How To Gain Visibility On The Search Engines For Your Website
Have you ever asked yourself whether you should take the plunge and optimize your website
, or would you be better off simply utilizing Pay Per Click or other paid advertising techniques?
If your site is brand new then there is a high probability that a combination of both would be the order of the day. However, without knowing what your company's philosophy is, or know what how much of a budget you have and what kind of return of interest you are looking for it would be hard to make a solid judgement.
Not that we are trying to cop out of giving a straight answer, we just want to be honest so the client's expectations are realistic, and most importantly they are met.
If you are unsure whether you should set about running your own search engine marketing campaign then hopefully this article will give you a little baseline knowledge so you hit the ground running, or at the very least know what you should be looking for from a search engine optimization company that you might employ.
So what do you want to do? Search engine optimization or search engine marketing? There is a difference.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization, also known as Organic Search Engine optimization, offers quite a few advantages over Pay Per Click (PPC) and other paid advertising campaigns, however the results are very rarely seen in the very short term. Good techniques (also known as White Hat search engine optimization) need to employed so that your website enjoys lasting benefits and doesn't find itself barred from the major search engines.
Organic listings (which are a direct result of your search engine optimization efforts) are seen by the public as being more unbiased than the paid for sponsored listings. Therefore immediately the trust factor is increased. One study showed only 14% of searchers stated that they trust paid listings, and 29% found them to be 'annoying'. As mentioned, one benefit of good search engine optimization is that the results are usually lasting and once you get good organic rankings, even if you stopped and did nothing else there is a good chance that your site will remain visible on the Internet for years to come. I am not saying they will remain on page one of the major search engines results pages, because the likelihood is that they won't keep their current ranking if you suddenly stop what you are doing, but they will show up somewhere in the results pages. The reality is though, that initially search engine optimization (unless you are able to do it yourself) can be just as costly, or even more expensive than PPC or paid advertising. If you choose the wrong search engine optimization company to work with then it could be tantamount to throwing your money down the drain. No doubt you have seen some companies 'GUARANTEEING' a number 1 ranking on page 1 of Google. If you get these types of offers in your in-box then my advice is to run a mile. Google is an independent company which doesn't do deals with search engine optimization companies to allow them to guarantee a number 1 ranking for any particular key phrase.The only way to acheive that all important number one on page one ranking on Google or any other search engine is to ensure you follow the guidelines for those specific search engines that you are targeting, and to continue working on your site to ensure others don't overtake your site on the rankings list. If you do employ a search engine optimization company to do this work for you, ensure that they do both on-page and off-page optimization. Ensuring that your meta-tags are correctly inserted is not going to be enough, on its own, to move your site up the rankings list so it is in a prominent position so that it can be found.
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
Search Engine Marketing is really a broad term which is used to describe everything one would do that utilizes the various search engines with the common goal of promoting a web site to increase its traffic, and, in the case of websites that promote a business, also increase profits. Search Engine Optimization, would therefore be a subset of SEM. In addition to SEO, others aspects of search engine marketing include:
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Pay Per Click is simply when you create a short ad and place it on a search engine and/or directory. You also need to set a maximum bid which is linked to specific key phrases that you are targeting. When these key phrases are searched upon then your ad will show. If some one clicks the ad then your account will be charged something up to that maximum limit. The actual amount being determined by the amount of competition you have bidding on the specific key phrase. Be aware that if you do not monitor these accounts regularly you could be hit with some large bills for clicks that you may never have had a chance of converting into a sale in the first place.
- Paid Directory Inclusion
Rather than waiting a long period of time for your website to naturally appear in certain directories, you can, on occasion, pay for your site to be included immediately. This is known as Paid Directory Inclusion. Certain directories will only include your website if you agree to pay them. Others offer it as an option to speed up the process for your inclusion.
Unless a directory specifically targets your niche group of customers it probably isn't worth pay the inclusion fee and you might want to wait for it to show up naturally over time.
- Paid Advertising
This involves placing advertisements on the search engine result pages (SERPs). It shouldn't be confused with PPC advertising since, usually, you pay for for each impression (i.e. how often your ad appears on a SERP, rather than paying only when it is clicked). Some search engines only offer this option instead of PPC, and can prove to be very costly if you are not getting sales to back up the investment.
The above search engine marketing practices, in contract to pure search engine optimization, offer immediate satisfaction in terms of your website becoming visible on the search engines and directories.
If done correctly then you could also see an increase in traffic too, which, after all really is the sole purpose of this exercise. So if your budget allows and you feel confident in setting up one or more of these services then this may be a good option for you.
Having said that though I wouldn't suggest any kind of paid search engine marketing efforts without having a search engine optimization program running in tandem.
The major disadvantage of only running a search engine marketing campaign without the search engine optimization part of is that you will only get the benefits while you continue to pay. Once you stop paying, then if your website will no longer show up in the search engine page results, and you are back to square one.
Something you should consider when deciding to eliminate your search engine optimization techniques from your search engine marketing campaigns is that most people click on the organic rankings (usually on the first page of the search results) than those who click on the sponsored results on the sides or top of the pages.
Another consideration is that studies have shown that 70% of searchers prefer to click on the organic listings compared to the paid listings. But since your ad is competing against all the other ads out there who target the same key phrases as yours then this 30% figure is reduced considerably.
At best you can hope to get a 3% ratio of visitors clicking your actual paid ad. So you really need to have a well written and appealing ad to entice prospective customers to choose yours above the others.
One last point to mention is that regardless of whether you use to just use Search Engine Optimization or the array of Search Engine Marketing techniques, you really need to measure your results. Add a good analytics system (e.g. Google Analytics to measure not only how many visitors you are getting to your website, but also things like where they are coming from, what key words are being used to find your site and what pages are being visited once someone lands on your website.
I wish you the best of luck and all the hits your website desires!
by: Earl Gardner.
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