If you’re just starting to build your website now is the best time to start planning your search engine optimization and search engine marketing strategy. 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 Cosmetic work on the site is important so that your site doesn’t look outdated but changing up the content on the site will be very important.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.

Getting your webpage ranked as high as possible on a search engine results page is one of the goals of search engine marketing and using search engine optimization on your website. But do you know how the search engine actually ranks and indexes web pages? Most search engines use a complicated process to index and rank the web pages that the search engine spiders find when they are scanning the web. Using search engine optimization and putting articles written with search engine marketing in mind will get the search engine spiders to your site but once the search engine spiders find your site they have to index your site and then assign your site a ranking within the thousands of other sites that contain information on the same topic that your site has.

Different search engines use different methods to assign a weight or rank to each web page that the search engine’s spiders find so using different methods of search engine marketing and using different percentages of search engine optimization is a good idea. If you do several different types of search engine marketing and utilize more than one kind of search engine optimization tool then it’s more likely that a search engine spider will find your web page and assign it a higher weight or rank.

One of the ways that search engine spiders determine the weight or rank of a particular web page is to index the number of times that a particular word or key phrase appears on a site. The search engine spider will assign a weight or rank to the web page based on how many times that word or key phrase appears within the web page. This is a very common method of assigning rank to web pages that is used by a lot of the most popular search engines so it’s important to use search engine marketing and search engine optimization to make sure that those search engine spiders give your site a high ranking or weight.

Another way that search engine spiders assign a weight or rank to a web page is to take note of where in the web page a particular keyword or key phrase is located. For search engines that use this kind of ranking system just using standard search engine marketing or traditional search engine optimization techniques might not be enough to get your website noticed by the search engine spiders. In order to draw the spiders of search engines that rank web pages based on the location of the keyword or key phrase on the page it’s necessary to use those words to tag your page. Tagging a page is putting that particular keyword or key phrase in the meta tags of your site, using them in the heading or home page of your site and using those words or phrases systematically through the rest of the site. If you think of your website as a tree in order to get the attention of spiders from the search engines that use this type of ranking system you have to have a particular key word or key phrase on every branch of the tree in order to get a higher ranking.

Is your paid search making a profit or is a loss. There is great profit in paid search. The question is, are we the ones profiting or the search engines? Their goal is more clicks. The more people click on our ads the more money they make. The real goal should be “fewer clicks, lower cost with more conversions”. Let’s look at some strategies that should make a improve our campaigns.

1. Turn off “Content Network” when you first set up a your campaign. The default setting “on”. The “Content Network” represents most of the loss in paid search. Content Network presents your ads on websites that are using AdSense. If you go to a website and see “Ads by Google”, those ads are coming from Google paid search accounts. The content of the website determine the ads that show up on these sites. Consider the following before turning on the content match. One, the website that is hosting our ad gets paid every time someone clicks on the ad. Secondly, most people who click on these ads are doing research. The great thing about search engine marketing is that you come in contact with individuals who are actively searching for what you have to offer, pay for clicks that come from people in that category.

2. Search Terms. The more general the term, less qualified the lead (generally speaking) and the more the cost. What I try to figure out is what terms would work in order to get my ideal customer to my site.

3. Keyword “types” There are three types of keywords “Broad”, “Phrase” and “Exact”. The rule of thumb that I use is: for single word phrases, use exact match and for search phrases that are two to three words, used “phrase matching”. I am also experimenting with using “exact” matching for these terms as well. The more specific the search term is to what you are offering and who your ideal client is, the more qualified to lead will be. Better a small number of qualified leads than a large number of leads that waste your time and ultimately cost a lot more money.

4. Just a couple thoughts on writing copy for ads. When you write your ads put the following in your “headline” box: keyword: “your main keyword. This will put your keyword phrase into the headline. Your ad should be specific enough to attract only your ideal client (someone who is looking for exactly what you have to offer). Your ad should contain at least one of your “unique selling propositions”. This can be very challenging because of the space limitations. Rule of thumb, find out what your competitors are doing and do something different. For example, if everyone is offering free shipping, use one of your other unique selling propositions.

5. Give careful consideration to your landing pages. These pages should do one thing; answer the questions that the searcher had in mind when he started his search. The searcher type in his search terms because he has a problem, needs a solution and is in some kind of “pain”. You have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what he is going through and what he needs. You must show him that you possess the answers to his needs. Don’t just send them to your home page unless your home page can accomplish the above. Once you connect with your searcher you must have a call to action. You must be very specific and clear about the next steps. Have your “phone number” or “contact us button” on every page.

6. The most important thing to remember are three words: tracking, tracking and tracking. Track everything. Paid search is not an exact science. It takes time to set up and optimized your campaigns to get the results that you are looking for. You must monitor your campaigns at least weekly in order to catch market changes. Google, Yahoo and MSN have free tracking tools that work great.

There is good money in paid search, if done correctly. If you are new to this or do not have several hours a week, it might be a lot cheaper to find someone who knows what they are doing to help you rather than lose thousands of dollars trying to figure it out yourself.

You’ve probably come across a doorway page before when you were surfing the Web. Doorway pages are similar to landing pages except doorway pages are practically empty. Doorway page are created specifically to utilize search engine optimization techniques and search engine marketing to get listed in the highest spot possible on search engine results page. Sometimes the person who stumbles onto a doorway page will need to click through the doorway page to get to the actual website that they were trying to get to and sometimes the page uses a Meta refresh, or an HTML code that instantly redirects the reader to another website.

Doorway pages often use a sneaky form of SEO strategies where the text on the page has nothing to do with the actual product that the company is selling but uses popular search terms in an effort to get a higher search engine results.

Doorway pages are essentially a form of the old bait and switch technique. For example if you were looking for a site on natural dog food and you did a Google search for natural dog food and you clicked on the first link at the top of the search engine results page because the description of that site that is listed under the link said that page was about the best kinds of natural dog food. Then after you clicked on that link you were taken to the web site of a nationally known pet food manufacturer who was trying to sell you their new line of natural dog food. That company is using a doorway page as a method of search engine marketing. By using search engine optimized text on the doorway page the company was able to get ranked very high by the search engine spider and was able to draw you in with a search engine marketing article but instantly sent you to their page hoping that you would buy their new dog food line.

Because a lot doorway pages are set up to act essentially as spam and to use any method available to get a particular website to the top of the search engine results page search engine spiders now are on the lookout for doorway page. The search engines will sometimes ban pages that use doorway pages from being indexed or showing up on the search engine results page. Doorway pages that have an instant Meta redirect or Meta refresh are usually not banned by the search engine spiders. Websites that use doorway pages will often use a redirect so that the webpage will still show up on a search engine’s search results page. Some website creators try to get around the ban by creating search engine optimized and content rich doorway pages but the search engine spiders are adapting are now learning how to spot doorway pages that are set up to try and attract web traffic using black hat SEO that has nothing to do with the actual content of the website.

Search engine marketing is a great tool and most play fair. For those who do not beware, the search engines engineers sit around all day figuring out how to stop the cheaters. If you stumble across some “top secret” strategy that someone is trying to sell you, be assured that the search engines already know about and have adjusted their algorithms to deal with it. Instead of wasting time and money, just do it right.

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.

A lot of people are beginning to see the importance of writing and publishing articles on the internet as part of their SEM marketing campaign. This is also a great way to improve the link popularity of your website as part of your SEO efforts, showcase your expertise and be seen as an expert in your field. A lot of us know more about our field and how our product or service can help people than anybody else. The question is where to start. This article designed as a starting point so that we can get some of our own ideas and solutions published.

Once the article is written, you can us one of several resources to get it published online.

Some sites require that you register with them. My suggestion would be that you use the same user name and password with each publication website. Create a template using Notepad so that when you are ready to entering in your articles you will have everything in one place.

Use the following outline as a template. These tips come from having several articles rejected. That’s no fun. Article Title: Make sure that you have your main keyword phrase in this title. Author Bio: Limit your bio to about 200 characters some allow more, but I think shorter is better. Add at least, one link to your website in the bio. Have the link pointing back to the page on your site where the article resides. Some sites do not allow you to have a link to your website in the content of the article. If you are allowed two links, make one to the page with the article and the other to your homepage. Sample Bio: Terry Stanfield is a SEM consultant with over 15 years of sales and marketing experience. His company, ClickAdvantage, manages PPC and SEO efforts for his lead generation and ecommerce clients. For more information: www.clickadvant.com/se101.htm In some article directories, they do not have a place for a box for your bio. In those cases, you can put your short bio at the end of your content. Keyword List: It is best to start with one or two keyword phrases. Think of the questions behind the search than write your article to answer the questions. Make a list of two or three keyword phrases that you want your article to be found on. Make sure that those phrases are in the content of the article. Limit yourself to 2-3 keyword phrases. The keyword phrases should be the core topic of your article. Keeping these terms in the forefront of your mind will keep you on track. Article Content: This is the content of your article. Do not include the title of the article in this box. The articles should be about 500 to 550 words. The minimum number of words, allow in the vast majority of the article distribution sites is 500. If you are new to writing articles, let me suggest the following outline: Introduction: First one or two sentences introduce the problem that you’re going to solve by writing this article. The next sentence states the three areas that you’re going to cover or the top five reasons or the five things you should look for or the six misconceptions about, you get the idea. Meat of the article: Point1 Two or three sentences Point2 Two or three sentences Point3 Two or three sentences Conclusion: You might start this paragraph like: “We just looked at three ways around the problem of … The challenge is, what are you going to do from here.” Make some suggestions on what to do next. Invite them to look for upcoming articles on this topic or related topics. Finally: It is important that you edit your article for spelling and grammar, but most importantly, key words and phrases and their positions in the article. Create Meta tags for that article so that you can have them when that page is added to your website. Add the content to your website and have it on your site for about a week before you publish the article. The reason you want to do this is to establish that your site had the content first.

It is time for you to go to the next step: start writing. Effective article writing and publishing will only be beneficial after you do it!

Landing pages have the ability to grab and hold us like fly no-fly paper or repel us like jumping on the trampling. The question is what impact does your landing page have on the people who visit your website. As I talk to people who are just getting into SEO (search engine optimization), all they focus on our rankings in traffic. We have to remember that “rankings” in “traffic” or not the end but a means to the end. That end is visitors to your site that take advantage of the solutions that you offer. We can have a lot of traffic to our website but if no one is sticking around long enough to see if our solutions can solve their problems then that traffic does not mean anything.

A lot of thought must go into your landing pages, both from a search engine perspective and from a customer perspective.

Search Engine perspective:

This is covered in Search Engines 101 Paid Vs Natural Search so I am not going to go into detail here.

Customer Focused Landing Pages:

Your landing page has to do one thing, answer the questions that the searcher had in mind when he typed in his keywords. The searcher type in his search terms because he has a problem, needs a solution or is in some kind of “pain”. You have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what he is going through and what he needs. The last thing a searcher wants to see is that you can jump higher, run faster and do it better than the competition. He just doesn’t care (yet). Besides, most of the websites that he already visited probably stated that they do that. The challenge is to show the searcher that you have the answers to his needs. How do we do that?

1. Think of as many questions as you can that might be on the mind of a visitor to that specific landing page.

2. Choose one of the questions to be the title of that specific landing page. Use the other questions as sub points or topics in the outline of the page.

3. The content underneath each heading will be a description of the problem. It is very important that when you describe the problem you do it from your client’s perspective.

4. After describing two or three scenarios that your client may fall into closeout with the paragraph that describes your qualifications for dealing with the above scenarios. This is where you put in how me years of experience, the combined experience of your team or your experience in the marketplace.

5. The last thing is to have a call to action. The idea is that if your client falls into one of the scenarios described it would be natural for them to do the call for action to get help with their problem.

For example, if someone is doing a search on long-term care insurance they may only have a general idea of what you’re looking for. When they come to a landing page that has a question like “what happens to your nest egg if you suffer an illness or an injury that requires long-term care?” Then in the description of the problem they read that one year of long-term care can cost between $90,000 and $130,000 and as a result of this high costs it will either force you into bankruptcy or dependency on your children or family to take care of you. (Not a pretty picture.) After you add your qualifications, whatever they are, you put in your call to action. It could be something like “for a free quote and help in understanding what your options are fill out form below and one of our experts will contact you within the next 48 hours”.

So the question remains, are your landing pages flypaper or trampolines? Customer focused landing pages are worth the time and energy to produce. If you are not sure give us a call and we will do a free evaluation of your site. This will help determine whether or not changes or in order.