference) we might look at a mix of traffic-building and conversion optimization strategies.
- Use on-site search engine optimization (SEO) to increase traffic
- Launch pay-per-click (PPC) campaign to increase qualified leads
- Maintain a social media marketing (SMM) strategy to increase traffic and ease conversion
- Employ online reputation management (ORM) to manage conversion friction
- Apply conversion rate optimization (CRO) principles to convert as many leads as possible

DAY TO DAY TACTICS:

- Keyword optimization, link-building, site-map submissions, directory submissions, etc. to increase SEO
- Google & Yahoo! ad campaigns with appropriate landing pages for PPC
- Facebook fan page, blog and Twitter for SMM
- Google notifications and social media monitoring for ORM
- Modify forms, purchase pages contact pages, calls-to-action, etc. to increase conversions

Suddenly everything is becoming focused on goals and deliverables and KPI's that truly matter to a business so that when we come to consider any tactics such as domain acquisition and architecture redesign we can determine whether it furthers the businesses strategic goals or just feeds the SEO's ego goals.

Tactics are fundamental and necessary, but for every tactic you consider employing, you must ask yourself "Why?", and if you can't answer the question in a direct way that matters to your cash register then perhaps that tactic doesn't fit well into your business strategy.