Search Engine Marketing: Timing of SEO in the Web Design Process

By Terry Stanfield

If you're just starting to build your website now is the best time to start planning your search engine marketing strategy and search engine optimization. The best time to introduce the SEO planning of a website is when the site design is ready and the site is ready to be launched but there is no content yet for the site. Just before the site launches is the time to bring in an SEO consultant to provide some SEO services. After the design of the website is done an SEO consultant can give you suggestions about what keywords and key phrases you need to add into the site HTML as Meta tags and where those tags should go. Once the site is tagged and the design and navigation has been tested it's time to add in content. Having SEO content on your site from the start will give your web site a big advantage over older websites that might already have a bit of a following but haven't had any SEO services by a professional SEO consultant.

For a new site where that site ends up on the search engine results pages can be critical to its success. In order for the site to get a high ranking on the search engine results pages it's imperative that a professional and experienced SEO consultant creates search engine optimized content that is ready to be part of a broad search engine marketing campaign. It just makes more sense to get all your ducks in a row before you launch the site doesn't it? Bring in an SEO consultant when you're ready to start putting content on the site so that when the site launches your site will be instantly indexed by the search engine spiders and can start drawing traffic from search engines immediately.

If you have an existing site that is due for an overhaul or a design revamping then you should also consult a professional SEO consultant before the site is redone so that you will have a good idea of what SEO services that you need. Cosmetic work on the site is important so that your site doesn't look outdated but changing up the content on the site will be very important. Most of the traffic that websites get comes from searches done by people who use Google or another search engine to look for website dealing with a particular topic.

You want your site to be at the top of or at least near the top every search that is done by a search engine for the topic that your site is about. In order to achieve that you need an SEO professional to write great search engine optimized content before the site launches. If your existing site has had the same content on it for more than six months you should get an SEO professional to write new content. Changing the content is a great search engine marketing strategy to draw new web site traffic and improve your search engine ranking.

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on Search Engine Marketing and related info on Search Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Marketing: How do I know what SEO services do I need.

By Terry Stanfield

Are you confused by all the talk about SEO services and how you need to make your website search engine optimized in order to increase the amount of web traffic that your web site gets? It can be confusing at first to know what SEO services are all about and what SEO services you need to implement some search engine marketing into your website and to increase your ranking on the search engine results pages. If you have never worked with a consultant before you’ll find that working with a qualified consultant is the best way to make sure your website is 100% search engine optimized.

SEO services are more than just writing search engine optimized content. An experienced consultant can change your website and increase your web site hits almost over night. SEO services range in price but how can you put a price on success? You should be willing to pay for experience when you’re hiring a consultant because the right services can make your business successful or take an already successful business to the next level. If you don’t know what SEO services you need the best thing to do is to have a consultation with an SEO expert. Show them your website and ask for a written proposal documenting all the services that you need to increase the traffic to your website and to make sure that your site ranks higher in the search engine results pages. Be willing to pay the SEO consultant for the consultation but many will offer new clients a free consultation so you might not need to pay anything. Once you have a better idea of what services you need you can plan a budget for the project of overhauling your website and making it more search engine optimized.

Not sure that you need any SEO services? Well search engine optimization and search engine marketing are more than just buzzwords. These days the Internet is overflowing with millions of websites and blogs. The only way to make sure that your site gets noticed and gets traffic is to use search engine optimization and search engine marketing. If the cost of SEO services or hiring an SEO consultant seems high think of the cost in terms of advertising. Every business needs to advertise. Would you rather spend your advertising budget on proven SEO methods that are almost sure to drive more traffic to your site and to reach your target market or would your rather spend your advertising budget on an a blanket internet ad campaign that might not bring in any web traffic at all? Spending the money to hire an experienced SEO consultant to provide SEO services is well worth the cost. Your website will only be successful if you are bringing in daily web traffic and getting an SEO overhaul for your web site is the best way to bring in that traffic. When you see your daily website traffic double or even triple after hiring an SEO consultant you’ll be glad you spent the extra money.

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on Search Engine Marketing and related info on Search Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Marketing: How Search Engines Work

By Terry Stanfield

Have you ever wondered how exactly search engine marketing works or how search engine optimization can help your business? Search engine marketing relies on the basic principles of search engine optimization. Search engine optimization makes it possible for a search engine’s spider to find your web page and add it to the search engine results page whenever someone does a search for a word or phrase that shows up on your website.

Search engine marketing uses search engine optimized content to make your website easier for the spiders to find and for people who are searching the web to find. A search engine uses thousands of little bots called spiders to index the millions of web pages that are on the Internet. These spiders start at the most well known websites and work backwards following links and searching for common words and phrases. Every page that the spiders come across with those particular words on them is indexed and saved. Those pages are the ones that show up in the search engine results page when someone uses Google or another search engine to look for websites on a particular topic. The place where each site shows up in the search engine results page ranking is based on the content of the site, how many times particular words and phrases appear on the site and the relevance of the site to those search times. That is why search engine marketing depends so heavily on search engine optimization.

If you want your website to show up higher on the search engine results page then you use to use search engine marketing and search engine optimization techniques in order to get the spiders to notice your site and put your site higher on the search engine results page. People who are using a search engine to look for websites will rarely click to the second search engine results page. It’s crucial that your site be on the first page of the search engine results page or people will probably not find your site. Using search engine marketing and search engine optimization is the best way to do that.

The number one rule to remember when you are planning out search engine marketing strategies or trying to figure out how use search engine optimization effectively on your website is that your website should have 100% original content. The spiders will place your site higher on the search engine results page if the content that is on your site is original. When websites duplicate copy the spiders pick up on the repeated phrases and language and will sometimes not index a site at all if the spider determines that the content is too similar to the content on another site.

Search engine optimization and search engine marketing is more than just taking one word or phrase and repeating it a certain number of times. The content on the site has to be fresh and engaging and also contain the keywords or key phrases that will bring traffic to the website.

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on Search Engine Marketing and related info on Search Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Marketing: How to Find and What to Look for in an SEO Consultant

By Terry Stanfield

When you want to add some search engine optimized content to your website it’s probably a good idea to hire a professional SEO consultant. A professional SEO consultant can help you decide what SEO services you need in order to overhaul your existing website to make it more search engine optimized and to implement some search engine marketing. A consultant can also tell you what percentage of SEO content you need to have on your site and what Meta tags to use.

If you have never used any search engine optimization on your site at all then you will definitely need to hire an experienced SEO consultant to make sure that your site gets a complete search engine optimization makeover. Many SEO consultants offer more SEO services than just content so if you already have a professional SEO writer you should ask that writer if he or she also does SEO consultations or provides other SEO services.

If you need to start looking for an SEO consultant here are some tips on selecting an SEO consultant. When you are considering an SEO consultant ask to see previous examples of any SEO content that person has written but also ask to see websites that the person has written for. After all, the point of hiring someone to provide SEO services is to get your website noticed isn’t it? So you need to see some of the websites that the SEO consultant has worked on in order to know for sure that the SEO consultant can deliver high quality SEO services. A good way to tell if a web site that the SEO consultant has worked on is really doing well in search engine rankings and drawing traffic is to look on the Alexa website. You can enter the name of the website or the website address and see the search engine ranking for that particular website over a period of months, weeks and days. If that site is doing well then the SEO consultant probably is experienced enough to provide quality SEO services but if the site is ranked very low or doesn’t get a lot of hits then you might want to look for another SEO consultant.

Another way that you can tell if the SEO consultant that you’re considering hiring is of high quality is by what his or her rates are. Someone who has high rates but a poor portfolio probably hasn’t been working as an SEO consultant for very long and might not have the skills that you need to increase your web site traffic. If the consultant’s rates are very low then he or she might be trying to build up a portfolio of work which shows inexperience. You should always be willing to pay a fair rate for SEO services just like you would be for any other professional services. Don’t expect to get great SEO services for next to nothing. This is your business and your business is important so it’s worth investing the money in a highly qualified SEO consultant.

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on Search Engine Marketing and related info on Search Engine Optimization

Finding Clients In An Ocean Of Competitors

Finding Clients In An Ocean Of Competitors
by Terry Stanfield

There is more business being done online than ever before. There are hundreds of thousands of new business web sites coming on every month. 70% of the US population (233 million people) are online. Over 1.2 billion people worldwide are online. The question is how do we find clients in an ocean of competitors?

Part of the answer to the above question is which number do you focus on, the number of people on line or the number of competitors? If you are focused on the number of people online, read on. If you are more focused on the number of competitors, read on.

Search engine marketing has been proven to have the lowest cost per acquisition of any other marketing medium. It is the only medium where people are actively searching for you. A successful campaign should include a web site designed around one question: "What are your clients looking for?" This is the starting point and may seem basic but it is surprising how many people have are just scratching the surface in their understanding of this.

Your clients are in need of solutions, answers or products. Do they know:

1.that you exist? 2.the unique value that you bring to the table? 3.the depth of knowledge and experience you can bring to bear in helping them solve their issues? 4.the passion that you have for meeting their needs?

SEO Management SEO (search engine optimization), is the art helping people find what they are looking for, on your site". A well optimized website requires two elements the correct "on page" optimization so that the search engines can determine the relevancy of the information you are presenting. Yes, it is not as important as it use to be but it is still needed. Another essential piece of the puzzle is "off page optimization". This is having web sites linking back to yours. You may think that you are important and provide a great service to mankind but if no one else does you will not get ranked well. Quality links to your web site and an on going linking strategy is absolutely vital for good rankings. SEO optimization is not a onetime deal it is an ongoing process.

PPC Management Pay-per-click is a fantastic way to drive traffic to your site from the major search engines. It can also suck your marketing budget dry in just a couple of days if not done properly. The goal of the search engines (and their strategies) is more clicks. The more people click on your ads the more money the search engines make. Their strategy is to get as many clicks as possible with in your budget and they are willing to do that all day long. Great for them bad for you.

The real goal should be more conversion with less clicks and lower cost. For lead generation sites this will mean lower cost per conversion. For e commerce sites this will result in a higher "return on ad spend". It is easy to figure out: profit/ad spend=% and if that % is not over 101% you are losing money! The only way to do that is to track every thing from clicks to conversions; cost per click to cost per conversion; total revenue. PPC Management should be the process that is designed to make that happen.

Click Fraud Management Click Fraud is a fact of life in the online world. The search engines are getting better at detecting and crediting their online advertisers. The key is to find a Click Fraud program that can track an IP address even if the go to another search engine and click on your ads and give them a warning that they are being tracked. It is amazing how bad behavior stops if the they know they are being watched and tracked! Also, some click fraud caused by our clients who find it easier to keep clicking on our ad instead of book marking our page. This will give them a gentle reminder to do that.

Many Roads It is also important to examine as many roads to your site as possible. Find blogs where your clients hang out. Write articles and publish them on the web. There are hundreds of sites that will publish you articles for free. For a nominal fee some sites will push your article out to thousands of other sites looking for content, Isnare.com is a good example. This is great from three perspectives. One, you will get a tremendous amount of links back to your site. Secondly, this will lead to increase traffic and thirdly writing articles will help establish you as an expert in your field. There are newsletters, co-registration, affiliate marketing. The key is to research these and see what will work for you.

Hire or not to Hire outside help

"How do I know if I need help?"

You might need help if:

1.Your clients and customers are not able to find you on the search engines. 2.You do not know why your competitors are in the top ten search results and you are on page 10,001! 3.You can not keep up with the changing technologies and even the changes in the market. 3.You do not have the time to take away from what you do best, running your business!

If you do need help, do your home work.

1.Get references and call them. 2.Get specifics about how they have helped their clients. 3.Find out how many clients they have and how many your account manager will handle. 4.Get a specific action calendar. Know what they are going to do and when it will be complete. 5.Make sure they understand your products, services and goals. 6.Do not be afraid to get another company to "audit" their work.

Finally This is serious business and one can loose a lot of money and time very quickly if you do not do it correctly. The bottom line is, if your customers cannot find you, they will find someone else. If you do not have someone in house with a passion to help grow your business. Find someone who knows what is important to the search engines and will not get you banned.

Before you write anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on Search engine marketing and related info on PPC Management.

Search Engine Submission, Part I

What you need to know about search engine submission, Part I
by Terry Stanfield

If your website has not been indexed by the search engines
you will not come up in the search results. When you search
the "web" using Google, Yahoo or MSN's search tools, you're
not searching the Internet you are searching the search
engines databases.

When a site is submitted to the search engines the search
engines uses software called "spiders" to crawl the pages of
your website through your internal site navigation and
captures vital information about each page and in puts it
into their database.

The information captured include Meta tags, content, H1
tags, Alt tags, sites that you link to and sites that links
back to your site. The Meta tags are at the top of your web
page in the code. They are in what is called the header. The
Meta tags are very important to the search engines because
they tell them what is on the page. Along with the H1 tags
Alt tags and the content in the body of the text on the web
page this gives the search engines the information they need
to index or put into their database your web page. It is
very important that your Meta tags are specific to each page
of your site. Do not just copy and paste the same Meta tags
to every page on your website. There's a big explanation
from that old and that later. There are several ways to get
web pages into the search engines a database (indexed).

Submit your site to the different search engines. There are
a lot of sites, for small fee, that will take your indexed
pager homepage and submit it to hundreds or thousands of
search engines over and over every month for the rest of
your life. Run don't walk away from the sites. If you keep
trying to submit your site, especially to Google, Yahoo and
MSN, this may appear to them as spam. Spammy is bad! I
suggest that you do not even register with Google, yahoo or
MSN unless you have 6 to 9 weeks to sit around and wait for
your website to be indexed.

In part II, we will reveal the secrets of getting fast, safe
submissions.

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for
information on Search
Engine Marketing and related info on Search
Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Submission Part 2

What you need to know about search engine submission, Part 2
by Terry Stanfield

In part one we discussed the need to have your site indexed
by the major search engines and ordered to be found in the
search results. In this article we're going to discuss three
ways to have your site indexed, get into the search engines
database that are safe and will not get you banned by the
search engines.

Have another website (that is already indexed) link to your
site

Once a site is indexed or put into the search engines
database, the search engine spiders go out to those pages
anywhere for once a month to several times a day. You could
get a one way link back to your website from a site that is
already indexed the search engines will follow that link
back to your site and index it. The challenge care is to put
your link on the site that is related to what you do.
Ideally, the link back to your site is on a site that is
already considered an authority in your field. It is not a
good idea for a plumber to swap links with a web designer.
Speaking of swapping links, try and stay away from
reciprocal linking and buying text link ads, more about that
at a later date.

Publish an article or press release that has a link to your
site

This practice has several great advantages. One is that a
lot of those sites that allow you to publish your articles
are free and are indexed constantly because the sites are
constantly being updated with new content. Watch your
article is submitted to one of the sites it may take up to
two weeks to go through their editorial process and the
review. When sure article is approved, your site can be
indexed within a couple of days.

Sign up for paid search with each of the search engines

This is by far the fastest way to get your site indexed.
When you signed up for an Adwords account in Google your
website will be indexed immediately. It cost very little to
set up an account. You can put in just a couple of keywords
that you won a bid on and did very little so that your ad
does not show up on the first few pages.

A great strategy for getting your website indexed and
building links to your page

I would do a combination of first setting up a paid search
account with at least the top three search engines Google,
yahoo and MSN. Then I would start writing articles 500 to
600 words and start getting them published on as many
publishing websites that you can.

Search engine submissions are very important but if done
incorrectly can get you banned from the very search engines
are trying to get into.

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for
information on Search
Engine Marketing and related info on Search
Engine Optimization.