Posts Tagged ‘search engines’

If you asked most web based companies what’s the one thing more than anything else they would like to add to their business, what do you think it would be? Getting to the very top of Google. And once such greatness is achieved, staying put for the long term.

If you want your website to do well in the search engine giant known as Google, then play by their rules and you’ll go a long way. But what is it that Google actually likes? Well for one they want your URL or domain name to represent what your site is actually about.

For instance if you have a domain name called “Natural Steel Sheds” Google expects the website and the content therein to be based around this of course. You could also add other pages about “Synthetic Sheds” and “Concrete Based Sheds”, but if you were to have a page about “Car Products” you shouldn’t expect to rank well for this term.

This mistake is often made by many businesses before they launch their online business. Sometimes people would choose a family name or a partnership name for a domain, if they are solicitors for example and they want to brand this name.

Another major development that Google seems to like your website to have is backlinks directed to your website from other sites of a similar vein to yours. There are some technical considerations that your website should have like having your chosen keywords listed inside an element known as a meta tag. Your main keyword or area of business should also be listed inside an element known as the title tag.

But all things being equal between 2 competing websites which one is going to win in the rankings contest? The one that has been employing the best seo plan. What is SEO? Seo stands for search engine optimisation. It is a process of making your website more favourable to Google by using a number of different strategies.

Creating backlinks and promoting your website takes a lot of time, effort and money. Everything starts with keyword research but before that you need to have a clear defined understanding of what your business is all about.

Many businesses chase after is the wrong keywords. Either keywords that have not enough people searching for them, or have too much competition, or that are not ” buying keywords”. If you get this wrong your business could soon sink.

So everything starts with keyword research. A highly specialised search engine optimization company can help you with this essential part of your search engine marketing campaign plan. This is not a fast process but it will save you a lot of money in the long run if you do it properly.

After that a search engine optimization marketing company can use the many tactics in their arsenal to begin targeting the keywords that will bring business into your website. They will be able to do the promotional and marketing work a lot faster than you can on your own. And let’s face it your major competitors are likely one step ahead of you in this area as they have been working with a search optimization company for a long time.

If you are struggling with poor internet results In the words of Sir Alex Ferguson, fail to prepare- prepare to fail. Seo City a seo Northern Ireland based company can help you with your search engine optimization plan.

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With the current rise of pay per click (PPC) advertising services such as Yahoo Search Marketing, Google and Microsoft adCenter, professional search engine optimization (SEO) companies are having to deal more and more with the issue of why their clients should spend money on traditional SEO when they can simply spend money on PPC and see instant results in the search engines.

Traditional Search Engine Optimization

First I will define what traditional SEO is. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a procedure of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. In simple terms, SEO is the straightforward activity of making certain a website can be found in search engines for important words and phrases

Pay Per Click

Now I will define what PPC is making use of Google Adwords as an case study. PPC or pay per click is a service in which an advertiser selects specific keywords or phrases and then creates a listing that will show up when someone searches for that phrase. The advertiser selects an amount they are prepared to fork out for each click on their listing which results in a visit to their site – thus the term “pay per click”. At Google Adwords, you can bid anywhere from $.10 up to $50.00 for each click.

If other advertisers have picked the same keyword or phrase as yours, you then are competing against them for the highest position. Whoever is ready to spend the most shows up first and the others following in order. What PPC has granted one to do then is to easily “pay” their way to the top whereas conventional SEO takes a great deal of time and effort.

The overriding question then is how valuable is PPC and should it replace standard search engine optimization techniques?

Pros and Cons of Pay Per Click

First of all you must realize that PPC will never help improve your positioning in the typical search results. PPC listings most always appear in a “Sponsored or Featured” area which is usually at the top or side of the regular search results. While it really is nice to “show up first”, however recent studies by Comscore shows that clicks on paid search results has gone down over time, and is now ~22%. That means 3 out of 4 individuals will trust the results in the natural listing in contrast to the results in the PPC listing, and will click on the organic results – which are attributed to SEO.

Pay per click will not optimize your site so that it reflects who you are and what you offer. If your site is poorly optimized before you begin to advertise it with PPC, it will still be poorly optimized afterwards. Furthermore, the cost per click (CPC) is dependent on the ‘quality score’ of your web page. If it is not properly optimized for the search engines using SEO, you will always be paying more for your PPC ads compared to your competitors who have integrated SEO with their PPC advertising campaigns.

On the other hand, a well executed SEO plan will enhance your position in the organic search results. You will have a finely tuned web page that reflects who you are and what you provide. One particular client in the dry cleaning business was averaging 8% of their new client acquisitions from their web site. They employed a conventional SEO campaign targeting 7 keyword phrases and are now seeing 83% of new client acquisitions come directly from their website. They have been maintaining this campaign for a period of 6 months now at a cost of only $100 per month, in contrast to the $1000 per month they were previously spending on PPC marketing.

Another downfall to PPC is that when you stop paying for PPC advertising, your listings disappears and so does the traffic they bring. With the recent move by numerous PPC search engines to raise their minimum bid requirements, the charges for keywords are only going to increase over time as far more advertisers join the market, bid higher prices for each keyword and fight for the significant #1 position in the paid search listing results. With PPC advertising, it’s a bidding war that favours advertisers with greater budgets.

In most cases, once you have good positioning in the regular search results via SEO, you will continually receive free traffic. It may require some minor adjustments from time to time but all in all brings in consistent free traffic so long as people are searching for your products or services. You are not held hostage to having to continuously throw money at search engines to maintain your listings.

SEO has to be the foundation of your online marketing strategy because in the long run, the rewards of SEO will far outweigh anything else you do.

Want to find out more about SEO? Visit AdVantage SEO on how to choose the best Search Engine Optimization service for your needs.

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