Posts Tagged ‘search marketing’

5 Excellent Ways to Screw Up your Web Marketing Campaign - Part 3 - Believing your Web Designer is a SEO Expert

Friday, November 14th, 2008

You want to start an online business.  Who do you first turn too?  Thats easy; a web designer.  What is the first mistake you will likely make with your web promotion campaign?  Even easier, hiring your designer as your SEO expert.   Why do we say this?  Very simple; it's about time.

A bona fide web designer must devote untold amounts of time learning html, php, xml, asp, css and long list of alternative design codes along with the applications to actually apply these skills (dreamweaver, frontpage, etc).

A true SEO also must invest copious amounts of time to learn and understand the up to date functions of search engines and predicting future changes.  Google is rumored to change their algorithm (how they rank websites) every 24 hours.  This was confirmed by famed Google Engineer Matt Cutts during a recent live question and answer session held by real Google staff.

How often does your search algorithm change?

Matt Cuts: "We change the algorithms all the time - last year we had over 450 changes."

Would your superman web designer have the time to research and keep up to date with these changes?  Unless he never sleeps and has an attention span of a Buddhist monk, this is highly unlikely.

True SEOs also must have excellent writing and copywriting skills due to the fact a large component of effective optimization requires content writing.   This includes direct onsite optimization, article writing, press releases, blogging, etc.   They have to understand technical structures of websites and know which codes/urls are easier for search engines to read and rank.   They also must understand external promotion tasks including effective link building.

What should you do if you plan on getting your website designed?  Have your SEO communicate with your designer.  He or she maybe able to identify and correct major problems before your web design is finalized. This will save you time, money and headache down the road.  Also hire an independent SEO to promote your website after it's finished, but make sure he or her has a open relationship with your web designer.  The SEO will often make suggestions that will require the web designer's assistance.

Remember the SEO Industry would not exist if the web designer could do such an "easy" job.  Make sure you take the time to find the right person for the job.  It's worth it.

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Search Marketing in One Sentence - Part 2

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Variable #2: TIME

Demand (Money + Time) = On line Visibility

Time which is often synonymous with money is fundamental variable of a successful online marketing campaign.

It's possible to generate online visibility without spending a dime on paid advertising. This is usually accomplished through many hours of self taught search engine optimization, blogging, social networking, link requests, etc. This choice is often more common with hobbyists/part timers who are under less pressure to generate on line revenue. The problem is that it may take several months/years to learn how to naturally promote a website and much longer to actually apply these tactics. Another problem (sometimes a fatal mistake) is that beginners sometimes succumb to taking bad advice and end up using questionable tactics that end up hurting their online positioning. Plus it isn't just about SEO anymore, there are new marketing options such as blogging, video promotion and social marketing.

Devoting your effort to promoting a website/blog can be very rewarding if you are diligent in your work. However remember the old cliché “time is money”. Do you really have extra time to devote to your project? If “yes” great, if no find someone to do it for you (unless you want to become a SEO professional).

In part 3 we will discuss the third variable and the "secret sauce' to online visibility: Demand.

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Search Marketing in One Sentence - Part 1

Friday, June 13th, 2008

The one sentence answer to the meaning of life (at least for online marketers)

The QUESTION:

Over the many years our web marketing campaign our team has often been asked the ever so rhetorical question? How do I get my website ranked higher? How do I get more traffic? Or sometimes, almost incredulously, how do you get websites ranked higher (with the expectation of one sentence answer)? The modern day search engines use a state of the art, ultra-sophisticated, borderline artificially intelligent algorithms (formulas search engines use to rank websites) this question could be considered along the lines of “what is the meaning of life”. Unless you are a Google Engineer who is sworn to secrecy....nobody has a one right answer for marketing a website.

So maybe you belong to the growing market of web marketing newbies and rather not spend hours learning and researching search marketing. When starting out, how can you determine the best plan of action is for marketing a website? Let us give you a fresh perspective. Barring all extraneous circumstances or outliers the answer boils down to simple fundamental economics (and you thought you were finished with high school/college economics.....)

Lets clean up the chalkboards and mute out the noise. Here is a simple formula you can apply to web marketing visibility. Yes there is an ANSWER in ONE SENTENCE:

Demand (Money + Time) = Online Visibility

Yes that's right. This simple algebraic equation is a baseline approach you must consider when promoting a website. Let me explain the variables to this formula.

VARIABLE #1: MONEY

We are mean and green....Welcome to the NOW generation. Most businesses are impatient and will quickly turn to only paid advertising for quick traffic and sales. This includes spending on paid advertising, paid linking, press releases, anything that costs money to get visibility on line. It could take months to rank organically for “New Balance running shoes” where it takes only 15 minutes to setup a Google Adwords campaign and start getting traffic immediately. However you must be willing to pay anywhere from $0.01 to over $50 a click for this traffic. Once your out of money, you are out of traffic.

There is nothing wrong with spending money on paid advertising as long as your business is producing a positive ROI. In fact I know SEO Prodigy has always been careful to calculate how much a client is spending to obtain a conversion (sale, signup, lead, etc...) Also considering this primary way search engine generate revenue (in fact Google makes 99% of its revenue through ad words) it's unlikely the paid advertising will go obsolete anytime soon. Our suggestion is to make sure you are carefully managing your paid accounts...or find a professional to manage them for you. Many people are clueless when it comes to setting up and managing ppc campaigns. Similar to hiring an accountant to save money on taxes, hire a legitimate search engine marketing professional to save money on pay per click and/or other forms of on line advertising.

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