This deck from Rand is a good read for startups and businesses new to the concept of inbound marketing.
What I liked about it: Rand clearly denotes that SEO is not inbound marketing, but a tactic utilized for inbound marketing.
Inbound Marketing – any tactic that earns visitor interest, instead of buying it.
When performing a branded search for a company in Google you may have noticed something like the following display at the top of search engine results:
Optimized Site Links Example
Google will attempt to display an expanded business listing like the one above when someone is searching for a specific business (branded search).
Expanded business listings, or Site Links, provide additional information about the business being searched for.
Pay close attention to the few words below each Site Link. Notice how the words are descriptive in regard to each specific Site Link.
Optimized Site Links
In most cases, those few words below each Site Link are typically pulled from the Meta Description of each corresponding page. So, if you’ve been optimizing your Meta Descriptions all along, you are most likely in good shape or off to a good start. If you have duplicate Meta Descriptions in place this is where things could get a little sloppy (see below example).
Everything but those few words below each Site Link is determined by Google, which attempts to utilize popular or high ranking pages or posts as Site Links. Site Links seem to be changing on a semi-frequent basis, which means it would be a good idea to optimize all Meta Descriptions for use in Site Links.
Non-Optimized Site Links Example
Ignoring that the above example is actually a Boise SEO company (tisk tisk), pay close attention to the duplicate Site Link descriptions. Also, ignore the excessively long title tag for the homepage which obviously goes beyond 60 characters (sheesh). I’m picking on Tribute a little because they ‘tried’ to emulate the page title of Jtree.net. All things considered, if they ever read this it’s free SEO consulting. You’re welcome! 
How to Optimize Your Website for Site Links
Since you don’t have control over what pages are selected as Site Links by Google, you might as well optimize Meta Descriptions site-wide, or for at least your top 20 pages.
Caveat
In some instances, Google may use actual text from your page instead of text from the page’s Meta Description. If this occurs, it will be up to you to locate the on-page text and optimze it for Site Links.
If you have any questions about Site Link optimization, SEO and/or Internet Marketing please contact Jtree.
About the Author
Josh has been in the search engine marketing and optimization field since the late 90s, spent time in San Francisco with one of the few Y2K .com survivors and is the founder of Jtree.net – Provider of SEO, PPC and Internet Marketing Consulting Services. He has over a decade’s worth of experience blending code and content for over 100 companies and agencies. Learn More…
