Upload
olatunji-adetunji
View
307
Download
3
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Seo consulting service has taken anew turn in the seo consulting firm industry, that most firm do not perform nor know the differences in a standardize context of seo packages, and how to perform their role as seo consultants with clients seo projects. This brief article encapsulate the major factors which a seo consultant or seo consulting firm should build its seo consulting services on.
Citation preview
IS SEO the chosen one...To save us from the MATRIX of web marketing or are we to expect another?
The battle must have ended but the war as just began this is an apocalyptic scenario of what the web
as become for search engine marketers…Let the tournament BEGIN!!!!!****SEO MATRIX RELOADED****
WRITTEN AND DOCUMENTED
BY
OLATUNJI.adetunji
www.seowebanlyst.com
SEO CONSULTING SERVICES BY SEO CONSULTING FIRM
SEO WEB ANALYST®™ THE WORLD’S MOST AFFORDABLE SEO FIRM
SEO CONSULTING SERVICES by SEO CONSULTING FIRM
SEO WEB ANALYST:-THE WORLD’S MOST AFFORDABLE SEO FIRM
Analyzing Website Traffic
===================================================
Analyzing Website Traffic
===================================================
Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But
before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data.
Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web traffic information that you then have to
interpret and make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be
overwhelming if you don't understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let's start
by examining the most basic data – the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly
basis.
These figures are the most accurate measure of your website's activity. It would appear on the surface
that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an
inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your
website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.
There is often a great misconception about what is commonly known as "hits" and what is really
effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply mean the number of information requests received by
the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page,
you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage
has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single
visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your
website traffic.
The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The
greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor
behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.
The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for
your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your
site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is
to figure out what that problem is.
It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your
graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how
much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those
problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.
Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website.
If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs
attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more
noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can
access the necessary information on that page. If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are
spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of
your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.
As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages,
and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing
campaign.
Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can
expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he
or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless
you notice an exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a
significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you
must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential
weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on
the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.
After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it's time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if
particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor -
meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form
or make a purchase – the more valuable that keyword is.
However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed - or should I say misdirected - to your
site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to
bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close analysis of the
keywords your visitors are using to find your site will give you a vital understanding of your visitor's
needs and motivations.
Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open
the champagne!
It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning
success.
Evaluating Web Site Performance
===================================================
Evaluating Web Site Performance
===================================================
Setting up a website is the very first step of an Internet marketing campaign, and the success or failure
of your site depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your website goals. If you don't know
what you want your site to accomplish, it will most likely fail to accomplish anything. Without goals to
guide you in developing and monitoring your website, all your site will be is an online announcement
that you are in business.
If you expect your site to stimulate some form of action, whether it is visitors filling out a form so a
representative can contact them, or purchasing a product, there are steps you can take to insure that
your website is functioning at peak efficiency. One of the first indicators of how well your site is working
for you is finding out the number of visitors in a given period of time. A good baseline measurement is a
month in which you haven't been doing any unusual offline promotional activities.
However, just because hoards of people have passed through your gates does not mean your site is
successful. Usually, you want those visitors to actually do something there. It is equally important to
monitor the number of visitors to your site who made a purchase. This figure is called the site
conversion rate, and it is an essential element of the efficacy of your website.
To find the site conversion rate, take the number of visitors per month and figure out the percentage of
them that actually performed the action your site is set up for.
For example, if you had 2,000 hits to your site, but only 25 of them purchased your product, your site
conversion rate equals 1.25%. To get this figure, take your number of visitors and divide that figure by
the number of visitors who made a purchase. Then divide that result by 100 (25 000 X 100).
If your website is set-up to get visitors to fill out a form, make sure to then figure out what the
difference is between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion rate. This is because not
everyone who fills out your form will actually become your customer. However, whether your site is set-
up to sell a service or product, or to get the visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will
measure the success or failure of your website whenever you make changes to the site.
You may find that you need to implement some additional marketing strategies if you find that traffic to
your site is extremely low. There are several effective methods to improve the flow of traffic to your
website, particularly launching a search engine optimization campaign. This campaign is targeted at
increasing your position in search engine results so that consumers can find your pages faster
and easier. You can either research the steps you need to take to improve your search engine rankings,
or employ a search engine optimization company to do the work for you.
In either case, after your have improved your search engine positions, make sure you keep on top of
them by regular monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high positions.
Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor to your website to accomplish the action the site
is set-up for. For example, if your goal is for the visitor to fill out a form, is this form easily accessible, or
does the visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If it's too difficult to get to, the customer may
just throw in the towel and move on to another site. Make sure your buttons are highly visible, and the
path to your form or ordering page quickly accessible.
Finally, have a professional evaluate the copy on your website. The goal is, of course, to get your visitor
to make a purchase or fill out your form. Website copy must be specifically geared to your online
campaign and not just a cut and paste job from your company brochure. The right copy can make the
difference between profit and loss in your online campaign.
Increasing Link Popularity
===================================================
Increasing Link Popularity
===================================================
Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are the first tool
that potential customers use to find the products and services they
need. This is why link popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not
find your website, you have no possibilities of making any sales.
You're probably wondering what the blazes are popular about a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link
popularity refers to the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines, and it determines the
ranking your page gets when keywords are entered into a search engine. So, you're probably wondering,
how do I make my link popular?
Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking to sites that have links to their pages from
related, quality sites. It's a simple formula, but a very important one. Google created the system, and
now virtually all the most popular search engines employ it to rank your web pages in their indexes.
The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will be to achieve link popularity, but without
achieving this step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly on any search engine. But don't be
discouraged; there are tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the most competitive
keywords.
There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is that just linking up with a large number of
other websites will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have quite the opposite effect. This is
particularly true when pertaining to websites that are nothing more than "link farms" - pages containing
line after line of indiscriminate links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against your website
if you are associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them!
The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site you are linking to. Never link to a page you have
reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you want your website to appear as is
indiscriminate and cheap.
Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link popularity, if not completely destroy it.
So let's get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link popularity and improve your rankings to
stellar status on all the popular search engines.
The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the door, is to get a listing in a popular directory,
such as Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is business-related, you will want to be listed on
Yahoo, and despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year, it will be money well spent. If your
site is non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take time and follow-up to actually get it listed.
Open Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are business-related or non-commercial, but be
prepared to make a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site listed.
You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of appropriate category, and this just takes some
common sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from an Alpaca farm located in the
middle of Nowhere, Tiny State, do NOT submit you’re listing to "Retailers from Nowhere, Tiny State."
BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine Alpaca
Wool" category. You will not only associate yourself with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a
national category.
The next step after you have attained directory listings is to locate other quality sites that will increase
your link popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related to yours, so not only will your link
popularity increase, but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to avoid your competitors
and look for sites that are useful to your site's visitors. Let's look at the Alpaca Wool site example.
Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the
knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are also greater. By linking to a related site that will be
relevant to your website's traffic, you are increasing both of your site's business prospects - and both of
your sites' link popularity.
Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have to do some research when you are looking for
possible linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for your search. Make sure you enter
keywords that you think quality customers will also enter to find your own site.
Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked, non-competing websites that have a links or
resources page. Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the quality of the product, the
graphics, and the ease of use.
Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and determine if your own site would fit in with the
crowd.
When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must set out to woo them. The first thing to do
is to add a link on your own links page to their site. This is an essential first step; it shows good faith, and
ups your chances significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added their link, you must contact the
webmaster of their site.
Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your
message is not junk mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat that you have added a link to
their page on your site. A hook like this almost always insures the reader will read on.
Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much you appreciate their website. Make sure you
emphasize that you have actually visited their site, and that their site is not just a random pick. Give
them the address of your links page, and ask them to check out the link for themselves. It's a good idea
to mention that they will not only benefit from the increased traffic your website will direct their way,
but you will also increase their link popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so essential, but do
this in a sentence or two so you don't sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would greatly
appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on their own links page to your website.
Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of
quality and non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant sites, be sure to check this website
frequently to see if they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month, and if no link appears,
try another charming email. Then give it another month, and if your site is still absent from their links
page, it's time to remove their link from your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a link
further than this is if you believe a site is crucial to your link popularity and your business needs. Just
remember to keep all your communications complimentary and cordial.
Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search engines frequently to see if your link popularity
has improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It will take some time and a good deal of
work. There is no way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your link popularity, which is why
search engines regard it with such importance.
By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined site or you will never persuade anyone to link
up to you.
Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long as it takes, until you achieve link popularity
stardom!
Increasing Your Search Engine Ranking
===================================================
Increasing Your Search Engine Ranking
===================================================
The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so
you have probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you - the time has come to face your
website! A high search engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you have the slightest
desire to actually succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this issue.
At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search
engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine
rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely to make a purchase.
The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your
website. That's what search engine optimization is about.
You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize
your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make
some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should
examine is the title bar on your homepage.
The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you
access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage's title bar
should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company
name.
Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every
single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page
itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating
keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each
other.
The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites
that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the
most important keywords - the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find
your site.
Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at
least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is
essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in
HTML and not graphic format.
To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are
able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case,
ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine
rankings.
Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know these sounds like something out of science fiction, but
it is really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags are the key to high search engine
rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it's worth adding them in the event that a
search engine will use meta tags in their ranking formula.
To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must access the code. To do this, click the "view"
button on the browser menu bar, and select "source." This will pull up a window revealing the
underlying code that created the page.
If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a meta tag would
read: meta name="keywords" content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, ask your webmaster
to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.
Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of
search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link
popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.
If you type in "free link popularity check" in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show
you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren't many sites linked up to yours, or that
the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity
campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with
your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with.
Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more
quality traffic to your website.
Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. Before
you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed
above, and see if you can't boost your rankings yourself. Don't ever ignore this all-important factor in
Internet marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will
be directed your way.
Monitoring Search Engine Positions
===================================================
Monitoring Search Engine Positions
===================================================
Since search engines are the first stop for people on the Internet looking for goods or services, the
position your website appears in search results is an important factor.
If your URL shows up far down the results list, the chances of the consumer never finding you increase
incrementally.
Once you achieve a high search engine position, it is essential that you make sure you maintain the high
ranking you have worked so hard to achieve.
This means you must come up with a strategy to monitor your search engines positions. This strategy is
crucial to the success of any marketing campaign. Think of your search engine positions as your online
portfolio. Would you let your stock portfolio be ruled by chance and market fluctuations, or would you
keep close tabs on your stocks so you could buy and sell when the time is right? This is the way you must
consider your search engines positions.
Be aware that at first, after you have launched your search engine campaign and done all the right
things to increase rankings, you will most likely see a continual upward climb. What you need to be on
the lookout for is the moment that upward climb reaches a plateau. When this happens, your search
engine position campaign moves into stage two, the monitoring and protecting stage.
In stage two, do not be concerned about the short-term fluctuations in your positions. These are similar
to the subtle rising and falling of stocks in a portfolio.
Short-term movement is an integral part of the whole process. It's the long-term changes that you must
watch for and prepare to act on immediately.
Analyzing the long-term trends of search engines positions is imperative. The way in which search
engines rank websites may change at the drop of hat. If you are unaware of these changes - many of
which are subtle yet can be deadly to your ranking - your position may drop to the bottom of the list
before you can get your bearings. To prevent this kind of precipitous drop, you must create a system to
monitor your positions on a monthly basis. Devise a chart to keep tabs on your top ranking positions or
your top pages, and make sure to watch "the market" closely.
Each search engine uses a formula to compute website rankings. When a search engine changes this
formula in any way, it may raise or lower your ranking. Some search engines use a number of different
formulas, rotating them so that a formula doesn't become overused or outdated.
Depending on which formula is being applied, your search engine position may suddenly drop or rise in
rank significantly. Therefore, you must check your positions frequently in order to catch when a search
engine changes formulas and what effect it has on your positions.
You must also deal with your competition - a crucial factor you must always be vigilant about. Your
competitor's position may suddenly rise, automatically lowering your position. Or their position may
drop, pushing your position higher. Each month, expect position changes due to the continual changes
that are occurring in your competitor's position, and be prepared to adjust your marketing strategy to
compensate for decreased rankings. Monitoring these fluctuations will also give you vital information
about how to improve your website to increase your position in search results.
Of course, you must discern what the most popular search engines are in order for your monitoring
efforts to be effective. Right now, there are ten popular search engines that direct most of Internet
traffic to your sites. The challenge you face is that these top ten may change from month to month.
This means that your must not only monitor your search engine positions, but you must also keep track
of the ranking popularity of the search engines you are monitoring. Find out which search engines
people use most frequently every month and be sure to live in the present!
People are fickle about their favorite search engines, and it takes constant vigilance to follow their
dalliances. The search engines they loved when you first launched your campaign may be old news in
the next few months. You must adjust your list of engines according to the whims of the Internet users.
Check out
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html
for a current list of website favorites.
Another factor to monitor carefully is a sudden drop of your positions in all search engines. This is not
the same as monthly fluctuations - this is a neon red warning sign!
It could mean a number of different things.
It all your search engine positions have plummeted, it may indicate that search engines spiders - those
sneaky programs that seek out your site and rank their positions - have found some type of problem
with your website. If you have recently changed the code, for instance, the spider may become utterly
confused and consequently drop your positions disastrously. If a spider creeps up on your website when
it is down for adjustments or changes, you may actually disappear from a search engine index entirely.
Or a search engine may drastically change its formula, and suddenly your entire website comes up as
irrelevant. If that search engine is a current favorite, it may create a domino effect, causing all of your
position to drop in all search engines.
Some search engines rely on the results from other search engines, and it is vital that you know which
engines these are and keep track of all the engines they influence. The biggest problem here is that
search engines will sometimes change affiliations, and this can create a major shift in the geography of
the Internet. For example, recently Yahoo decided to display only results gleaned from Google. So you
must not only monitor your own positions, but you must keep abreast of seismic shifts in the landscape
of the Internet as a whole.
Finally, pay attention to your keywords. Keywords are the foundation bricks of the entire search engine
system, and they demand individual scrutiny in your monitoring efforts.
If you have found that a number of your positions have plummeted, it may mean that a page of your
website has become invisible or inaccessible to search engine spiders.
Or the competition for that particular keyword or phrase has recently rocketed into outer space. In
either case, you must act quickly and efficiently to regain lost ground.
Your search engine marketing campaign is an investment. If costs you time and money on a continual
basis. Protect this investment as diligently as you would your financial portfolio. In the same way, track
your positions from an objective perspective, and monitor your positions on a regular basis. Make sure
your time and effort reap rewards by keeping your eye on the big picture - your long-term marketing
campaign.
Paid URL Inclusion
===================================================
Paid URL Inclusion
===================================================
There are many ways to promote your website and one of the most efficient ways is to use search
engines. Search engines are the first stop for most people trying to find information, services, and
products online. Because of this, it is essential that your website appears quickly in search results.
The Internet contains numerous search engines, some of which offer what is known as "paid inclusion."
This means that you pay the specific search engine an annual fee for your web page to be included in
their index.
Of course, every search engine already has an automated program commonly called a "spider" that
indexes all the web pages it locates online, and it does this for free. So whether you pay or not, your
web page will eventually be indexed by all Internet search engines, as long as the spider can follow a link
to your page. The major issue is, then, how quickly your page is indexed.
A search engine that offers a paid URL inclusion uses an extra spider that is programmed to index the
particular pages that have been paid for. The difference between the spider that indexes pages for free
and the spider that indexes only pages for a fee is speed. If you have paid for inclusion, the additional
search engine spider will index your page immediately.
The debate over paid URL inclusion centers around the annual fee. Since the regular spider of these
search engines would eventually get around to indexing your web page anyway, why is a renewal fee
necessary? The fee is necessary to keep your pages in the search engine's index.
If you go the route of paid inclusion, you should be aware that at the end of the pay period, on some
search engines, your page will be removed from their index for a certain amount of time.
It's easy to get confused about whether you would benefit from paid inclusion since the spider of any
search engine will eventually index your page without the additional cost. There are both advantages
and disadvantages to paid URL inclusion, and it is only by weighing your pros and cons that you will be
able to decide whether to spring for the extra cash or not.
The advantages are obvious: rapid inclusion and rapid re-indexing. Paid inclusion means that your pages
will be indexed quickly and added to search results in a very short time after you have paid the fee. The
time difference between when the regular spider will index your pages and when the paid spider will is a
matter of months. The spider for paid inclusion usually indexes your pages in a day or two. Be aware
that if you have no incoming links to your pages, the regular spider will never locate them at all.
Additionally, paid inclusion spiders will go back to your pages often, sometimes even daily. The
advantage of this is that you can update your pages constantly to improve the ranking in which they
appear in search engines, and the paid URL inclusion spider will show that result in a matter of days.
First and foremost, the disadvantage is the cost. For a ten page website, the costs of paid URL inclusion
range from $170 for Fast/Lycos to $600 for Altavista, and you have to pay each engine their annual fee.
How relevant the cost factor is will depend on your company.
Another, and perhaps more important, disadvantage is the limited reach of paid URL inclusions. The
largest search engines, Google, Yahoo, and AOL, do not offer paid URL inclusion. That means that the
search engines you choose to pay an inclusion fee will amount to a small fraction of the traffic to your
site on a daily basis.
Google usually updates its index every month, and there is no way you can speed up this process. You
will have to wait for the Google spider to index your new pages no matter how many other search
engines you have paid to update their index daily. Be aware that it is only after Google updates their
index that your pages will show up in Google, Yahoo, or AOL results.
One way to figure out whether paid URL inclusion is a good deal for your company is to consider some
common factors.
First, find out if search engines have already indexed your pages. To do this, you may have to enter a
number of different keywords, but the quickest way to find out is to enter your URL address in quotes. If
your pages appear when you enter the URL address but do not appear when you enter keywords, using
paid inclusion will not be beneficial. This is because your pages have already been indexed and ranked
by the regular spider. If this is the case, your money would be better spent by updating your pages to
improve your ranking in search results. Once you accomplish this, you can then consider using paid
inclusion if you want to speed up the time it will take for the regular spider to revisit your pages.
The most important factor in deciding whether to use paid URL inclusion is to decide if it's a good
investment. To figure this out, you have to look at the overall picture: what kind of product or service is
it that you’re selling and how much traffic are you dependent on to see a profit?
If your company sells an inexpensive product that requires a large volume of traffic to your site, paid
inclusion may not be the best investment for you; the biggest search engines do not offer it, and they
are the engines that will bring you the majority of hits. On the other hand, if you have a business that
offers an expensive service or product and requires a certain quality of traffic to your site, a paid URL
inclusion is most likely an excellent investment.
Another factor is whether or not your pages are updated frequently. If the content changes on a daily or
weekly basis, paid inclusion will insure that your new pages are indexed often and quickly. The new
content is indexed by the paid spider and then appears when new relevant keywords are entered in the
search engines. Using paid inclusion in this case will guarantee that your pages are being indexed in a
timely manner.
You should also base your decision on whether or not your pages are dynamically generated. These
types of pages are often difficult for regular spiders to locate and index. Paying to include the most
important pages of a dynamically generated website will insure that the paid spider will index them.
Sometimes a regular spider will drop pages from its search engine, although these pages usually
reappear in a few months. There are a number of reasons why this can happen, but by using paid URL
inclusion, you will avoid the possibility. Paid URL inclusion guarantees that your pages are indexed, and
if they are inadvertently dropped, the search engine will be on the lookout to locate them immediately.
As you can see, there are numerous factors to consider when it comes to paid URL inclusion. It can be a
valuable investment depending on your situation. Evaluate your business needs and your website to
determine if paid URL inclusion is a wise investment for your business goals.
Advertising your services or products on the Internet is both extremely effective and extremely
competitive. There are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your website; Pay-Per-Click is one of
the options you can choose from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine optimization
campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of
search engine results as possible. One of the differences is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click
campaign versus months for a good SEO campaign.
Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that most search engines, including some of the largest
ones, now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which translates to your company paying the bid
amount every time the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is the added bonus that when a
per-click site sends your website traffic, your site often appears in the results of other prevalent search
engines.
As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and disadvantages. If you understand the process
and monitor your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very effective. One of the greatest
advantages is that you never have to tweak your web pages to change your position in search engine
results, as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click campaign is
pay a fee.
Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click process. You just bid and you're up and running.
It doesn't demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more you know about search engines
and keywords, the easier - and more effective - the process will be.
The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding war. A higher bid than yours will lower your
position on search engine results. This means that you will have to raise your bid to regain your position
- which can obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are bidding on a popular keyword.
In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective form of marketing for your business, you must
do some computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site is worth. You can compute this
value by dividing the profit you make on your website over a given period of time by the total number of
visitors for that same time period. For example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were
2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50 cents. The basic formula is profits divided by
visitors.
The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is
to show a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents
per click.
Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only
way around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be paying too much for each individual hit.
The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything you can about search engine keyword research.
The good news is there isn't a limit to the amount of keywords you can add to your bid because
additional keywords do not add additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for you because
there is no need to optimize your site to index a particular set of keywords.
Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than others are, but they will not cost you anything
except time to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the popular search engines that offer
pay-per-click, one called Overture provides an online tool that will give you the data on how often
particular keywords are entered into their search engine. They also offer suggestions for keywords after
you enter a description of your site.
In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You must understand that the object of your
description is not to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as possible so that only those visitors
who are likely to buy your service or product go to your site. You must use expert marketing copy to
guarantee that your description is both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal candidates to your
site. This description is your most powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.
Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very
important that you bear in mind that the results of the top search engines providing pay-per-click
advertising, which are Overture and Adwords Select, usually appear on other popular search engines.
Because of this, the competition for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find that the bidding
price balloons too high for pay-per-click to yield a profit.
If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on that particular keyword and try another one.
Remember: when you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in essence losing the bidding
war.
Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in place to closely track the effectiveness of your
keyword.
It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a monthly basis.
Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis of visitor behavior can produce invaluable
knowledge about consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is
essential to your overall business needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click campaign is a
success.
Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings
===================================================
Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings
===================================================
Your website's ranking on search engines is a vital element of your overall marketing campaign, and
there are ways to improve your link popularity through legitimate methods.
Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link
popularity by faking out search engines.
The good news is that search engines have figured this out, and are now on guard for "spam" pages and
sites that have increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a search engines tracks down such a
site, that site is demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search engine's index.
The bad news is that some high quality, completely above-board sites are being mistaken for these web
page criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in the "spam" net and tossed from a
search engine's index, even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment. But there
are things you can do - and things you should be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind of
misperception.
Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are linked to. Google pioneered these criteria
for assigning website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use it. There are
legitimate ways to go about increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you must be
scrupulously careful about which sites you choose to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on
sites that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity.
They have actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."
You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your
site; penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the link to a bad neighborhood. But you
must check, and double-check, all the links that are active on your links page to make sure you haven't
linked to a bad neighborhood.
The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have linked to have been penalized. The
most direct way to do this is to download the Google toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com. You will then
see that most pages are given a "Page rank" which is represented by a sliding green scale on the Google
toolbar.
Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale. This is especially important when the scale
is completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages have been penalized. If you are linked to these
pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection.
There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their
scale.
These sites have not been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity. However, do
make sure that you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that at some point they do not
sustain a penalty once you have linked up to them from your links page.
Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to artificially boost their link popularity is the use of
hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web pages as a factor in forming their rankings,
which means that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you have more of an opportunity to
increase your search engine ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of keywords.
Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding their keywords in such a way so that they
are invisible to any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the keywords but made them the
same color as the background color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on a white
background. You cannot see these words with the human eye - but the eye of search engine spider can
spot them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to index web pages, and when it sees these
invisible words, it goes back and boosts that page's link ranking.
Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but search engines have figured these tricks out.
As soon as a search engine perceive the use of hidden text - splat! The page is penalized.
The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit overzealous and will penalize a page by
mistake. For example, if the background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text inside
a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text and assume you are employing hidden text. To
avoid any risk of false penalty, simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color to text as the
background color of the page - ever!
Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called "keyword stuffing." It is important to
have your keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you can go a little overboard in
your enthusiasm to please those spiders. A search engine uses what is called "Key phrase Density" to
determine if a site is trying to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords to the rest of
the words on the page. Search engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a keyword
before it decides you have overdone it and penalizes your site.
This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass without sounding as if you are stuttering - unless your
keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case, it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if
your keyword is "renters insurance," be sure you don't use this phrase in every sentence. Carefully edit
the text on your site so that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not repeated incessantly. A
good rule of thumb is your keyword should never appear in more than half the sentences on the page.
The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." To those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this
concept should be easy to understand. For the rest of you? cloaking is when the server directs a visitor
to one page and a search engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees is "cloaked"
because it is invisible to regular traffic, and deliberately set-up to raise the site's search engine ranking.
A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything it needs to rocket that page's ranking to the top of the
list.
It is natural that search engines have responded to this act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing
steep penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that sometimes pages are cloaked for
legitimate reasons, such as prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as "page jacking." This
kind of shielding is unnecessary these days due to the use of "off page" elements, such as link
popularity, that cannot be stolen.
To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable.
Make sure the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will put your website at great risk.
Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link popularity and your ranking, you must be equally
diligent to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor your site closely and avoid any
appearance of artificially boosting your rankings.
Search Engine Keywords Selection
===================================================
Search Engine Keywords Selection
===================================================
Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to your websites. But in order for visitors
to reach their destination - your website - you need to provide them with specific and effective signs
that will direct them right to your site. You do this by creating carefully chosen keywords.
Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! Of the Internet. Find the exactly right words or
phrases, and presto! Hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords are too
general or too over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it all the way to your site - or of
seeing any real profits from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.
Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If they are not chosen with great
precision, no matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the right people may never get
the chance to find out about it.
So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases.
You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if
you haven't followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG.
It's hard to be objective when you are right in the center of your business network, which is the reason
that you may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the inside. You need to be able to
think like your customers.
And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source.
Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential search words and phrases yourself; ask for
words from as many potential customers as you can. You will most likely find out that your
understanding of your business and your customers' understanding is significantly different.
The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the words you accumulate from them are words
and phrases you probably never would have considered from deep inside the trenches of your business.
Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from outside resources should you add your
own keyword to the list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for the next step: evaluation.
The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a small number of words and phrases that will
direct the highest number of quality visitors to your website. By "quality visitors" I mean those
consumers who are most likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around your site and take off
for greener pastures. In evaluating the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements:
popularity, specificity, and motivation.
Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an objective quality. The more popular your keyword is,
the more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a search engine which will then bring up your
URL.
You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity of keywords and phrases by giving words a
number rating based on real search engine activity. Software such as WordTracker will even suggest
variations of your words and phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a given keyword,
the more traffic you can logically expect to be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this concept is
the more popular the keyword is, the greater the search engine position you will need to obtain. If you
are down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will probably never scroll down to find you.
Popularity isn't enough to declare a keyword a good choice. You must move on to the next criteria,
which is specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater the likelihood that the consumer who
is ready to purchase your goods or services will find you.
Let's look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have obtained popularity rankings for the
keyword "automobile companies." However, you company specializes in bodywork only. The keyword
"automobile body shops" would rank lower on the popularity scale than "automobile companies," but it
would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of getting a slew of people interested in everything
from buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get only those consumers with trashed front ends
or crumpled fenders being directed to your site. In other words, consumers ready to buy your services
are the ones who will immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the specificity of your
keyword is, the less competition you will face.
The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this requires putting yourself inside the mind of the
customer rather than the seller to figure out what motivation prompts a person looking for a service or
product to type in a particular word or phrase. Let's look at another example, such as a consumer who is
searching for a job as an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between "Seattle job listings"
and "Seattle IT recruiters" which do you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were looking for
this type of specific job, which keyword would you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second
keyword targets people who have decided on their career, have the necessary experience, and are
ready to enlist you as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school who is casually trying to
figure out what to do with his or her life in between beer parties. You want to find people who are ready
to act or make a purchase, and this requires subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most
specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most motivated traffic to you site.
Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done. You must continually evaluate
performance across a variety of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends change, as does
popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how many of
your visitors actually made a purchase.
Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you judge the effectiveness of your keywords in
individual search engines. There is now software available that analyzes consumer behavior in relation
to consumer traffic.
This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you the most valuable customers.
This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a good keyword; profits per visitor do. You
need to find keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually buy your product, fill out your
forms, or download your product. This is the most important factor in evaluating the efficacy of a
keyword or phrase, and should be the sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective or
inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better profits.
Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for search engine success. This may sound like a lot
of work - and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into your keyword campaign is what will
ultimately generate your business' rewards.
Selecting a SEO Consulting Firm
===================================================
Selecting a SEO CONSULTING SERVICES
===================================================
A Search Engine Optimization Consulting firm can be an invaluable asset in your Internet marketing
campaign. They specialize in knowing how to raise your search engine positions, monitoring those
positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable results in any
given month. Since this takes a lot of time, effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best
interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high search engine positions on your own.
However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right
questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective search
engine optimization company.
When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your
search engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise
your positions. These techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will
only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine's index.
A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to the regular visitor to your website. The
cloaked page is coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to this special page, which is set-
up to artificially boost your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages utilize the same concept,
but often reside on an entirely different server. Google, one of the largest and most important search
engine on the Internet, will remove your website from their index if they detect you have cloaked pages.
Never, never employ any company that uses this technique!
Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your
competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the
effectiveness of the search engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the
success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in
writing, and make sure it is legally binding.
Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the company's track record of
results.
However, don't take the company's word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order
to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent
questions, and verify their answers.
Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on. The ones that are important are the
most popular engines, and these are the ones you want to see good results on. Since the popularity of
search engines can change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check out the Nielsen Net ratings
page at Search Engine Watch. You can access this at
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.
Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. It's easy to get high
rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes" will get high popularity ranking
because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular
keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker, available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a
free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords
and phrases based on actual search engine use.
Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for.
You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different search engines using different
keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done
well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular search engines for a
variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.
When you are checking out search engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done
the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other company's results in order to
get you to sign on with them.
If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their
search engine optimization company.
It's important to keep in mind that a successful search engine optimization campaign will result in
maximum exposure across a wide range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords and
phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it always in the forefront of
your marketing strategy.
Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings
across a number of popular search engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: search engine
marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but
keeps constant tabs on your search engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its
strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.
Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If
you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly
report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines. Don't
be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small search engines.
These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular search engine results they are
showing you are indeed the popular search engines currently.
Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For
example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data
such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then,
ascertain that the company you are considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month,
and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site.
This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a
continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a company that is
actively participant in your search engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.
Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a search
engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign.
It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job
for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.
If you have to find a company and can't wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an
affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company.
Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record - and
that risk is your money! Don't take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few
references.
References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don't use a company that won't show
your references because of any reason, confidentiality included.
Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a
minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.
When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of
your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their
availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the
reference to rate the overall performance of the company.
Find out if the company requested that the reference make significant changes to their web pages that
affected the visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search engine optimization company that
can balance the needs of both search engines and site visitors without compromising either.
The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the search engine optimization company
resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn't matter whether your positions are
at the top of the list or not.