Internet Marketing Blog

Over 150 million Americans use search engines regularly to look up information on products and services. Of those web users, 60-70% only look at the first page of results.  The goal of the search engine marketing company, then, is naturally to propel your page to the top of the search engines for your market so you can reap the benefits of increased traffic and sales.

Getting to top position takes a bit of know-how, say search engine marketing company professionals. “Using complex algorithms, these spiders, crawlers and robots are able to locate a page on a site and then index its content into their database,” explains Andrew Hazen, author of “Plain & Simple: Search Engine Optimization.”

Then, when a query is typed, the more relevant the  content is, the higher the ranking will be, so ideally you’ll want your keywords to range from the general to the specific. Everything from your “URL, page name, title tags, body content and clickable links” is important for indexing your site, says Hazen, so it’s especially important that you hire a search engine marketing company to bring an in-depth knowledge of what people are searching for.

E-commerce consultant Peter Kent says that a smart search engine marketing company will use keyword analysis tools like Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery to see which keywords are important and which ones are duds.

“Any well-rounded website will link to other relevant websites, directories and trade associations,” adds Kevin Carr, a search engine marketing company director from Irvine, California. The importance of inbound links cannot be overstated.

It’s also not a bad idea to hit at least one search engine marketing company workshop, if you can swing it. (At $399/registration, it’s certainly not cheap… but you’ll learn about everything from web analytics and search engine marketing to social media, email newsletters and web blogging.) With search engine marketing poised to triple in the next five years, it’s best to stay abreast of the most cutting edge research before your site gets left in the dust.

I used to think that web design was mostly a matter of personal taste. Some people like light colors, while others prefer dark. Some enjoy vertical side bar navigation bars, while others like a more horizontal header menu. Want to design your page with FLASH web animation, include photos or attach special features like shopping carts and blogs? Well, the possibilities are limitless and it’s all about what you think looks good, right?

Well, that’s sort of true. But search engine marketing company research is coming up with some new realizations about web design. Search engine marketing company professionals are saying that web crawlers for Google, Yahoo and other search engines could be missing your site entirely because of the choices you’ve made! Perhaps your site is poorly encoded or your link farming has backfired. There are a whole host of things you may have misjudged!

For instance, using generic keywords on your homepage is the quickest way to bury your site. (Instead, be specific and know what your target audience is searching for, exactly!) Secondly, your site may look amazing — but packing your site with all videos and all photos and little content is a major mistake. (Web crawlers are looking for keyword phrases for the most part, so adding a blog or news section can really boost your ranking.) Thirdly, realize that FLASH and fancy animations are good for “wow” factor but bad for a larger audience. (If anyone with a slow Internet connection, out-of-date drivers or the average web crawler tries to view your FLASH site, the graphics may not load right and you’ll lose your audience. If you really have your heart set on FLASH, then make an HTML site too.)

Other web design features that web crawlers like include: inbound links from other credible sites, multiple pages of optimized content, adding a “search” feature for easy navigation,  avoid using frames, include your most important keywords in the left-hand navigation bar, avoid JavaScript, avoid placing text in graphic format and make sure all your internal pages link back to the homepage. It’s best to hire a professional search engine company to help you design with search engine web crawlers in mind.

I always love to hear about who’s won this award or that award. There seems to be not limits to human ingenuity and the marketing world draws some of the best and brightest. Through an in-depth knowledge of psychology, sociology, art, communication and persuasion, these marketing pros deliver results.

The Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association awarded Sherpa! Web Studios the “Most Effective Search Engine Marketing” award this year. The search engine marketing company helped surge search engine web traffic 450% for SPANX by Sara Blakely over a one-year period, thereby increasing sales.  How’d they do it? Just good old-fashioned search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. Some of their top-ranked keywords were unique and targeted phrases like “body shapers” or “footless hosiery.” All things considered, SPANX paid 1 cent/visitor. Now isn’t that a deal?

I checked out some of the other winners with the burning questions that every search engine marketing company is dying to know: “What’s everyone else doing? What’s working? Are there any new trends?”

As expected, new trends include: social media, crowd participation, blogging and videos. For instance, one search engine marketing company used email marketing with videos for the Intercontinental Hotels Group Priority Club to get a 10 to 1 return-on-investment in just two weeks, upping the site views by 125,000. Another search engine marketing company won “Most Effective Online Brand Experience” for a Home Depot sweepstakes that encouraged over 300 users to share holiday images, videos and stories, creating a memorable brand experience. Crowne Plaza created its own virtual island for the Second Life video game, which garnered tens of millions of media hits since June 2007.

Other winners used a combination of email marketing, search engine optimizing, viral videos, online sweepstakes / giveaways, social media researching and blogging to connect with their target markets. The best campaign you can get is a word-of-mouth campaign, which reaches furthest and fastest.

Sometimes corporate executives find it difficult to transition from past models of traditional advertising, where million-dollar budgets buy a target market, to newer models, where murky tactics yield big results. Search engine optimization is sort of like taking Ibuprofen for a headache or a cough drop for a sore throat: We’re not exactly sure how it works, but it does! Anyone who’s done a bit of research understands the significance of search engine optimization, web design and Internet marketing. However, convincing high level executives and managers to fork over a budget to hire a search engine marketing company can be a whole other story.

We recommend the following: First, sell your senior managers with analytics software that can track results. If they know they can see statistics and data that will justify their investment, they’ll be much more likely to sign on. Presenting the benefits in a colorful Powerpoint slideshow will make a solid case for hiring a search engine marketing company. Let executives know you can test out various strategies concurrently to see what works best and then decide where your resources are best allocated. It’s also helpful to see what other companies of comparable size are spending on their search engine marketing company budgets.

Next, you can hire your search engine marketing company that specializes in web design, search engine optimization, copywriting and Internet marketing. You will need at least 6-9 months to allow the web wizards to make their magic happen. These things take time, research, monitoring and a certain amount of experimentation, since every market is slightly different. Try to find a search engine marketing company will at least three years of experience and find someone who will communicate with you every step of the way, providing top notch customer service – so if your bosses want to know what’s going on, you can update them at the drop of a dime!

Attend conferences, read blogs and stay informed — By understanding the basic mechanics of the work your search engine marketing company will be doing, you can speak with some authority on their behalf at meetings.

Rant in 3… 2… 1… You know, I’m tired of all this SEO company trash-talking. There are critics who accuse us of participating in “fake work” to extort a profit. There are critics who feel they’d be better served just reading a book and doing it themselves. There are critics who think search engine optimization is just something you dump on an existing employee to “finish up if ya got time.” There are critics who think that search engines are entirely unpredictable and random, or who suspect there is some covert power allegiance exalting certain websites while condemning others – and there is nothing we can do about it!

I whole heartedly disagree! Look, an SEO company can be your best friend. The SEO company consultant can be the therapist who listens to all your grievances, your fears and your dreams regarding your business’s website and web presence. The SEO company consultant can be your biggest fan and spokesperson, promoting your business to all his or her contacts, friends, family and web of journalists. The SEO company can be your beacon of light, offering innovative 2008 solutions that consultants picked up at industry seminars, ceremonies, meetings and tech geek conversations.

To circumvent all this drama and get back to the meat-and-potatoes of the SEO company industry, we need to remember why we’re here. It’s not the rankings – it’s the conversions. Secondly, we need to have respect for one another – let’s be positive about conferences and SEO expert advice. Lastly, let’s work together to uncover new strategies that will level the playing field. At the end of the day, may the most innovative, hard-working company win and may the world awaken to the significance of hiring a professional SEO company to do the job!

Nothing makes my day like an SEO company success story. Obviously, my company’s own testimonials and triumphs make me happiest. Yet, I still find myself feeling up, even if it wasn’t my personal achievement. Why? Because, while we’re all competitors, there’s still this very basic sense of “We’re all in this together” or “It’s us versus the search engine bots.” We’re all ambitiously trying to crack the codes and keep on the upswing of this tremendously fast-paced (and exhilarating) ride we lovingly refer to as “Internet marketing.”

This week I read that Monster.com has been making significant search engine optimization changes over the past few months – and as a result, the amount of organic traffic jumped 26%, with a 13% revenue increase this quarter! Thanks to a newly designed homepage that better reflects the “Monster” brand, an SEO company helped Monster attract a market, appeal to that market and create more repeat visitors. Having a fresh layout that allows visitors to instantly find the information they desire is the quickest way to drum up more support. If you have related articles that interest people and keep them captivated, they will be drawn back regularly, so long as you keep maintaining your content.

Additionally, I read another SEO company success story for Mini Cooper car leasing in the UK (Cooperlease.co.uk). Just three weeks after the site’s launch, they found themselves in the top Google slot with over 200 hits per day. This is all thanks to the work done by their SEO company, they say. In October, the site had 292 visitors (with 25 visitors finding them through associated Google searches). The following month, the site had 694 visitors (with 75 visitors finding them through associated Google searches!) Their site is growing organically, without any gimmicks. They’ve just focused on creating relevant news and content that interests people. If you write it, they will come: This has always been my favorite mantra. Hey, that’s why you’re here, right?

You may cringe while going over the budget, but you’ll simultaneously be sighing with relief once you hire an SEO company to tackle the difficult task of Internet marketing. No one in the office was particularly keen on it and you haven’t the slightest clue what a “meta-tag” or “inbound link” is — or an extra 120 hours/month to devote to it, for that matter. Of course, hiring an SEO company still doesn’t save your hide when you have to explain your business’s performance to shareholders, other corporate executives or company presidents. Knowing the very bare bones basics of search engine optimization will help you understand the best way to strategize with your new business partners and report on marketing progress at the next meeting.

First of all, understand that there is a good way to approach SEO and a bad way. While the vast majority of SEO companies are trustworthy, knowledgeable and skilled, you also need to know what a “Black Hat” SEO company is – and what one could do to you. The Black Hat SEO company will use link farms, keyword stuffing, link baiting, link spamming, competitor sabotaging and other nefarious tactics to boost your company. However, once search engine bots catch on, your site will be blacklisted and you can kiss your entire web promotion effort goodbye. No one will ever be able to find your site if you become one of the villainous sites trying to kill off the competition. Good luck explaining that to the boss!

On the other end of the spectrum, you want to be able to talk intelligently with your SEO company and develop customized strategies that will best improve your business. You want to be able to discern what’s going on from the web traffic statistics your SEO company gives you. You’ll want to direct your SEO company as a visionary, without having to know the actual mechanics of how the job gets done. By having a working knowledge of all the various marketing options, you can be sure you’re getting the best deal and confidently take the next step.

To learn more about what an SEO company does, you can speak with an SEO consultant, purchase an online training program (like SEMPO Institute), read a book (like The SEO Bible), or join an SEO community (SEObook.com). Several hours invested can go a long way to ensure the best results.

Ah, the “simple life”… you got customers because they knew you personally, your business did well because you were the best, there were a handful of stores in town and “marketing” meant drawing up a few flyers. In today’s fast-moving, competitive world — unless you live in Peoria, Illinois or Round Top, Texas – you will need a complex (and more expensive) strategy. Given its proven efficiency, hiring an SEO company shouldn’t even be a question anymore, but rather an answer.

In today’s expensive, bottom-line-lingering world, it’s tempting to look for a “bargain.” But then again… remember that time you purchased a cheap wine cabinet from Wal-mart that was made in China, only to find that there was magic marker scribbled over the scuff marks, stripped screws, crooked-cut boards and about two weeks before it just fell apart?  When looking for an SEO company, sometimes you get what you pay for.

If a cheap SEO company promises you submission to thousands of search engines, the addition of hundreds of doorway pages, #1 rankings and thousands of links… it’s likely a bunch of old-fashioned rubbish. However, if a reasonably priced SEO company can offer you customized packages with a variety of options to suit your need, print-outs to indicate progress and a whole host of search engine marketing techniques (website design, content creation, targeted keywords, inbound linking, blogging, etc) then you just may be in business!

One last word about “the simple life”… life moves a little slower around here. Take a breath of fresh air with the time you’ll be saving (by not stressing over your website.) Visit with your family a little more, take that vacation you’ve been planning, cram that workout in. Give your new SEO company at least a good six months (with billions of websites out there, magic doesn’t happen overnight) and see what an SEO company can do for you!

“All this futile playing with Internet Marketing will never really work,” says Bert McClure, online marketing and business consultant. “For myself, I was lucky to find a marketing program that actually taught you the basic elements of Internet Marketing for online business - how to create a proper logo, write a press release, create custom graphics, analyze pay-per-click opportunities to promote my website, distribute articles, post blogs, etc. My mentor showed me how to use the standard online marketing techniques but also techniques used in the New Media, the most contemporary kind of online marketing and promotion. This saved me from the online business graveyard.”
McClure says that many people fail at Internet marketing for online business because they fail to build a solid foundation of knowledge before getting started. Everywhere the online marketer goes, he or she should be seeking advice — whether it’s a conference, the book store or a supermarket. Look for a mentor, he says, but take your time and be sure the person really knows what he or she is talking about. The whole process requires an amount of digging — much like finding true love.
“There’s a lot of fools’ gold out there,” McClure adds — referring to Internet marketing for online business mentors and strategies. “A true home business mentor will not let you be sucked into a vacuous black-hole of meaningless promises. No dead end multi-levels, potions and lotions you can’t really sell, perfectly good products that you have to sell ten jillion of to make anywhere near a monthly income- or things you would really hate to deal with although they sound good on paper.”

“Web 2.0″ is one of the latest terms getting thrown around that refers to Internet marketing for online business that utilizes social media sites, blogging and wikis as vehicles for promotion. The scary thing about sites like StumbleUpon, Facebook or Youtube is that it makes you realize how many people are online each minute, just clicking on random things — usually ending up so far from what they came online for. The million dollar question, of course, is: Can these senseless meanderers be enticed to subscribe to your blog or buy your products?
I’ve heard that social networking conversion rates (meaning the percentage of traffic coming to your website that actually buy something) are somewhere in the ballpark of 5-8%, which is surprisingly high when you consider the average website only converts around 2-4%! Social networking, while it may seem random, tends to bring in extremely targeted traffic and is proving to be one of the most buzz worthy Internet marketing for online business strategies of this decade.
(As a side note: my recommendation would be to allot more money to Internet marketing for online business and look into finding a professional Internet marketing for online business company to do copywriting, search engine optimization and web redesign if your overall conversions are less than 10%. )
I recently read a story about a women whose blog traffic jumped from 50 visitors on a good day to 2,370 in a single morning. Why? First, she had a post titled “Jim Carrey and the Power of Visualization.” But more importantly, the traffic was all coming from the same site: StumbleUpon! Strange, isn’t it? At first she thought it was just ambient traffic coming to her site for all the wrong reasons. By the next morning, she had an aggregate of subscribers, though. The writer confessed that she had seriously underestimated the power of social networking when it came to Internet marketing for online business but would take a closer look at it now.